Meat art show

Meat After Meat Joy is a meat-themed group art exhibition that just opened at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in New York City. The show features photographs, sculpture, and multimedia pieces that use, or comment on, "raw meat, the concept of meat, its symbolism and viscera." Seen here, Zhang Huan's "My New York" (Performance Whitney Biennial, 2002). From the show description:

Meat After Meat Joy brings together the work of contemporary artists who use meat in their work... in order to investigate the paradoxical relationship meat has to the body. Meat combines flesh, skin, muscle, organs, blood - each with its own relationship to the body, yet meat's only reference to the body is as a once-upon-a-time living biological thing. By putting these artists together, the exhibition seeks to investigate the uncanny effect meat as a medium is for artist and viewer. This is not a show about meat as spectacle but about meat as signification, precisely because meat does not signify (a body) but its very annihilation...

Meat After Meat Joy

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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The Lizardman

@ 22 Meat isn’t on deck, Meat Joy took place in 1964, it is already long past its moment as a shock element. IMO, it wasn’t really a shock element back then either. You seem overly dismissive. There is a lot of talent on display in many of these works.
marchorowitz

i made a spoof drawing of the meat suit guy (Zang Huan) for a show I had at Nuke Gallery called “At Least You Don’t Have It This Bad” – see it here http://www.flickr.com/photos/marchorowitz/2094688488/in/set-72157603400038388/ – chuckles and things!
anthony

Yeah. Sometimes controversy is a result of being brilliant, not the sole aim of an artistic endeavor.
Talia

Oh good, so now animals die not to even provide nourishment for people, but to be made into art.

*sigh*

Morally I kinda find this th equivalent of hunters who chop off deer heads and stick em on the wall, even tho the artists aren’t doing the killing themselves.
Chas44

OK, um, EWWWW.
artmuller2003

event homepage: http://www.artistpaintingonline.com.com This is an artshow
Antinous

I clicked the link and there was a pair of skinned nuts hanging on a hook. Don’t say that you haven’t been warned.
Takuan

there is no moral problem of waste if they used condemned meat.
jahknow

“Brave Clarice. You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won’t you?”
johnnyuber

This post brings me back to the old days before the first bubble ….

http://hatsofmeat.com/
ill lich

Patron: “I very much like this piece here, and would like to purchase it. . . how much is it?”

Artist: “A pound of flesh.”
Hawkman

The chant is; Grill Baby Grill!
JNINLA

Well that stretched my boundaries.
kaosmonkey

Zhang Huan…It’s what’s for dinner.
Evan Rappaport

Meat is just the next shock art element to grab attention. Sex and religion have already been spent of their shock value. Meat is on deck. Actually since Damien Hirst, the biggest proponent of shock over quality has been using meat for years so really even meat is probably already passe’. Controversy is easy, talent takes work.
The Lizardman

I always loved Carollee Schneeman’s Meat Joy. It is great to see it have continued life some 44 years later.

For those complaining on the basis of the animals, they were already dead and butchered. Stopping art like this isn’t going to save a single creature, in fact pieces like this will generally only go to further the idea of not slaughtering animals if only by making meat less appetizing to some.
BBNinja

Pic reminds me of Carl from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie after he got his skin ripped off and Dr. Wierd stole his muscles.
Bugs

Does anyone else feel the urge to unleash a few hungry wolves nearby and see what happens?
obliv1on

I’m all for the wolves and it’s not nearly as impressive as this feat.
- Antinous
  
  obliv1on,
  
  Please stop linking to your blog. You can put the link on your profile page.
Anonymous

Major ‘Invader Zim’ vibes there.
Anonymous

Zhang Huan’s work is amazing! I just caught his work at the Vancouver Art Gallery last month and on top of the meatsuit, he does these amazing busts of monks out of ash. It was really incredible.
mouthyb

But properly done controversy is quite a bit more difficult than just mechanical talent. You got to work hard to be controversial and talented.

*thibbbbtt* (sticks out tongue)

Don’t assume that shock and confrontation are not a result of talent.
mdh

Is that a Space Suit??
Anonymous

Heather Weathers got there first:

See “Sweet Meat” at:

http://heatherweathers.com/video.html

http://heatherweathers.com/TP_SMreview.html
Anonymous

although wasteful, this art could be seen as a protest of the overly-carnivorous industrial food culture. I find this interesting and measurably less wasteful than operating one fast-food restaurant for one day.
GeekMan

I saw photo exhibit of works by Zang Huan (pictured above) at the Vancouver Art Gallery last month. I have to admit that I felt the “Meatsuit” was one of the highlights. :-)