{"id":89892,"date":"2025-01-24T10:08:43","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T17:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=89892"},"modified":"2025-03-17T15:02:19","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T22:02:19","slug":"at-bdac-what-e-eat-becomes-the-focus-of-three-thoughtful-installations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/at-bdac-what-e-eat-becomes-the-focus-of-three-thoughtful-installations\/","title":{"rendered":"At BDAC, What We Eat Becomes the Focus of Three Thoughtful Installations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Installation view of Sara Serratos’ “Who Sustains Our Tables?”<\/p><\/div>\n

Each of the three satellite galleries at BDAC currently offers an individual artist\u2019s view on the theme of what we eat: how it’s grown, harvested, and handled. It\u2019s not a common theme in art, but these artists have found creative ways to explore it, and the staff at BDAC have taken advantage of their common interest to mount an extensive look into an area that ought to concern us all.<\/h4>\n

The Front Gallery begins the tour with a minimalist presentation, consisting of a looped video projected on a single screen. Like a Bird<\/em> is filmmaker Chris Cutri\u2019s response to the experience of those who actually grow and harvest the plants we eat. He further shows us how important this topic is to him by invoking his wife and four children, whose welfare matters greatly to him, but also parallels his broader concerns for the families supported and sustained by their involvement in, and dependence on, careers in agriculture.<\/h4>\n

Cutri refers to his approach as \u201cobservational.\u201d In fact, as he films a small group of laborers working together in a produce field, he foregoes explanations and force-feeding of whatever opinions he might have acquired in favor of allowing viewers to see the work through their own eyes. Sitting in this small, dark space allows us to do what we might not while driving past the same activities as they occur alongside the road: to pay close attention to someone else\u2019s labor. We see how the workers are bundled up, with gloves, long sleeves, scarves, hats, and even face masks. We\u2019ve heard that between the sharp, self-defensive parts of the plants, the presence of both insects and insect poisons, the strong sun that crops are associated with, and other factors of weather, this can be dangerous work that inevitably damages ones health. Then there are the postures: a whole crew moves about the field bent over in order to perform their necessary tasks. Who would choose to spend entire days like this, and how does it effect the body over years?<\/h4>\n
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Still from Chris Cutri’s “Like a Bird.”<\/p><\/div>\n

The news these days fills out the story. Two thirds of America\u2019s fruits and vegetables are grown in California, where they are primarily tended by politically vulnerable workers, many of whom are brought into the field regardless of legal status and paid less than minimum wages. The state\u2019s government has expressed concern that if the border is closed, there may not be enough people to do this work, which is already threatened by climate change and water shortages. Somewhere in the gallery the customary urge to evaluate what\u2019s seen as Fine Art begins to crumble in the face of an all-too human story and the disturbing sense that various interest groups are in pursuit of their individual priorities and not seriously listening to each other.<\/h4>\n

Meanwhile, tightly arranged in the Annex Gallery are the dozen parts of Sara Serratos\u2019 Who Sustains Our Tables?\u2014<\/i>which moves beyond the fields and looks at the labor of marketing what the farmers produce. One of the artist\u2019s points is to distinguish what many viewers presumably encounter when and where they purchase their foodstuffs from the gritty reality that is concealed behind the grocer\u2019s regularly refreshed displays of mountains of fresh and eminently palatable food. To that end, the relatively small space available allows some of the chaos and eventual waste of commercializing what sustains us all to be seen, while navigating these narrow spaces between piles of boxes, with produce laid here and there, underscores the happenstance reality of our food supply.<\/h4>\n

The title assemblage of \u201cWho Sustains Our Table\u201d uses mundane components to make a serious point. The center of the installation is an ordinary tabletop with a splendid-looking array of comestibles: pineapples, corn, jicamas, onions, limes, peppers … the makings of a first class diet. But the table top lies on the floor while the legs of the table stand in the beds of toy trucks, which additional vehicles represent the constant activity necessary to keep our stores full and our appetites satisfied. The ingredients may well be fresh, but they arrive just in time, and those frequent shortfalls that occur from time to time are part of this reality. Then there\u2019s the odd fact that the table top isn\u2019t supported by the legs. The parts may be present, but may not always work together in the way we expect.<\/h4>\n

The complexity and sophistication of the modern food chain is hinted at by \u201cFruits and Vegetables Sticker Sign,\u201d a variety of labels, some of them bar coded, that refer to half a dozen nations and serve primarily to simplify converting crops into commodities. In her notes, Serratos explains how the scale, design, and even the quality of the colors she uses reflect the complexity of the issues represented by food, which are cultural and spiritual as well as biological. Nearby, the collected \u201cFruits and Vegetables Stickers\u201d show off some of the hundreds of adhesive labels used to identify individual edibles. A few years ago a plan was floated to replace these with DNA manipulation that would enable the produce to label itself, but public pressure may have forced merchants to \u201cstick\u201d with labels the consumer can peel off instead. Imagining a still life with bar codes on the fruit is a nightmare that need not trouble an art lover\u2019s sleep.<\/h4>\n
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Sara Serratos, “Who Sustains Our Table”<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Sara Serratos, “Nopales”<\/p><\/div>\n

Other parts of the installation celebrate Nopales, the cactus leaves that are a dietary staple and a symbol of cultural identity where they grow, but largely an exotic foodstuff in northern climes. Correspondence scratched onto a discarded piece of sheetmetal may invoke the difference between biological life and the metals used in canning, even as its text explores the strong nostalgia that affects those who must change their diets in response to following their work from one place to another. One thing that Serratos knows, but many estadounidenses<\/em> (United States persons) don\u2019t know is how few immigrants actually want to abandon their homes to live as strangers in strange lands.<\/h4>\n

The third installation, Bryan Hutchison\u2019s Portrait of a Pear Tree<\/i>, covers the walls of the Underground Gallery with hundreds of individual photographs of pears that together represent the entire production of one tree in a single year. Such numbers are little known facts: how many of its drinkers know that a whole coffee tree might only produce one pound of coffee beans in a year? On the other hand, the photographer\u2019s list of all the produce a Utah family may harvest, and how many tasks it creates for, in this case, a single hardworking woman, should give pause to the viewer who takes the time to read the statement that is almost lost among the awesome display of fruit portraits. And not only the most succulent and perfectly pear-shaped fruit are included; Hutchison includes even those that were attacked by various blights or otherwise withered on the tree. It wouldn\u2019t be an exaggeration to say that wandering for a spell among the walls on walls of similar yet unique examples of nature\u2019s bounty could expand the viewer\u2019s consciousness.<\/h4>\n

The history of art is full of philosophical evolution and technical innovation, but its study hasn\u2019t done much to prepare us for the vital importance in our time of subjects that are less purely aesthetic. Did we wonder why artists of the past were so taken with kings and their wars, rather than the personal experiences we prefer to dwell on? An answer may have to do with our own shifting priorities: a disappearing lake, foods we can barely afford, and the activities of people who don\u2019t look like us; these are matters where understanding isn\u2019t easy, but art can help us feel our way forward instead.<\/h4>\n
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Bryan Hutchison, “Portrait of a Pear Tree”<\/p><\/div>\n

Like a Bird<\/em>, Who Sustains Our Tables<\/em> and Portrait of a Pear Tree, <\/em>Bountiful Davis Art Center<\/a>, Bountiful, through Feb. 22.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

All images courtesy of the author.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Each of the three satellite galleries at BDAC currently offers an individual artist\u2019s view on the theme of what we eat: how it’s grown, harvested, and handled. It\u2019s not a common theme in art, but these artists have found creative ways to explore it, and the staff at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":847,"featured_media":89895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1153,4633,4669,4285],"class_list":["post-89892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-bdac","tag-bryan-hutchison","tag-chris-cutri","tag-sara-serratos"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Screenshot-2025-01-27-at-9.38.36-AM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 18:17:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/847"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89892"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91360,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89892\/revisions\/91360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}