Sweet Symphony in mind

They were served in plastic cups. The cheeky blue and pink marshmallow ropes peeking over the rim announced the good news, the fulfilment of a promise: when the unpleasant work is done, you will get your reward. In desperation, my mother resorted to what the general public might misinterpret as a dubious act of blackmail, but which in pedagogy is recognised as positive reinforcement. but is recognised in pedagogy as positive reinforcement, that each of us received these cups filled with foam sugar and our mother used them to feed our extrinsic motivation to clean up the children's room in the future. While my brother devoured the foam sugar, I waited. Between counting out marshmallows and eating marshmallows, I timed and doubled the reward. Looking into my full cup and his empty one, I savored my triumph of having tricked the craving and postponed the indulgence. In victory over my own carnal desire, which found its confirmation in my brother's envy, the sweet tasted even sweeter. But although each marshmallow had to be the same because of its industrial manufacture, a stronger bitter aftertaste intruded as each twisted rope was eaten. The final empty cup in my hand, I felt ashamed of my meanness. The superiority initially enjoyed in sibling rivalry over my brother's greed dissolved like the foam sugar on my tongue.
How we would have liked a supersize marshmallow rope, a sweet with no discernible end, pleasure without conscience. Attractive in the imagination - but realised the trace of a shiver seizes us. Something in us resists pleasure in the face of the oversized. It is as if the full-bodied sweetness could only exist in its limitedness. Yet we can't help but be drawn to it. The drug sugar, evolutionarily determined, sugar as a quick energy supplier. Everything that is sweet is not poisonous. Dulcedo - this was the term used in medieval theology to describe the experience of the divine. My foam sugar experience is more one of shame and childish wickedness than dulcedo, even years later, dripping over the campfire, marshmallows never wanted to be just sweet.
Great fun every night. When I ask what it's like growing up with sannyasins, he says with a smile, my parents invited friends over for dinner and everyone ended up throwing avocados at each other. My eyelids twitch. The idea of a group of adults getting their knickers in a twist with the then rare fruit creates an alienating feeling in me. Don't pan with food!, my parents' admonition abruptly echoes in me. 35 years ago, the idea of sustainability lacked the omnipresence of today, but food care was considered an irrevocable value. I therefore interpret beetroot on white walls and tomato stains on collars as evidence of an involuntary clumsiness. In my friend's household, they were traces in search of the inner child. The desire to defy parental prohibition is something I also feel now, but the desire to throw the avocado without a moral burden does not quite want to arise despite the greatest effort to be uninhibited, even in the knowledge of an increased pleasure in breaking taboos. Extracting the juice from a plum or dissecting a grape is not part of the sannyasis' practice; the path to enlightenment is different. Nevertheless, there is an inherent playfulness in experimenting with fruit and vegetables that leads to insights in a try-and-error process, in a laboratory that is not a laboratory but a studio. The sensual reveals itself not only to the palate, but also to the spirit, in the joy of surprise and the expectation of the unexpected. and the expectation of the unexpected.

​

The works of the artists Anneke Kleimann and Evelyn Möcking are made of food. Both use food such as fruit, vegetables, sugar and gelatine as materials for their artistic production. The works are thus directly related to the action days of 16.10.2021, World Food Day, World Hunger Day, Boss Day, World Bread Day, Saint Gall Day and Sweetest Day, the opening day of the exhibition "Chemical Memories" as part of PALACE projects. At the same time, the works expand the action days with their specific artistic perspective, emphasising the abundance of food, the artificial production of it in Western society, but also its aesthetic quality.

"Chemical Memories" appeals to the senses, awakens memories and emphasises the aesthetics of the materials and their sculptural value: Kleimann's pastel-coloured sculptures made of home-made foam sugar are juxtaposed with Möcking's glass objects filled with extracted fruit and vegetable substrates as well as food colouring and slush syrup.

Evelyn Möcking obtains the colours of these liquids by soaking vegetable products such as algae, gooseberries, elderberries and cherries in ethanol. Möcking has been creating this colour archive for more than 3 years and it has been in a constant process ever since: The biological colours change depending on their properties and light intensity. Playing with the world of bio-colours is experimental, but also frustrating: sometimes gradients emerge, contrasts form, colour meets colour and both remain as they are. Then the experiment is successful. Sometimes the colours mix, then you have to start all over again. The artificial ones resist this game and, as a syrup, can only serve as a base or as the top liquid: They are thus the first and last instance. Behind glass it then becomes apparent: the natural ones change, depending on time and light intensity, the artificial ones remain as they are: Process and decay - so close to life - versus constancy and durability. Möcking presents the colours in modified laboratory glassware, thus emphasising the proximity between art and science. A kaleidoscope framed in an aesthetic experimental setup.

While Möcking uses preparation methods and experiments to create works whose outward appearance distances them from the actual material, Kleimann explores the sculptural potential of foam sugar:

She pours the self-prepared, edible and liquid marshmallow into large negative moulds and recreates typical shapes, such as the twisted marshmallow rope or the sugar chain. In long drying phases, the sugar masses harden and preserve themselves due to the high sugar content. The origin of the marshmallow lies in 11th century Europe. At that time, the candy was sometimes made from a mallow plant that served as a medicinal plant. Nowadays, we know the candy mainly because of its popularity in the USA. There, the sweet buns are grilled over the fire, dipped in cocoa or used to create spreads. Fluffy, pink and easily digestible, they also seem like symbols of the American supersize craze and consumerism. American supersize mania and consumer fetish.

The sculptures by Kleimann and Möcking seduce with fleshy colourfulness and super-sweet mass, emphasise sensuality and indulgence and unmistakably allow sin to stand next to science.

​

During the entire exhibition period, printed sugar sachets will be available will be available at the Eiscafé Stefan da Roberto.

We are happy about the cooperation!

 

The works by Evelyn Möcking were realised in cooperation with

reSchmiede Düsseldorf. Many thanks for that!


Text: Christina Möcking

Poster: Max Kostopoulos

3D-Renderings: Daniel Nehring

Trailer: Evelyn Möcking




PALACE projects are supported by the Kulturamt Düsseldorf and
Stiftung Kunstfonds/Neustart Kultur.