Press release Solares EN
GNAM 2008
Parma, various sites
3rd May – 3rd June 2008
Press Release
Martin Parr, Carl Warner, humour and forests of broccoli,
but also graffiti, gingerbread houses and cinema, Mario de Biasi and junior artists.
GNAM 2008: suggestions, provocation and stimuli concerning Art and Food today.
GNAM is back and, once again Parma, the European capital of Food, gets involved with intelligent suggestions, provocation and stimuli on the theme, “Gastronomy in Modern Art”.
The choice that the artistic director of the show, Andrea Gambetta, has made for this second European edition of GNAM (the project is è co-financed by the Culture Programme 2007-2013 of the EU Cultural Commission is in collaboration with ADCEP -Cahors- and Platform21 -Amsterdam-), is to highlight photography as the main means of representing food and feeding.
From the infinite range of registers maintained by artists worldwide, Gambetta has picked out humour and irony, choosing two artists, Martin Parr and Carl Warner, who have reached the top in these realms.
Martin Parr, who will be the guest of honour at GNAM 2008, has accepted – for the first time – to exhibit a series of large and poster-sized photographic prints around the city creating a route of images that will involve the entire historic centre of Parma.
In “Food” Parr comments with irony on relationships with food in the global consumer society through coloured lollipops, grinning muffins, ‘patriotic’ doughnuts... in short a cheap and nasty world where the ordinary becomes extraordinary and serial images become one-off pieces.
All too many parents are up against children who don’t want anything to do with eating vegetables. Not all children are fortunate enough to have a photographer for a father, not to mention one who is expert and creative… The incredible “Foodscapes” gallery of the Australian photographer Carl Warner, three of whose giant images will be on show in the historic centre of Parma, came to light, at least so the story goes, precisely from this need. The landscapes are constructed from mushrooms, cucumbers, potatoes, etc. So even someone who is not a fan of broccoli certainly cannot help but admire it turned into a luxuriant forest where even the background mountains are none other than huge loaves of bread. The complete exhibition will be held at the ‘Fidenza Village Outlet Shopping’ in Fidenza starting from the 28th of April.
GNAM hasn’t forgotten the little ones either. Thus, “Sweet Graffiti” by the Englishman Shane Waltener at the Giardino Ducale. The artist creates his edible graffiti by using sugar, sweets, cakes and icing. The little budding artists too can follow the master’s instructions and mess up surfaces with messages or drawings – the fact remains that they can be erased just by pulling the pieces back off again and eating them.
Inside the Parco Ducale, the artist will create (in collaboration with two young artists from Parma Francesco Barberini and Giacomo Mordacci) a new masterpiece, the whole thing to be nibbled or licked, a great big gingerbread house, exactly like the one of the witch in the Grimm brothers' Hansel and Gretel.
Another important installation will be that from the exhibition “Racconti d’Acqua e di Vita – Tales of Water and Life” by a veteran star of Italian photography, Mario De Biasi, at the Teatro al Parco. Using the green bottles and red tops of Ferrarelle mineral water, De Biasi experiments with new surfaces, materials and reflections. Through these images, Ferrarelle wishes to construct a path to be followed consisting of tips on how to recycle correctly.
From visual art we pass to cinema with two evenings at the Cinema Edison d'Essai (organised in collaboration with the Cineteca Film Library in Bologna and “Slow Food on Film”) for a series of films in which food and gastronomy are anything but secondary.
In addition to these there will be an entertaining evening with Laura Delli Colli who, in presenting her book “Il Gusto del Cinema in 100 Ricette – The Taste of Cinema in 100 Recipes” will delight the audience with gastronomic and cinematographic offerings.
Then, at the Academia Barilla, there will be a show of images of the stars of “La Dolce Vita” captured by Marcello Geppetti.
And to finish, “Parma terra di grandi prodotti e grande cucina – Parma, land of great products and great cuisine”, a photographic portrait entrusted to Arturo Delle Donne, which will feature the local cooks from the Parma Restaurant Quality Club of ASCOM Parma.
In short, an edition of GNAM as bubbly and fresh as water, as crisp and enticing as only the healthiest vegetables know how to be – tasty and redolent of home and at the same time sweet and marvellous. The whole thing in collaboration with Cibus 2008 14th International Food Exhibition which will be held at the Fiere di Parma from the 5th - 8th May.
Event catalogue published by Silvana Editoriale and edited by Andrea Gambetta with contributions from Denis Curti, Stefano Sardo, Massimiliano Diliberto and Laura Delli Colli.
For further information:
Solares Fondazione delle Arti
Largo Otto Marzo, 9/a
43100 Parma ITALY
tel. +39 (0)521 967088
fax. +39 (0)521 925669
www.gnamfestival.eu
info@solaresonline.it
Pres Office:
Studio ESSECI - Sergio Campagnolo, Padova
Tel. +39 (0)49 663499
info@studioesseci.net
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