Nourishment
Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953), Untitled, from the Kitchen Table series, 1990, gelatin silver prints, each image/sheet: 27 1/4 in x 27 1/4 in, Gift of the Contemporary Art Council. Portland Art Museum
Ruminations on food and love and life
Hello, Readers! This week, I’ve decided to focus on food and love, as seen in art. More specifically, we’re focusing on nourishment. Of course, food is our fuel which sustains life, and of course, this nourishment helps us to grow. The act of eating and collecting at a table both fills our minds and stomach. To cook for a person is to care for them, and to dine with them is to find joy in their society.
This nourishment, not only through food or dining, is at the table you choose to collect at. In the Kitchen Table series, artist Carrie Mae Weems investigated nourishment in all its forms. From the perspective of women in 1990, she captured 20 photographs and 14 text panels.
The photos I’ve selected from the series are scenes of Weems with her daughter, Faith. Weems, becoming a character of her own, and her daughter, are placed in the domain traditionally meant for women. What’s notable beyond the lack of food on the table is the absence of strict or outwardly conscious decorum. This space is not only designed for a woman’s performance. The woman and her daughter live and exist beyond the prescribed bounds, using this space to grow and learn.
Here, the artist shows us that women have already redefined daily life, but somehow she still needed to assert this in photographs and words. And it all remains relevant today.
Absent from the traditional stereotypes, Weems reminds us of the tenderness and care that exists in this domain. Without those antiquated acts of service, what’s found at the kitchen table is still profoundly important. Although it’s a space that still is under-considered for women to fully join in on — join in the conversation, join and plan, join and make change — she is proof we can.
Weems works as Faith stands in the background, arms crossed. She’s reprimanded. Then she joins her mother. Perhaps this tryptic is the story in three acts of Faith unlearning the stereotypes of being a woman. Perhaps this is an over-analyzation.
Lesser known, the text panels are well worth finding (here) and reading. She speaks of love in all its multitudes: through song, gesture, the quiet moments. They particularly strike a chord. Although incredibly personal, as a reader, you feel that you’re invited into the intimacy of the relationships she speaks of. Simple fragmented thoughts with little context, when you read them alongside the photographs, they complete each other.
I do hope you set aside time to visit or revisit these photos, as they’re much more than I’ve attempted to describe.
In the museum
On view at MoMA, Cézanne Drawing is a love letter to the artist’s food still lifes. The New York Review has a beautiful and honest review of it here: Interpreting Nature: A transcendent exhibition of Cézanne’s drawings at MoMA reveals an artist who is drunk on sensation but always sober enough to pin it down.
On the screen
The 1974 film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, follows the story of a West German widow and a much younger man from Morocco as they develop a relationship. The two meet in a bar frequented by Arab immigrants, dine out, the two grocery shop, cups of tea and coffee are poured throughout the film, and of course, Emmie cooks for Ali. There’s so much more to the film than food, but it really is at the heart.
On socials
I’d like to take a moment to appreciate the menu itself! With details of formal meals and culinary operations, we understand the stories of food. The following are from the 1920s and 30s from a society called L'Académie des Psychologues du Goût. This high-brow French group was founded on “gastronomy in friendship” by Maurice Edmond Sailland (b. 1872). Known as Curnonsky or the “Prince of Gastronomy,” Sailland was a lauded culinary writer in 20th-century France who focused on the discourse connecting people, places, and food. Much of his writings existed in the space that we understand as travel and food journalism today. Here’s a more complete list of menus from L'Académie des Psychologues du Goût to admire.
On the Floor
Talk of civilization over a meal is no new concept. This photograph detail of Unswept Floor, a portion of a mosaic dating back to the second century, is a fragment from a dining room floor. Look closely, and you can see a mouse eating crumbs, bones, and other scraps of food.
Asàrotos òikos (Unswept Floor), Sosos of Pergamon and Heraclitus, 2nd century CE, mosaic
In 280
Food and eating are playful, grotesque, and sensual all at once. This act of sustaining life brings people together, even at times when there is little on the table. Where we gather to eat are sacred places in life, and to invite people into these places is an act of love. When you accept the invitation, you say, “yes, I crave your society.”