RECIPES. (THE SOUNDS OF THE SOUP. THE BODY OF THE SOUP), November-December
2000

Chuykova Masha

This project brings together a series of individual works, created by Chuikova during 1999/2000.

These works, under the general title "A Widely Read Housewife", comprise of performances, videos, installations, photographs, paintings, sculptures and dinners.

The conceptual basis of the project is the analysis of gender roles, imposed upon women by the cultural codes of society which reserves traditional areas of the house and particularly the kitchen for the woman. Social norms require her to be educated, intellectual and highly professionally skilled. The two main elements of the installation – objects of cookery and books on contemporary philosophy – are used in an ironic manner by the artist to examine the conflict of the housekeeping/intellectual roles assumed by woman/man. This conflict has a further, common-to-all-mankind meaning, viz., "food for the soul" and "food for the body".

The description of the project:

1. Audio installation "The Sounds of the Soup". Music by Sergei Zagny.
In one of the gallery halls 7 saucepans standing on plinths made of books on postmodernist philosophy are installed. From each of the saucepans different sounds accompanying the process of making soup(boiling water, chopping vegetables, a sound of a grater or rumbling of a lid, hissing of frying vegetables, etc.) should come. These sounds individually and together, in fact, form a musical composition.

2. Video projection on the wall – a film showing the metamorphosis of the vegetable sculptures. The camera watches them day after day as they turn from fresh into rotten or dried-up vegetables.

3. Video installation "The Body of the Soup".
In the tight space of the hall books on philosophy are hanging on clothes-lines. A video projection of boiling borsch comes from a projector fixed on the ceiling washing over the books and falling onto the floor.

4. Catalogue
A catalogue of the exhibition contains color print drawings based on the original recipes of the artist. Also included are theoretical texts by A. Alchuk and E. Petrovskaya.

The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia