Sometimes, art can be found in the bruised curvature of a banana. Other times, it can be found in the waxiness of a dry microwaved chicken or in the freezer of a frozen food enthusiast.
Running through Aug. 22, The J. Paul Getty Museum will be presenting “In Focus: Tasteful Pictures,” an exhibition examining the technological and aesthetic evolutions of food photography.
This is the sixth installment of the Getty’s “In Focus” series of exhibitions and feature works by photographers such as Man Ray, Edward Weston and Martin Parr.
“We’re looking at something visual, but it conjures up other senses like taste and smell, in objects that are 2-dimensional and actually very static, but because the subject of food is so visceral, so immediate to us from a personal experience, we read some of that into images,” said Virginia Heckert, associate curator of photography.
The exhibition’s early works range from still lifes of seductive fruit displays to an elitist display of a butchered boar.
Roger Fenton’s 1860 photograph “Still Life with Fruit and Decanter” aptly depicts an early static photograph of a medley of fruit, capturing the fuzzy delectability of a peach and the pimply nature of a gourd. This contrived depiction of nourishment reflected on the nature of photography as a brand-new medium, where food was arranged to mirror the intuitive artworks of the Dutch masters.
“They are very painterly, much like in the style of a Dutch painting. They’re from the 1860s, and it’s all very much like a historical photograph,” said Evan Kleiman, host of KCRW’s weekly radio show, “Good Food.”
The early days of food photography revealed an appreciation of aestheticized notions of food.
“The look was elevated and equal to a work of art that looks like it was still in the past, and informs us of what we’re doing now,” said chef and art historian Maite Gomez-Rejón.
For example, Edward Weston’s 1930 photograph “Bananas” features a swirl of bananas piled in a basket, each banana casting a shadow on another to highlight the sensuousness of the fruit.
“The bananas are almost immediately tangible. There’s almost a certain beauty bestowed upon them because of the arrangement, even though they’re a little bruised,” Heckert said. “I don’t think you want to take one of those, peel one and enjoy it. It’s not about creating an advertisement picture, it’s about creating formally pleasing and balanced composition.”
While food was aestheticized when the medium of photography was first introduced, edible objects evolved into images of social commentary, vacillating from the beauty to the visceral side of food, revealing urban life and cultural climates.
“Basically, 20th century works were more about photography documenting a specific culture or way of life in a city at a specific time, where food happened to be pictured; like New York City, and this is how it was in 1929 to buy your fruit on the street,” Heckert said.
The late 20th century brought upon documentary-style photographs of food, delving not only into the delicious qualities of food, but also the realism of food as a way of life, where food from a box could be called dinner. William Eggleston’s 1971 photograph “Memphis” depicted the photographer’s freezer, chock-full of the latest in frozen beef pies and tater tots.
“It shows how beauty shifts over time. And it has as much to do with the attitude towards food itself, and also more with reactions to aesthetic presentations; you know, one person’s trash is another’s treasure. One person’s feast is another’s horror story that they run away from,” Heckert said.
The universal nature of food photography has evolved into the modern-day concept of food porn, where people impulsively take pictures of their food before they eat it, creating pixelated images of dripping blueberries on Belgian waffles and plates of meticulously placed sushi.
Heckert said that while this new phenomenon wouldn’t be classified as art in a museum, it reveals the documentation instincts of people to capture their food in the moment.
“As a museum, we haven’t focused on food pictures or food porn, but check back on us in 20 years,” Heckert said.