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San Jose Museum of Art presents Around the Table: Food, Creativity, Community

The San Jose Museum of Art presents Around the Table: Food, Creativity, Community on view through April 20, 2014..

Around the Table: food, creativity, community will unfold in three stages at SJMA and extend far beyond the Museum walls as 31 partnering organizations throughout the Bay Area—an epicenter of agriculture and “foodie” culture—present related programs and resources through the spring of 2014.

Around the Table opens with a preface—a labyrinthian installation that examines the notion of daily bread in a personal light. Jitish Kallat: Epilogue will occupy the entirety of SJMA’s South Gallery September 6, 2013 – April 20, 2014. In Epilogue, internationally acclaimed artist Jitish Kallat honors his late father through a series of photographs of progressively eaten roti (traditional Indian flatbread). Each image represents one of the 22,500 moons that illuminated the night sky during his father’s 62-year lifespan. Kallat tracked the lunar cycle from 1936 to 1998 in order to recreate each night’s moon in roti; no two frames are the same.

On November 9, 2013, the second phase of Around the Table: food, creativity, community opens with special projects and select works by 29 additional contemporary artists. The exhibition revolves around three primary subject areas: healthful eating, food and community, and food issues. Seventeen of the featured artists are creating new work commissioned by SJMA for the exhibition, in which they will tackle topics that range from the histories of breadmaking to mutagenic foods. Artists represented will be: Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik; Center for Genomic Gastronomy (Zackery Denfeld and Cathrine Kramer); Eating in Public (Gaye Chan and Nandita Sharma); Emilie Clark; Pablo Cristi; Sergio de la Torre; Karla Diaz; Fallen Fruit (David Burns and Austin Young); Angela Filo; Futurefarmers (Dan Allende, Ian Cox, Amy Franceschini, and Lode Vranke); Julia Goodman; Robert Karimi; Laura Letinsky; Katja Loher; Kara Maria; Susan O’Malley; Matthew Moore; Phil Ross; Valerie Soe; Kirsten Stolle; Haruko Tanaka; David Taylor; Sam Van Aken; War Gastronomy (Justin Hoover and Chris Treggiari); Dawn Weleski; Rosemary Williams; Chelsea Wills; Mario Ybarra, Jr.; and Rene Yung. The Around the Table exhibition will be on view November 9, 2013 – April 20, 2014.

The third stage of Around the Table, entitled “Talk Around the Table” opens on December 19 and remains on view through April 20, 2014. This participatory social space is an ever-changing gallery where visitors will experience hands-on activities, view documentaries, share ideas about food via social media, and access additional information. “Talk Around the Table” will also showcase documentation of performance art pieces that will take place throughout the community during the exhibition.

For more information, call 408-271-6840 or visit www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org