A Waste of Food?

Designed to be photographed the edible hats were never in fact eaten. Instead, they clearly violated the taboo of manipulating food for purposes other than consumption. Some critics assert that using food in this manner is a waste and that it is irresponsible and offensive considering that many go hungry. Jana Sterbak's Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic, 1987, a dress sewn out of 50lbs of raw flank steak, has been criticised by many as a waste of food. In 1991 two hundred people mailed food scraps to the National Gallery of Canada, where it was being shown, in protest.(1) Alicia points out, however, that the much greater expense of producing art from some other materials could equally be employed to feed the hungry and that using food in art does not perpetuate world hunger or a culture of waste.

(1) Mikkelson, Barbara ‘The Meat Dress', http://www.snopes.com/politics/arts/meatdress.asp

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