The Art of Food:

From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation
August 20, 2024 – March 8, 2025

Exhibition

In its most everyday sense, food is a physical necessity, yet its overall significance goes far beyond sustenance. Food is integral to our communities, relationships, cultures, and languages. People interact with food on varying levels. Some of us grow or gather it; more of us buy it. We transform it by cutting, cooking, and dressing it with spices, marinades, and garnishes. We use food as an intermediary to connect with others through holiday meals, business lunches, dates, and more.

Our food choices also carry ethical implications. What we eat affects and is affected by an intricate global food chain. We fight over food. We deny food to some as a tool of suppression and cultural erasure. We fear for our health, the challenge of feeding a growing global population, and the effects of climate change on food production. These topics are especially relevant at WSU Pullman, a land-grant university with research and scholarship rooted in agriculture and food sciences.

Featuring more than 100 works in a variety of media from the renowned collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation, The Art of Food showcases how some of the most prominent artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have considered this universal subject. Organized thematically, it uses an artistic lens to examine the subject of food beyond its purpose as body fuel.

Presented by the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU and curated by Olivia Miller at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Funding for this exhibition is provided by the David G. Pollart Center for Arts and Humanities, the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Endowment, and friends of the museum.

Location

The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU is located in the Crimson Cube (on Wilson Road across from Martin Stadium and the CUB) on the WSU Pullman campus.

Exhibition Artworks

To view selected artworks from the exhibition, click on the arrows after each image, or click the individual work to scroll through full size images of the works.