Classic art in the best possible taste
16 October, 2008, 10:55
Six Russian artists have made reproductions of world-famous paintings from. meat. The edible gallery was created to celebrate the centenary of Tavr, a meat-processing factory in the city of Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia.
It took three days and more then 20 kilograms of sausages to create 1x1.5 metre reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers and Pablo Picasso’s Girl on a Ball.
All visitors to the exposition were welcome to try fresh Tavr sausages as used in the art pieces.
Artist Aleksandr Solomko confessed he actually liked working with ham, which is soft and flexible.
“The biggest trouble was to stick the sausages to the canvas. Gelatine turned out to be the best solution. It’s perfectly natural and doesn’t affect the taste. However, we had to rework some parts of the picture, when it started to darken after the meat spent some time in the air,” he explained.
Another problem was that working with meat is possible only at temperatures between 2 and 6 degrees Celsius.
All the artists involved received a Guinness record certificate.
“We liked the idea, but what was more important for us was the similarity to the originals and no involvement of artificial materials, which means that the pictures were not only beautiful, but also perfectly edible,” said Aleksey Svistunov, Guinness’s representative in Russia.
These are not the first paintings to be created from edible materials. Italian painter Giuseppe Archimboldi started experimenting with food as early as the 16th century.
In 2006 Emma Green, a Birmingham-based artist, made a 180cm x 70cm Mona Lisa reproduction from 360 pieces of toast. Earlier this year Moscow hosted an exhibition by Brazilian Vic Muniz, who made pictures from sweet materials (including a double Mona Lisa reproduction from peanut butter and jelly).