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This mouthwateringly beautiful artwork at MoMA is printed entirely with chocolate
Words take center stage in the latest new exhibition by artist Ed Ruscha at the Museum of Modern Art. There’s “OOF” painted in perfect yellow block letters, and then not far away “NOISE” takes up another canvas. Given all of that visual “noise,” walking through the next room, a nondescript space with brown tiled walls, can feel a little incongruous, as if it’s just a boring passageway to more stimulating Pop Art beyond.
When I visited the exhibition, many museum-goers simply breezed through the brown room, barely giving a second thought to the unusual-looking walls around them. But if you go, take a moment to pause, to look more closely—and to even smell. Because this room is tiled entirely in chocolate.
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Ruscha, an artist known for his Pop and conceptual works, first created “Chocolate Room” in 1970 as part of the Venice Biennale. He found local chocolate paste and screen printed it onto hundreds of sheets of paper. Then he hung each one like tiles or shingles from floor to ceiling. Ruscha was doing “immersive art” before that was even a buzzword.
Given the fragile and ephemeral medium, Chocolate Room is refabricated on-site every time it’s shown. This is its first showing in New York City. On social media, MoMA offered a peek at the complicated installation process. A team in New York melted chocolate, poured it and pushed it across a silk screen to be transferred onto paper. Then they installed it in layers onto the walls.
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The sheets surround visitors, practically transforming the room itself into a vat of cocoa. Melted chocolate is, of course, a much trickier medium to work with than the traditional ink used in screen printing. While the medium presents a thicker substance to use, the final creation still looks exactly like screen printing with its customary streaks and variations in tone.
The work is extremely fragile. Art handlers can’t even place a hand behind the artwork because it could melt. That means visitors must stay back, as well. But anyone can admire the visual spectacle—and the subtle, sweet aroma of chocolate—from a distance.
“It represents a major moment in his use of unexpected materials due to its immersive scale and ephemeral nature,” MoMA wrote in a press release.
Like any good work of art, Chocolate Room stirs debate. Responding to MoMA’s video on social media, some people decried the artwork as a “waste of food and resources” and as “one dimensional.” Others lauded the work as “amazing” and “so cool.” And yet some just want to know how the museum deals with ants who may be lured by the sweet aroma.
In addition to Chocolate Room, don’t miss the rest of Ruscha’s work presented as part of MoMA’s retrospective titled “ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN.” The exhibition is the most comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s work ever shown. It’s on view through January 13, 2024.
The museum worked closely with Ruscha to create the show, which unites over 200 pieces created between 1958 and today. Ruscha, known as one of the most influential figures in postwar American art, paid close attention to everyday sites, such as roadside architecture, consumer products and typography—influences you’ll see in vivid color throughout his work.
“I am greatly looking forward to this exhibit,” Ruscha said in a press release announcing the show. “It will be like various acquaintances gathering for a reunion.”
At home with Nancy Wells – The River Reporter
At home with Nancy Wells The River Reporter
A look inside the mesmerizing new “Basquiat x Warhol” exhibit
There are plenty of galleries and museums in New York, all incredibly versatile and beautiful in their own right, but there’s something about the Brant Foundation at 421 East 6th Street in the East Village that tugs at all the senses— especially when displaying works by the same artists that have called the neighborhood home for years throughout history.
Case in point: the latest exhibit to be mounted in the space, “Basquiat x Warhol,” a traveling show from Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, France, that focuses on the unique collaboration between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, two figures that have all but defined the city’s downtown art scene in the 1980s.
Officially open on November 1 through January 7, 2024, tickets for the first set of dates of the “Basquiat x Warhol” exhibition are now on sale right here.
Here are a few things to keep in mind on your visit:
You’ll Get to See Some Iconic Works
From “Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper)” to “Felix the Cat,” the new show highlights a wide variety of works that the two artists have collaborated on throughout their respective careers, each one tackling themes like colonialism, police brutality, gentrification and a vast variety of other sociopolitical issues that we are still contending with today.
Interestingly enough, some of the paintings that Warhol and Basquiat had produced together back in the ’80s were shown to the public at Tony Shafrazi’s New York gallery in 1985.
At the time, the exhibit was not received well by the media, actually convincing the creatives to put an end to their collaboration. This new exhibition seeks to confirm the strength of their relationship and their artistic output, celebrating their long-spanning careers as a duo and as single entities as well.
Warhol and Basquiat’s Relationship Was a Fruitful One
The two artists first met in 1982, when gallerist Bruno Bischofberger invited Basquiat to Warhol’s famous Factory.
The two took a photo together and, a mere couple of hours later, Basquiat produced a double portrait that’s currently part of the new exhibit.
In 1984, the artists’ collaboration officially kicked off, one that yielded close to 160 canvases.
“Meeting almost every day, the pair would work on multiple monumental canvases at once, from early hours into the evening,” reads a press release. “This enthusiastic exchange of energy is exemplified in their paintings, which illustrate a back and forth between that is both tense and complimentary.”
As explained by the artists themselves back in the day, one of them would start a canvas and include his very unique iconography on it. The other would then spend some time with it, marking it with his own recognizable style.
“Warhol’s screen-printed advertisements and cultural symbols are effaced by Basquiat’s iconic figures and signs,” reads the release. “Newspaper headlines included by Warhol are obscured and rewritten by Basquiat; scenes painted in Basquiat’s conceptual Neo-Expressionist style are joined by Warhol’s precise appropriations of brand logos.”
The Gallery Itself is Worth Learning More About
The Brant Foundation is a private art collection and gallery that boasts two exhibition spaces, the one in the East Village and another one in Greenwich, Connecticut. Art collector Peter Brant owns the collections, which are open to the public.
The Greenwich location opened back in 2009. The Manhattan museum debuted about a decade later, in 2019, in a stunning building that used to be a Consolidated Edison substation.
Artist Walter Der Maria actually bought the space to use as his studio after it was no longer a ConEd property. Brant purchased it after De Maria’s passing in 2013, funding a major renovation that has turned the building into the perfect venue for relatievly small exhibitions with a modern bend.