Posted on: Sunday, October 28, 2001

Art
Hungry for art? Eat a marzipan sculpture

By Theo Emery
Associated Press

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —The latest art exhibit at Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum is not just a feast for the eyes, it is also a feast for the stomach.

No oils, pastels or marble here. Rather, the works of Sonja Alhauser and the late Joseph Beuys and Dieter Roth are made of marzipan, caramel, popcorn, salami, mayonnaise and chocolate, to name a few of the mediums.

"It is a radical approach because it really challenges all our expectations of what you do in a museum, and what a museum does," curator Peter Nisbit said.

In truth, there isn't very much to see of the edible elements of the "Eat Art" show after opening to the public two weeks ago. Most of Alhauser's sculptures were consumed by the black-tie crowd that attended the show's opening Oct. 4.

Not only had they devoured Alhauser's marzipan sculptures that rested atop three chocolate pedestals, but they had gnawed the edges of the bases, leaving teeth marks.

"It's good," Thalia Field, 20, said the following day as she nibbled at the white chocolate base with her friend, Honor Moody, 25.

Field, a Harvard University junior, said she liked the fact that the exhibit broke down barriers between observers and the artworks, and tossed out the notion that touching art is desecration.

"You're told your whole life not to touch the art behind the velvet ropes, but in this case you're supposed to," she said.

Of course, the artists do not replace what is consumed by visitors. So while Alhauser's statues are gone, the bases — several hundred pounds of chocolate — remain to be viewed and nibbled.

Not all the exhibits are for consumption, though. Three side-by-side versions of Roth's "Small Sunset" are nothing more than large slices of salami sealed in plastic in 1968 and left to rot, mold and ooze into different patterns.

Another, "Poemeterie," is composed of mutton cubes sealed inside plastic bags, each bag a page printed with Roth's poetry.

One of Beuys' works, "1st Class Fried Fish Bones," is the skeleton of a fish he cooked in a 1970 performance. Another, "Artist Mail," is chocolate and margarine sealed in a plastic bag.

"It's a way to undermine the mission of the museum, because the mission is to protect (art) and keep it for eternity," show organizer Tanja Maka said. "You're free to do what you want to do. You can eat 5 pounds, 7 pounds. We don't care."

But it's also a social commentary, a critique of notions of decay and permanence. Roth and Beuys, both Germans born before World War II, lived in a postwar German society that had to be rebuilt from scratch, Maka said.

Alhauser uses food because she wants to stimulate more than just the eyes.

"You can smell it, you can see it, you can taste it — more senses are involved," Alhauser said.

She was a bit startled to find that the preview crowd had completely devoured her sculptures and started on the bases. Even the edible plaque on the wall, and the edible rack filled with edible brochures, was mostly gone by the time the exhibit opened to the public.

"They were not at all shy. I thought because of the black ties, people wouldn't want to get their clothes dirty — but not at all."

Michael Filas, 39, an English professor at Westfield State College, came to the exhibit to see Beuys' work. He was a bit disappointed in the show, although he said that Alhauser's sculptures might improve with age.

"It might look better when you go in a month, and it's decayed," he said. "It would be more interesting."