Subscribe Via Email

Like reading this blog? You can get the complete text of the latest articles at Within My Means in your email inbox each morning by entering your email address below, then verifying the subscription. Your address will only be used for mailing you the blog, and each one will include a link so you can unsubscribe at any time.

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

April 9, 2010

Zocalo: Picturing Food at the Getty


I attended an interesting lecture last night called "Picturing Food" at the Getty museum, set up by Zocalo Public Square in conjunction with Getty's exhibit of food photography culled from their collection.


Rather than a study of food styling, this was a discussion of food in/as art through history, and the type of dialogue that ensues from the images. The panel was narrated by Evan Kleiman of Good Food, and included Darra Goldstein, founder of Gastronomica.

Since I went to Russia after high school, I've been a fan of Darra's cookbooks on Russian foods, and just recently exchanged her book The Vegetarian Hearth on PaperbackSwap. It was one of the first cookbooks I bought myself some fifteen years ago, so seeing her in person was a bit of a thrill. She struck me as very professorial.


The images were striking, and the venue was exceptional. I sat in the first row of the balcony, with a bird's eye view. Projected onto a screen behind the panelists, the images were right in your face at some eight to ten feet tall.



My personal favorites were "Memphis," the inside of a freezer circa 1970s, and "Untitled Joy of Cooking," the pantry shot also circa 1970s.


Here's Zocalo's recap of the event. They have some interesting public issue forums and discussions, so I always keep an eye on their calendar.


1 comment:

  1. I bounced shortly after the "Shoplifting/Hold-Up" picture, right before the butchering pix. Got too hungry to stand the wandering discussion. Evan kept on talking about food porn, and the photographer just had nothing to add. Surely she curated her own pictures, but this "talk" was a bit mundane, despite the packed crowd. Best bit was indeed from Darra Goldstein: bloggers take "photos of food", which is not "food photography".

    ReplyDelete