Small Potatoes
2020
bronze
3" x 3" x 3"
The potato is born humble, in the dark, as the swollen end of an underground stem[1], a subterranean afterthought, the subconscious of the Solanum tuberosum. Its eyes grow towards the light.
The lump of starch held within its fine periderm has persisted through processes and processing of all sorts: domesticated in Tawantinsuyu[2] during Prehistory, colonized by the Spanish in the 16th century, translated into Cinderella by the French[3] — who still contest Belgium’s claim as the progenitor of French fries — repeatedly tied to class by artists[4], and here, cast in bronze through the aptly named process of organic burnout.
The bland and unassuming tuber, existing in over 4000 varieties and unrivalled in gastronomic versatility, has been processed to the point of banality[5]. Through its ubiquity — its omnipresence across culture, geography, and time — the potato returns to where it came from, woven into the landscape.
[1] Indeed a rhizome, not a root.
[2] The Inca Empire
[3] I.e. ‘pomme de terre.’ Francis Ponge perhaps best epitomized this romanticization in his poem of the same title that described boiling potatoes as a humble transfiguration.
[4] Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters is the most obvious example but the history is rich. Jane Agnes (pen name: Speranza; also, Oscar Wilde’s mom) lamented the potato with regard to the famine named after it, Pablo Neruda indigenized the potato, and Ira and George Gershwin’s song Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off politicized its phonetics — potato vs. potahto.
[5] Case in point: Mr. Potato Head
2020
bronze
3" x 3" x 3"
The potato is born humble, in the dark, as the swollen end of an underground stem[1], a subterranean afterthought, the subconscious of the Solanum tuberosum. Its eyes grow towards the light.
The lump of starch held within its fine periderm has persisted through processes and processing of all sorts: domesticated in Tawantinsuyu[2] during Prehistory, colonized by the Spanish in the 16th century, translated into Cinderella by the French[3] — who still contest Belgium’s claim as the progenitor of French fries — repeatedly tied to class by artists[4], and here, cast in bronze through the aptly named process of organic burnout.
The bland and unassuming tuber, existing in over 4000 varieties and unrivalled in gastronomic versatility, has been processed to the point of banality[5]. Through its ubiquity — its omnipresence across culture, geography, and time — the potato returns to where it came from, woven into the landscape.
[1] Indeed a rhizome, not a root.
[2] The Inca Empire
[3] I.e. ‘pomme de terre.’ Francis Ponge perhaps best epitomized this romanticization in his poem of the same title that described boiling potatoes as a humble transfiguration.
[4] Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters is the most obvious example but the history is rich. Jane Agnes (pen name: Speranza; also, Oscar Wilde’s mom) lamented the potato with regard to the famine named after it, Pablo Neruda indigenized the potato, and Ira and George Gershwin’s song Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off politicized its phonetics — potato vs. potahto.
[5] Case in point: Mr. Potato Head