GASTRO-ART

Just a couple of invitations I’ve had in the last week or so, and since they’re both in London I’m obviously not going to be going to them, but it does give you some idea of just what a cool and connected guy I am.  (That's irony, right?)

First: the above from the Rocket Gallery, "MARTIN PARR : SAY CHEESE : POP-UP RESTAURANT - a Martin Parr dinner based on his classic food photographs.”  Well I love Martin Parr’s work a great deal, but most of the food in his photographs looks kind of revolting, deliberately so.  Still, there’s an entry on his blog about eating at El Bulli, so he’s obviously not a strictly meat and potatoes guy. 

The place did give him some ambivalent feelings however.  He writes, “By now it is 12.15am and we are ready to depart. Our banquet was four and a half hours long, and the service was never slow, the dishes just kept coming. The strange thing is that although we have had some of the most remarkable food we have ever tasted, the whole experience lacked the satisfaction of thinking what a great meal. The food lacked balance, not enough great things with vegetables and too overwhelmingly rich. However we would not have missed this for the world, as the meal felt like an unforgettable night at the theatre.”  Ferran Adrià obviously decided the show, or at least that particular show, didn’t have to go on.

Above is a photograph from a previous Martin Parr themed pop-up.  I am deeply intrigued by the girl at the front on the right.  Did she keep that mask on throughout the event?  That must have made eating really tricky for her.

Also in other news, Bompas and Parr (no relation) are doing a Journey to the Centre of the Gut.  To quote the press release.:  “Working with the one of the UK’s leading gastroentologist Dr Simon Anderson, Bompas & Parr present a fantastic voyage to the centre of Gizzi Erskine's gut.”  This is Gizzi Erskine.

“Following a short introduction on the medical practice of endoscopy and gastroenterology the food writer, pop-up chef and Sunday Times columnist will swallow a SynMed pill-cam. This will stream footage from within as the camera moves along the alimentary canal.

“The journey beyond the stomach will be scored by Dom James and his Alvine Argonauts who will play freeform jazz with peristaltic bass.

“The resulting footage will be used to illustrate a volume of Memoirs of a Stomach – an obscure 1853 diet book told from the perspective of a stomach. The art book combining scans of the volume with contemporary gastroentological photography will be printed as a limited edition run, distributed through selected bookshops in October.”

I really would like to be there for that one.  Oh, to be a jetsetter, like Parr, Parr and Bompas.”