Stewing Spices

 

1994

 

Integrating spices common to Chinese cooking with ancient Chinese script, this installation inserted a gently and aromatically insistent cultural presence into a contemporary modernist art gallery. I borrowed from an oracle bone script (c. 1100 B.C., Shang dynasty) containing the linguistic radicals representing “fire,” “pleasure” and “culture,” which when combined create the character for “brew.” The script was carved directly into the plaster of the drywall covering the stairwell walls of the gallery, and the resulting niches were then stuffed with the stewing spices.

 

 


 


media: cloves, licorice, cinnamon, fennel seed, dried pepper, dried aniseed, dried ginger, plaster
dimensions: 40’ W x 17’ H x 0.5” D

 

Curated by Louise Dompierre for “Naked State: A Selected View of Toronto Art,” The Power Plant, Toronto.