Projects 69: Julia Jacquette

Projects 69: Julia Jacquette features an innovative series of paper plates, cups, and napkins, printed with text and artwork created by the New York-based painter specifically for these formats. Organized by Judith B. Hecker, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, Projects 69 was conceived for the inauguration of Café/Etc. Starting November 12, patrons of the café will be served food and drink using these works.

Café/Etc. serves as a multimedia lab for the presentation and study of art using new technologies. In addition to a café and bar, Café/Etc. features film and video installations, computer kiosks with digital media, a bookstore, and coin-operated replicas of the Edison Company’s original kinetoscopes from the 1890s. The space will also be used for artist talks, musical performances, educational events, and the presentation of works from the Projects series.

“With this project, Jacquette’s work takes on an inventive and assertive new format,” commented Ms. Hecker. “It reaches a broader audience and furthers the artist’s inquiries into the relationships between food, people, and desire.”

Jacquette’s art explores multiple types of human longings. Her paintings of all-American food dishes, many popular in the 1950s, include elaborate desserts, platters of hors d’oeuvres, and hearty main courses. They are highly charged images of food that, in the context of her work, transcend their primary identification as something merely edible. By overlaying her images with erotic phrases that play on common culinary adages, Jacquette creates metaphors for bodily presence, emotional sentiment, and cultural attitudes toward gender.

For her project at MoMA, Jacquette has created five different images, each overlaid with a segment of the statement, “Every Moment of My Day I Think of Pressing My Lips Against Yours While I Hold Your Body Against Mine.” The series includes a cup that pictures hot fudge being drizzled on vanilla cake and ice cream, a beverage napkin that depicts a brownie topped with ice cream and streams of hot fudge, a lunch napkin with two robust raspberry cream puffs, a dessert plate with a banana split punctuated with two tufts of whipped cream and maraschino cherries, and a sandwich plate that pictures a generous T-bone steak sliced open and prepared rare. Projects 69 invites the viewer to go beyond looking and to use these works, providing a direct encounter with the issues explored. Packaged plates, cups, and napkins will also be available for purchase in the Café/Etc. Bookstore and The MoMA Design Store.

Projects 69
Julia Jacquette
Kurator: Judith B. Hecker