Item Details:

THE FOOD OF LOVE

THE EVERCLEVER ART COLLECTIVE (1953-)

CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURE, 2023

Retro toaster and simulated vinyl records

Size: 10.25 x 8 x 10.75 in; 36.3 x 20.3 x 27.3 cm

Signed and numbered on the bottom

Inspired by the opening line from Act 1 Scene 1 in William Shakespeare's the Twelfth Night:

Even though it is a comedy, based on a day of partying, Twelfth Night still deals with some serious themes. Romantic love, family love and even the love of love are all presented, as is the question of appearance and reality.

"If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die."

In the play, Orsino asks for the musicians to give him so much musical love-food that he will overdose (“surfeit”) and cease to desire love any longer. Through these words, Shakespeare introduces the image of love as something unwanted, something that comes upon people unexpectedly and that is not easily avoided.

Brought into the present technological context, this assisted readymade sculpture is a visual contradiction, where any practical operation of the toaster would quickly destroy the record, just as in the opening lines of the play where the male main character wishes to overdose on music's love fuel in order to eliminate desire which can cause pain from its unpredicatability.

Through this connection, the play raises the question of whether romantic love has more to do with the reality of the person who is loved or with the lover’s own imagination. For Orsino and Olivia, both of whom are willing to switch lovers at a moment’s notice, imagination often seems more powerful than reality.