Il Gusto nell'era postmediale: per una lettura in chiave individuale e sociale del cibo nell'arte contemporanea

This dissertation analyzes the relationship between food and visual arts since the Eighties to today. Given the variety of aesthetic researchs and the medial and postmedial solutions adopted by the artists, the interpretive criteria led to the classification of the works by two macro-categories: Individual body and Social body. The first section is dedicated to the works that explore the relationship between food and the individual, in relation to the renewed interest on issues of physicality and identity in the last three decades. The second section is instead dedicated to the works that investigate the relationship between food and society, with particular attention to the works that have highlighted aspects of food as a social catalyst (relational and partecipatory art) and that have placed the institutions at the center of their reflection. Moreover, a big space is devoted to the occurrences of food as part of a spectacular aesthetic and as a mere divertissement. This research aims also to understand how the food, given the frequency of its use and the variety of its forms in contemporary art, can be considered as a medium in itself, with its tradition, its canon and its precise internal rules, and, conversely, the extent to which food and gastronomy can be considered art.