“It’ll be messy in the spirit of the Fluxists and all infantile artists,” says artist and curator Nancy Van Kanegan about Saturday’s Ridiculist Banquet, which will feature food-themed films, music, and performances, as well as oatmeal facials, a fruit mandala, and a mashed potato table where guests can sculpt with spuds. Van Kanegan will also show a map of Rogers Park–made entirely of edibles from that neighborhood.
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“One of the great things about food is its ephemeral quality–it’s either consumed or it’s spoiled,” says Van Kanegan, who earned a master’s degree in 1993 from Columbia College’s interdisciplinary arts program. She says this weekend’s event was inspired by the 1932 Futurist Cookbook, which includes author F.T. Marinetti’s menus for futurist banquets. “He believed that for Italy to be a force in the modern world, they had to change the modern diet,” she says. “So the futurists’ restaurants served no pasta, only risotto. Their conceptual banquets sometimes consisted only of fragrances, or really outrageous foods.”
The manifesto was passed on to the artists contributing work to the banquet, including Barrie Cole, Laura Chenault, Lynn King, Lisa Cargill, Shannon Greenrobb, Summer Kee, Nicole Garneau, Jeffrey Letterly, Janel Horvath, and Teri Vrakas. “We feel that all artists strive toward the ridiculous, whether they admit it or not,” says Van Kanegan. “We scoff at the idea that all art must be created out of pain.
