Join the Feast and discover how artists are using shared experiences with food and drink to spark new ways of thinking about the world around us. Taking place from Feb. 16 to June 10 at the Smart Museum of Art, the exhibit delves into the work of more than thirty artists and groups to show how they have transformed the shared meal into an artistic medium. Feast will address the social, commercial, and political structures that surround the experience of eating together through an array of participatory projects, meals and salons.
Upcoming events include a Feast of Songs concert on Feb. 26 featuring songs about food, drink, and feasting by classical composers such as J.S. Bach and George Gershwin. The program The Art of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art will take place on March 1 and invites guests to gather and drink free beer within a bar-like installation in the Smart’s galleries.
Also going on around town will be the Enemy Kitchen project in collaboration with chefs from Chicago’s Iraqi community. A mobile food truck will serve a menu of regional Iraqi dishes with American veterans of the Iraq war acting as servers and sous-chefs. Between February and May, Michael Kornick will work with Theaster Gates and soul-food expert Erika Dudley to host a series of ritualized dinners at Dorchester Projects on the South Side. Guests will sit down for five dinners based around discussions on a variety of themes about soul.
· Feast: Radical Hospitality in Contemporary Art [website]
Eater Chicago intern Jeffy Mai contributed to this article.
