Alla Georgieva will cook Frankenstein’s Dinner

Sariev Galery in Plovdiv

Presents:

Alla Georgieva

Frankenstein’s Dinner

solo exhibition
7 December 2010 – 28 January 2011

Opening: 7 December 2010


Cooking Show: Frankenstein’s Dinner

Performance, 7 December 2010, 7 p.m.

Alla Georgieva’s presence on the Bulgarian and international art scene is long-term and
meaningful. The most frequently recurrent themes in her works are the tempting, fascizoid face of
modern-day fetishes, the mimicry of cruelty as innocence in human relationships, and the presence
of psychopathology and trauma in apparently idyllic situations. She works with photography,
installations, objects, video and oil painting.
More specifically, her works tackle such painful issues as violence in childhood (Happy Birthday!,
2003); the place of women as sexually exploited objects in East European societies (Bulgarian
Souvenirs, 2006–2010) and the concept of borders in the love relationships of the great leaders
and dictators in history (On Love, great and small, 2008).


The exhibition and performance Frankenstein’s Dinner at the Sariev Gallery addresses the
problem of harmful and noxious foods offered on contemporary food markets and our growing
tendency to consume more with the eyes than the mouth. “Food has lost its innocence,” the artist
says. “The only place where we can still find harmless, innocent food are the still lifes of previous
centuries”.


The exhibition’s centerpiece is a series of four 50x70 cm natures mortes photographs digitally
printed on cloth – a modern-day interpretation of the popular Dutch and Flemish still lifes from the
17th century, the Golden Age of the Netherlands, when gourmet food became one of the country’s
national symbols. Still lifes during this period were a lucrative business supporting an army of over
2 000 artists, which are directly refered to in the photographs. Using 17th c. themes and
compositions, Alla Georgieva has prepared meals from some of the most harmful foods available
on the contemporary market and arranged them in 21st c. flasks and basins for chemical and
medical experiments. The works simultaneously highlight the dangers of contemporary food
making and consumption, and comment on the place of artists in the capitalist situation where
artworks are subject to market manipulation as much as any other product. We are suddenly
aware that a classical late-Renaissance still life and a glamorous contemporary junk food advert
could be used to the same market end.


Cooking Show: Frankenstein’s Dinner is a parody of TV cooking shows, making use of popular
cooking myths, utopias, chemical experiments and advertizing ploys. The performers prepare
“beautifully looking, tasty and nutritious” dishes from the most harmful ingredients available on the
Bulgarian market.

The performance is related to the photographic series Frankenstein’s Recipes –
five 40x60 cm color photographs of similarly prepared “gourmet” foods.


Frankenstein’s Dinner at the Sariev Gallery is the first part of Alla Georgieva’s long-term project
To Eat or not To Eat, which examines eating as a historical, social, philosophical, political and
cultural phenomenon.

The title of the exhibition is derived from Frankenstein food – the
Greenpeace term for genetically modified foods.


Alla Georgieva is born in Kharkov, Ukraine. Lives and works in Sofia.


SARIEV GALLERY, 40 Otets Paisiy str., Plovdiv 4000, Bulgaria, www.sariev-gallery.com

Katrin Sarieva, + 359 888 221 302, katrin@sariev-gallery.com

Vesselina Sarieva, + 359 888 520 375, vesselina@sariev-gallery.com