Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

curated by Abbi Kenny and Luke Whittaker at Machines with Magnets

Look Who's Coming to Dinner is an installational group exhibition consisting of 22 American and international artists working in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, furniture, and ceramics. We installed the show at Machines with Magnets in Pawtucket, RI. It was available virtually on Artland. 

Our exhibition is a communal meal, but rather than actual food–the artwork takes its place. Within the context of the show, the “food” remains displayed and untouched while the guests of the gallery admire and converse–nibbling on short conversations of small talk and gossip. The gallery reshapes itself into a dining room. In this way, the gallery-goer becomes a diner. 

The artworks’ collective purpose is to replicate the dining environment. We set the table comprised of handmade tableware surrounded by walls hung with drawings and paintings mimicking the scene within. This exhibition aims to emphasize the experience and culture of collective dining. We focused on the importance of social encounters that have been suppressed by COVID. Though not directly dealing with the persisting effects of the pandemic, this show comes out of our current and lasting need for social connection found through dining. Our particular ambitions derive from the subsection “Dining Rituals” located in chapter “Manners of The Upper Body” of Edward Muir’s book, Ritual in Early Modern Europe: 

The distinction between eating merely to consume food and dining as a form of sociability inhabits the very core of what we call culture... nothing is more revealing of the basic assumptions of a culture than dining customs. (134) 

The exhibition’s purpose is not to focus on explicitly European dining traditions but to instead highlight the concept of dining culture and the social relationships of the diners. In this way, “…conversation is the real food, and the rituals of dining completely displace eating” (140). The individual, and their presence at the table, are just as important as the meal in front of them. In this same way, the viewer is as essential as the art in the gallery. 

images of the table installation of Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

including the works of: Callum Houck, Cecilia Emy, David Allyn, Emily Whynott, Lola Dement Myers, Lotte Kliros Walworth, Lucy Freedman, Maxime Jean Lefebvre, Olive Diamond, Reilly Blum, Samantha Tate, and Sarah Surprise

images of the installed wall hanging works

works pictured by Billy Frolov, Davis Arney, Eric Hibit, Jon Duff, Nellie Konopka, Samantha Tate, Sara French, Sarah Sieber, and Teddy Benfield

5 Legged Table by Reilly Blum and sculptural pieces by Rebecca Ackermann

additional images courtesy of Machines with Magnets

Artists included in the exhibition are Billy Frolov, Callum Houck, Cecilia Emy, David Allyn, Davis Arney, Emily Whynott, Eric Hibit, Isadora Pompa, Jon Duff, Lola Dement Myers, Lotte Kliros Walworth, Lucy Freedman, Maxime Jean Lefebvre, Nellie Konopka, Olive Diamond , Rebecca Ackermann, Reilly Blum, Samantha Tate, Sara French, Sarah Sieber, Sarah Surprise, and Teddy Benfield.