29 January 2025, 3:30pm
Keysers gate 1

Close Readings
The Banquet Years: FOOD

The Banquet Years: FOOD, A SoHo Restaurant with special guest Eva Rowson.

What makes certain types of work and names ‘stick’ in the historicisation of collective projects, while others slip away?

It’s a new year of Close Readings and, as winter unfolds, we gather in the kitchen and think together about forming communities. From January to April, we will read about kitchens, sustainability and invisible labour with special guests phoning in from across the world. This time we are pleased to host curator and Director of Bergen Kjøtt, Eva Rowson, who shares with us her research on the 1971–75 restaurant FOOD in New York.

FOOD was both a collectively operated public dining room and a test-site for a workplace utopia that could support artists in their busy, unpredictable and precarious lives. FOOD credited everyone and everything that made it function. This was not just being ‘nice’, in the sense of showing appreciation to everyone working there; it was a commitment to demonstrating that revolutionising the world begins with valuing all work equally. Adjusting the washing-up rota was just as fundamental as creating the menu.

Lori Waxman’s text addresses how and why FOOD has been historicised by the art world since the 1970s, and how the whole politics of FOOD have been almost totally undermined in the way it has been archived by others. You can read the article in advance but do feel very welcome to come unprepared. All levels of engagement and questions are welcome. We want to create a safe and open environment for reflection and learning, even when the reading material is challenging.

The text can be downloaded for free here.

Everyone is welcome to join!

Access

The event is spoken in English.

UKS is wheelchair accessible.

We do not have sign language interpretation. Please contact Miriam Wistreich at m.wistreich@uks.no if you require sign language interpretation and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.

 

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