[Chemist is part of Full Mime Jobs]

Gurgone lab, 2019.

Chalk, acrylic glazing, powdered pigments, aluminum, steel, plastic.

Variable size, in the picture: 1000x140x35 cm.

Installation view Pastificio Cerere, Rome.

Ph. courtesy RUFA University.

Gurgone lab is a fake chemical laboratory that the artist set up to create artefacts treated as small creatures or experiments, which take the form of real food. The idea starts with the intention to get people to interact with food. Not only food is a primary good that involves a large part of our daily lives; it also can be seen as a contemporary perversion, a category where the obsessive quest for apparent aesthetics and illusionary standards of beauty, driven by trends that are bound to change quickly, find room.

In 2019, 1600 berries - strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries - were presented and displayed. Participants were asked to choose a single fruit from the ones on display to pack and take home.

The fruit becomes evidence of an intimate and personal selection, based on unique parameters that inevitably preclude all other possibilities. At the same time, the gaps that appear on the stands prove and illustrate a poll of preference.

In the process of choosing the fruit, some people take their time, others follow their instinct, and other people are unable to make a decision: the game is also about discovering how those who are unable to make a choice try to escape the rule.