The Invisible Dog Art Center is thrilled to present Nafas, an exhibition and a five-week festival to open on September 10, 2022 until October 15th, for the launch of our 14th season.
“In Arabic, nafas is a breath or a spirit. But in the context of cooking, nafas is much more than that, it’s the energy some people possess that makes their meals not only good but exceptional” wrote cookbook author Reem Kassis.*
The artists gathered by Lucien Zayan, Director of The Invisible Dog are all working with and around food. In their painting, sculpture, drawing, video, installation, photography, embroidery, writing, cuisine and performance, they bring this indefinable breath that makes their art exceptional.
For the past four years, food has become an important part of The Invisible Dog. In 2018, Lucien Zayan created SAM (la Salle A Manger), a private dining room in which he cooks sophisticated and intimate dinners for artists, friends and supporters. Naturally, from there came the desire to celebrate the union between food and art.
In his essay about the exhibition (read full essay here), Adam Dalva says:
[…] With this exhibition, we have another invocation to future memory: an omakase on Bergen Street, with a tasting menu of food of all stripes. When one first hears about a food show, one might perhaps stray toward imagining indulgent, fun, technicolor treats.
But of course, food is much more than saccharine sweets. Food is politics—the war in Ukraine is also a war of grain shortage. Food is body, with all its attendant dysmorphias and shames. Food is joyous cultural representation, but it’s also colonialism. The choicest vitamins are counterbalanced by the vilest carcinogens. In Joyce’s Ulysses, food is a seedcake, passed from lover to lover by a kiss that carries the promise of years of communion, but food is also the infidelity-representing potted meat that, many years later, one of those cheating lovers doesn’t even bother to clean from the marital bed.
Nafas is an exhibition that will invite each visitor to view exceptional artworks, created by exceptional artists, with an exceptional taste. The table becomes a gallery, the meals pieces of art, the dinner an exhibition, where guests bring their breath, their spirit, their own nafas.
Featured Artists (detailed bios here) : Mirna Bamieh, Meriem Bennani, Gabe Benzur*, Katie Butler, Chong Gon Byun*, Halsey Chait, Chang Ya Chin, Frida Foberg, Robin Frohardt, Carles Garcia O'Dowd, Jude Griebel, Margot Guralnick, Charles Hickey, Khaled Hourani, Chihiro ITO, Oliver Jeffers*, JR, Zhanna Kadyrova, Daniel Kukla, Steven and William Ladd, Spencer Merolla, Stephen Morrison*, Anne Mourier*, Prune Nourry, Jeremy Olson, Sarah Palmer*, Mac Premo*, María-Elena Pombo, Aaron Ruff*, Alana Salguero*, Takao Shiraishi, Adam Parker Smith, Elena Subach, Peter Treiber Jr. , Arjan Van Dal, Richard J. Vivenzio Jr, Pancho Westendarp and Maya Yadid.
Featured Performing Artists & Events (calendar of performances and events is here):
Niyoosha Ahmadikhoo , Benjy Bradshaw, Adam Dalva*, Julie Dind, Samuel Ezra Fisch, Corinne Fischer, Foodmasku, Frida Foberg, Garth Greenwell, Sherry Muyuan He, Raven Leilani, Sanaë Lemoine, William Mullan, Maho Ogawa, Brandon Taylor, Anne Terrail, Marisa Tornello and Allison Walker.
*Resident artists at The Invisible Dog
This exhibition is part of the Armory Show 2022 VIP Program.
On View
September 10–October 15, 2022
Opening Reception
Saturday September 10, 2022
7–10pm
Admission
RSVP - Opening Night
Location
51 Bergen St.
Gallery Hours
Thursday–Saturday: 1–7pm
Sunday: 1–5pm
The Exhibition will be closed to the public on Saturday September 17
The meaning of NAFAS? Read below
*Do You Have Nafas, the Elusive Gift That Makes Food Taste Better? by Reem Kassis for the New York Times