Cake Boys

BACKGROUND: This work extends my research into subjecthood, representation, desire, and the gaze through an examination of the limits of photographic representation. Applying a practice-led creative research methodology, the project interrogated the tension between photography as an archival technology and photography as a performative event (Ariana Azoulay). Curator and photographic theorist Charlotte Cotton identifies a connection between cakes and celebrations and vernacular or snapshot photography, noting that photography is often employed as a technology to mark these significant moments. Printing these photographic works onto cakes creates a tension between these works as a document and a temporal event. To consume the cake paradoxically limits the ability to continue to consume it as an art object. The impermanence of the cake also serves as a memento mori as it highlights the fleeting nature of physical beauty. CONTRIBUTION: This project consisted of an installation of two inkjet photographic prints printed using vegetable inks onto sheet icing which was applied to two cakes approximately 20 x 30 x 8cm. The images on these cakes were of attractive young men in domestic environments. The cakes were installed in the gallery space and eaten by gallery patrons at the end of the event. The research found that a complex relationship exists between photography as an archival technology that records and documents and photography as a site of contested meanings, temporalities and slippages. SIGNIFICANCE: These new works were commissioned by curators at New York’s Pioneer Works gallery for inclusion in the 2017 program. Pioneer Works is a significant not-for-profit gallery based in Brooklyn with an advisory board including HRH Princess Eugenie of York, Shirin Neshat and David Byrne. Artists who have previously shown at the gallery include Nan Goldin, Andy Warhol, Douglas Gordon and Yoko Ono.