November 3 - December 15, 2018
Gallery 6/67, now known as Erica Broussard Gallery Santa Ana, CA
Within the last several years, chefs and foodies from around the country have hailed Filipino cooking as the “next big food trend.” Although trendify-ing a cuisine allows it to enter into the larger cultural consciousness, it also raises the question: A trend for whom? It is a label that often appears only on “ethnic” cuisine or non-white food, and classifying it as such dismisses the historical nuances and communities that develop it. For many, a trend is not new or alien; it is familiar and the norm. In Super Sarap, three artists Mik Gaspay, Jeanne F. Jalandoni, and O.M. France Viana revisit the commonplace objects and food within Filipino cooking. Through sculpture, photography, and video, the artists elicit personal and collective memories and offer cultural connections that go beyond the Philippine diaspora.
Mik Gaspay’s practice examines mass-produced objects and explores them in relation to capitalism’s effects on migration and assimilation, class, and identity. In Super Sarap, his newest video work pixelates the clichéd island landscape, echoing oversimplified notions and assumptions of the exoticized foreign land. Recalling tourism symbols, Gaspay remembers the prominence of the decorative wooden spoon and fork sculptures that hang in Filipino kitchens. Using faux, wood-grain-patterned textiles, he renders a parody of it: a delicate, awkwardly large, pillar-sized replica. Jeanne Jalandoni also utilizes textile to evoke a memory of home by making “objects of comfort.” Using soft and plush material, she creates covetable toy rice cookers. In the exhibition, she premieres a series of quilts that stitch together the ingredients to create traditional Filipino dishes. With a keen focus on food is O.M. France Viana’s Color Palate series, minimalist photography looks like extraterrestrial landscapes. However, the work reveals themselves to be Filipino ice cream—purple ube, green avocado, pink guava. Viana’s vibrant neon “UBE” sign seduces with an intense violet color natural to the purple yam and is ubiquitous in Filipino and South East Asian desserts.
The exhibition title, Super Sarap, fuses both English and Tagalog to hold multiple meanings. It can convey something extremely delicious, an expression of excitement, and affirmation. It can also imply an exaggeration in terms of scale: beyond, powerful, large, and exceeding the norm. In thinking about the transformation of foreign to familiar, specifically, the indigenization of food, Manila-Born Food historian Doreen Gamboa Fernandez’s (1934-2002) cites that Filipinos sprinkle patis (fermented fish sauce) on foreign dishes or carry with them when they travel to “‘tame’ the alien.” Artists in Super Sarap play with these definitions and mutate symbols, making them both strange and familiar, challenging the expectations of cultural norms.
Accompanying Culinary Events:
Thursday, November 15th, 6 PM - Artist Talk & Exhibition Walk Through, 7 PM - 4 Course Dinner with Chef Ross Pangilinan
Sunday, December 9th, 5 PM - Artist Talk & Exhibition Walk Through, 6 PM - 4 Course Dinner with Chef Ryan Garlitos
Press
Ada Tseng, LA Times, “‘Super Sarap’ Merges Art And Food While Examining The Filipino American Experience,” November 21, 2018, https://lat.ms/3cj5yAt
