Art Basel Miami: Jennifer Rubell
Directors Jauretsi and Crystal Moselle Ask Artists at the 2010 Art Fair About Life
Food artist Jennifer Rubell was inspired by Goldilocks and her insatiable appetite for her latest project Just Right. Raised amid the Duchamps, Basquiats and Warhols of the Rubell Family Collection––one of the most prestigious in the contemporary art world––the artist has adopted the tradition of creating an annual Breakfast Project for guests at her family's gallery during the fair. Not your everyday party planner, Rubell’s meals metamorphose into art pieces: for her 2009 installation “Old Fashioned” she hung 1,521 doughnuts on a wall and invited spectators to eat them (and put them back on the wall half-eaten), while for her Brooklyn Museum show in 2010 she created a giant ballroom-sized Andy Warhol piñata and cast her own head in fontina cheese. With degrees from Harvard (Fine Arts) and the Culinary Institute of America, as well as numerous articles on food to her credit, Rubell’s projects merge visual and actual feasts, at the same time liberating her guests from the confines of the art world––perhaps a reaction to growing up in a house dotted with “Do Not Touch” signs. Visitors attending her breakfast this week (taking place on December 1–5 at Art Basel Miami), will be transported through a secret hole in a wall, past a small backyard and into a derelict building containing Goldilocks’ favored fare––bowls of porridge, brown sugar, raisins and milk, all of which are free to be consumed and enjoyed. Directors Jauretsi and Crystal Moselle filmed Rubell at the site while she took a sledgehammer to a wall, creating the entrance that will lead visitors to her fairytale feast.