Of all the trends in contemporary art, there's none we love more than artists who create works that are edible. A bust made of chocolate, sculpted through the act of licking? That’s one by Janine Antoni, now at the Brooklyn Museum. In 2011, RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA built a kitchen inside of MoMA serving free rice and Thai curry to visitors, making art out of socialization. And let’s not forget FÉLIX GONZÁLEZ-TORRES, who memorialized his partner Ross Laycock with 175 pounds of candy, corresponding to Ross’ ideal body weight.
Oscar Murillo is telling a similarly edible story through A Mercantile Novel, now at David Zwirner Gallery in New York City. The Colombian-born artist (who studied at the Royal College of Art in London) has recreated the Colombina candy factory straight from his hometown of La Paila. Enter the gallery and the first thing you smell is chocolate, followed by the slightly caramelized tinge of sugar. You see rows and rows of boxes that recall a warehouse packaging center, a blown-up image of a candy worker falling asleep at her station, and a video showing the view looking out an airplane.
Behind the scenes, however, is an assembly line, only open to gallery guests during a production break (around 1 to 3 in the afternoon). Employees flown in from Colombia work the assembly line in institution uniforms, churning out Chocmelos, a chocolate-covered marshmallow that is one of Colombina's signature candies. “I found [the workers] through my relationships,” Murillo says. “This is my mother’s friend; she is a friend from school.” And the candies? “People are welcome to take the candies away and subsequently you see how little or how much we distribute every day.” The point is to disperse the candies as far as possible, tracking where they go, who they are eaten with, and what social situations arise along the way.
In fact, like González-Torres and Tiravanija's works, this exhibit is not so much about food as it is about the people behind it. “It goes beyond commerce… it’s a relationship endeavor,” Murillo says, noting that both his parents have worked in the candy factory, which served as a meeting point for the community for years. The workers he’s hired for the project all have personal significance, and are all, in a sense, emigrating from Colombia. It is their first time in New York City, and Murillo is interested in exploring the new city with them and seeing their interactions with the local art scene.
“This isn’t simply about bringing people over from a foreign country,” Murillo says. The entire gallery is meant to examine the immigrant experience; the video on display, for example, will change every week. “My experience of London now is very different from when I first moved there,” Murillo says. “I want those [videos] to reflect what you see the first time you come to New York, and so that first encounter of New York is what you see when you come in. Then it will change every week as we experience [the city] together.”
To map the experience, Murillo has created a website, where visitors can share their candy-delivering stories, tracking how far the candy makes it from the gallery and showing potential community-creation in the process. “You couldn’t have it any other w
Behind the scenes, however, is an assembly line, only open to gallery guests during a production break (around 1 to 3 in the afternoon). Employees flown in from Colombia work the assembly line in institution uniforms, churning out Chocmelos, a chocolate-covered marshmallow that is one of Colombina's signature candies. “I found [the workers] through my relationships,” Murillo says. “This is my mother’s friend; she is a friend from school.” And the candies? “People are welcome to take the candies away and subsequently you see how little or how much we distribute every day.” The point is to disperse the candies as far as possible, tracking where they go, who they are eaten with, and what social situations arise along the way.
In fact, like González-Torres and Tiravanija's works, this exhibit is not so much about food as it is about the people behind it. “It goes beyond commerce… it’s a relationship endeavor,” Murillo says, noting that both his parents have worked in the candy factory, which served as a meeting point for the community for years. The workers he’s hired for the project all have personal significance, and are all, in a sense, emigrating from Colombia. It is their first time in New York City, and Murillo is interested in exploring the new city with them and seeing their interactions with the local art scene.
“This isn’t simply about bringing people over from a foreign country,” Murillo says. The entire gallery is meant to examine the immigrant experience; the video on display, for example, will change every week. “My experience of London now is very different from when I first moved there,” Murillo says. “I want those [videos] to reflect what you see the first time you come to New York, and so that first encounter of New York is what you see when you come in. Then it will change every week as we experience [the city] together.”
To map the experience, Murillo has created a website, where visitors can share their candy-delivering stories, tracking how far the candy makes it from the gallery and showing potential community-creation in the process. “You couldn’t have it any other w