Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night while in the Saint-Rémy asylum in 1889. Vincent’s room in the asylum looked out on the eastern sky. He painted The Starry Night as a panoramic vista spreading out into an almost infinite distance under a tumultuous sky ablaze with stars. Is it possible that his depression could have been mitigated by the therapeutic application of pork? Sadly, the world will never know.
Artist CopperTwist shared a how-to for building your own bacon-studded Starry Night in her Van Gogh for Breakfast article here. Of course, this isn’t the first time meat has been turned toward the purposes of creativity, and we’re sure it’s not the last. For example…
Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef, 1954 painting by Francis Bacon
Irish-born artist Francis Bacon(!) painted Head Surrounded by Sides of Beef in 1954. His work is in many important collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
In a less-subtle display of carni-virtuosity, Lady Gaga strutted her stuff in a dress made of meaty morsels at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. PETA had this to say about her dress: “Meat is the decomposing flesh of a tormented animal who didn’t want to die, and after a few hours under the TV lights, it would smell like the rotting flesh it is and likely be crawling in maggots—not too attractive, really.” I hear Gaga still isn’t over that one.
Model Vida Guerra dons a spicy bikini for PETA. Photo by Patrick Ryan
While I appreciate the creativity of those who aren’t afraid to take on meaty artistic challenges, for the time being, I’ll stick to creative cooking. But who knows…perhaps someone will don a chile pepper bikini for the 2012 Fiery Foods Show? Oh, wait. PETA already did it! Wearing nothing but a chile pepper bikini, men’s magazine model and vegetarian Vida Guerra marked National Veggie Dog Day (July 14, 2010) by handing out veggie chili dogs in the rain outside the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. Thanks to photographer Patrick Ryan for letting us share his photo of said bikini. Check out his photography and his blog at snarkinfested.com.
If you’ve seen an interesting use of food as art, let us know! Burn-blog email
Lois Manno
Latest posts by Lois Manno (see all)
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