CHARLOTTE, N.C. — F.O.O.D. (Food, Objects, Objectives, Design) provides a thematic look at inventive modern and contemporary objects, handmade and mass-produced, that have one of three objectives: to prepare, to cook or to present food. It includes about 300 selections culled from the permanent collection of the Mint, loans and new acquisitions.
Artist Antoni Miralda of the research center FoodCultura, Barcelona, is co-curating and designing the installation.
The exhibition is organized into four sections. The first section, Table, is an intimate space with low light levels, and an abstracted dining table displaying various invented table settings such as plates, cutlery, glasswork and centerpieces/candelabra by different makers and of different time periods.
Kitchen is outfitted with "Über design" kitchen appliances and various levels of green production. Shelving in the kitchen holds objects made to prepare food, such as spice mills, cheese graters, ginger and garlic graters, bamboo steamers, mixing bowls, pots and pans, baking dishes, tagines, molds and utensils. Ergonomic and green materials are also featured.
Pantry is small and densely installed and features objects such as food and spice storage containers, mortars and pestles, tea tins, water bottles, noodle packages, chopsticks in paper, and grits packages, as well as food advertising posters. This section is a work of installation art designed solely by co-curator Miralda.
The last section of F.O.O.D., Garden, is dramatically designed with objects in the shape of fruit and vegetables. Included in the exhibition will be a Resource Room, containing cookbooks and related books about sustainable food, gardening, health and nutrition.
This will be the first fully bilingual Mint-organized exhibition, with all text panels and object labels in both English and Spanish.
The exhibition will be open from March 2 through July 7 at the Mint Museum Uptown. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for college students and seniors, $5 for children age 5 to 17 and free for children 4 and under.
Admission to the Mint Museum is free on Tuesdays from 5 to 9 p.m.
ArtFusion: F.O.O.D. will take place 6 to 9 p.m. March 12 at the Mint Museum Uptown. Admission for this event is free.