FROM READY-MADE TO REDDI-WHIP
The Art of Coleslaw Baklava
Coleslaw Baklava
This satire of contemporary art revolves around an invented artist, one Coleslaw Baklava, who - not surprisingly - found inspiration in food for his unique version of “identity art”. Indeed, issues of food and consumption are the literal as well as metaphorical keys to deciphering the layered content of Baklava’s work and psyche. The literal aspect found voice in such “found object” works as the frontally presented jars of ingredients used to make the entities which constitute his name. Metaphorically, the work engages a richer evocation of the selection, preparation and expulsion of edibles as a complex language of symbols for all acts of incorporative materialism involving compulsive ritualistic human behavior, from war to performance pieces involving cabbage to simple acts of kindness.
To add a bit of history, Baklava, (born Kohleslaew Bakheleiva, Cleveland, Ohio), was first identified by his nom de guerre when insensitive schoolmates foisted an obvious phonetic corruption upon the alienated and overweight youth. The young – and I do mean young – artist propelled himself from a life of utter banality into the realm of creative wunderkind (having won a MacArthur Genius Award at the age of 8) through the act of contextualization whereby any gesture, intentional or not, conscious or sub-conscious, was imbued with meaning when transported to a white-walled art venue from, say, a Safeway parking lot. Indeed, Baklava mined many such public spaces (including several parking lots), fueling his existential yearnings through appropriation of carefully arranged stacks of plastic throw-a-ways, painted road directional signs and colossal piles of rust, dust and structures gone bust.
One (that is to say, myself) might be forced to admit that this project could be seen as a mere extrapolation of the “Put a Sock in It” satire of Modernism (referenced on this website), and perhaps that is so. Certainly the juxtaposition of high culture and ordinary human ritualistic behavior has proven fertile in the past. But regurgitation of numbing clichés – like all regurgitation – is a creative act of which Baklava would strongly approve - as long there is a nice looking catalogue and intimidating, indecipherable wall text.
Speaking of catalogues, the eight pages pictured here are excerpted from the twenty-eight that constitute the entire Baklavian work. Consequently, the narrative is a bit jumbled, with no beginning and no end. Heavy stuff to be sure!
