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Mai 1 – June 6, 2009
THE OMAHA
DINER
Bemis/center for contemporary arts,
OMAHA USA
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| Exhibitionview before dinner 1/8 |
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Paul Renner’s exhibition The Omaha Diner is a presentation of art objects and nose-to-tail cooking, which culminates in a six course array of culinary delights served at two dinner celebrations to a total of 160 guests. Renner is a singularly bold artist, with activity spanning painting, performance art, jubilant social theater and hyper-adventurous cuisine. He creates ecstatic feasts that present food as sculpture and paintings as mythic backdrop, set within environments that transform the experience of his guests/eaters into art.
Renner situates his art and actions between physical and metaphysical extremes. His actions are anarchic, subversive, and experimental, and his exhibitions aim to create both a Gesamtkunstwerk and an artificial paradise. Is The Omaha Diner a soup kitchen for the rich, a gourmet kitchen for the homeless, or a chamber of wonders for daily use? Renner poses these questions in an exploratory fashion to himself and visitors alike. Throughout its duration at the Bemis Center, Renner's exhibition will amplify and dissect sense and sensibility with equal abandon.
There is a rich, uneasy joy in Renner's confrontation of cultural ideals. His work upends prevailing notions of luxury and thrift through sloppy/succulent ingredient pairings, unfussy presentation and his own presence — a hyper-sane artist acting the role of unhinged chef. His dinners drive a wedge into the heart of the current debate surrounding the future of food-growing and eating in America. Yet rather than make a forceful statement, Renner emphatically reframes the issue and scrambles the social hierarchy, making a place the freegan and agribusiness CEO can equally call home.
IIn the vibrant history of artist-orchestrated meals, Renner's expression is perhaps the most complete. Encompassing extreme ideas about food, humor, performance art and the social potential inherent in coming together for a meal, his events offer intimate/explosive experiences of art, eating and community.
For this project Paul Renner has partnered with Paul Kulik, executive chef of The Boiler Room to create the meals. |
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© Photos: Larry Gawel |
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