Stephanie Dean, Modern Groceries
Stephanie Dean presents us with photographs that are reminiscent of the Northern Renaissance Flemish still life paintings. Because these paintings from the past have an iconic quality, the first glance at Dean's Modern Groceries takes the viewer to that time and place.
However, these compositions are completely modern as we begin to notice labels, packaging, and plastic bags. The lighting that Dean achieves connotes the paintings we are familiar with in museums as do the drapes and table finery. We are brought back into the present by the labels that reveal that the food items are from all around the world, boast of being organic, and Styrofoam takes center stage.
These art pieces bear witness to the ongoing saga of humanity's relationship with food and all that it symbolizes.
Michael Pollan has explored this subject in a series of books and most recently has observed our progression away from cooking and toward prepared food. He points out that past generations, when they wanted to have chicken for dinner, would have caught, killed, and cleaned a live chicken. This idea is foreign to most people today. Likewise, future generations will look in wonderment at most acts of cooking (peeling, chopping, measuring, combining, waiting, etc) as equally foreign and absurd. However, Pollan holds out some optimism for the ritual and tradition of cooking, meal time, and food preparation.
What resonates here is the profound relationship between people and food. By presenting Modern Groceries with the visual queues of the past, Dean has created a timeless visual result.
The Art Institute of Chicago collection of European still life paintings has many dazzling examples of which these three connect with Stephanie Dean's work aesthetically and thematically: Paolo Antonio Barbieri, (attributed to) Italian, 1603–1649 Kitchen Still Life, c. 1640; Paul Theodor van Brussel, Dutch, 1754-1795,Still Life: Fruit and Flowers, 1787; Pieter Claesz, Dutch, 1597/98–1660, Still Life, c. 1625:
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