Gut Instinct: Art, Food and Feeling

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Gut Instinct Art, Food and Feeling





Contents

Foreword

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Gut Instincts: Feelings, Food and the Brain

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Gut Instinct: exhibition overview

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Gut Instinct: artist information Marina Abramović Sonja Alhäuser The Domestic Godless Elif Erkan Fiona Hallinan Siobhan McGibbon Abigail O’Brien Thomas Rentmeister Neil Shawcross

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Acknowledgements

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Foreword

The exhibition GUT INSTINCT explores the ways in which we feel about and experience food, highlighting research on the brain-gut axis that is pioneered by the APC Microbiome Institute at University College Cork. From the distinctive smell of Nutella to the historic connotations of bread in everyday life, the works on display cultivate an appreciation of the importance of our gut feelings and the science behind them. This guide provides a reection on the research themes that guided the curators, as well as an introduction to the artists selected for the exhibition. Support for Gut Instinct and the accompanying programme of artists’ talks, workshops and curatorial events has been generously provided by the APC Microbiome Institute, University College Cork, the Arts Council of Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and private philanthropy through Cork University Foundation. Professor Fergus Shanahan APC Microbiome Institute University College Cork, Ireland

Image: Thomas Rentmeister, detail of Untitled, 2012, Nutella on laminated chipboard

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Gut Instincts: Feelings, Food and the Brain Professor John Cryan

You visit your local market, you are hungry and you pass the chocolatier…. Right then a cacophony of signals are happening in your brain, and in your gut. You know it is not good for you – for your waistline or your bank account – but your feelings, instinctive and impulsive as they are, are already in competition with the sensory and anticipatory aspects of the confectionary masterpieces and the internal cognitive ability that enables you to decide whether to purchase it or not. This example of an internal conflict that informs how we feel and the decisions we make is the basis of the exhibition Gut Instinct: Art, Food and Feeling. How we feel is driven by both emotional and visceral signals. This has long permeated everyday language, art and literature, whereby we use gutrelated phrases to portray a raft of human emotions. These include “gutted” when we are disappointed, “gutsy” for bravery, “gut feelings” for your intuition, “gut wrenching” for extremely unpleasant or upsetting emotions, “butterflies in your tummy” for when you are nervous and “go with your gut” for impulsive responses. However, these phrases have been largely used in a metaphoric sense with the underlying rationale for their adaption into the vernacular left somewhat ignored, especially by the scientific community. Indeed, when I talk with my neuroscience colleagues about the relationship between the gut and the brain, it is often met with a response somewhere between bewilderment and scepticism. Neuroscientists by training are conditioned to think of only what is happening above the neck in terms of the regulation of our emotions. This is changing. Research, including that being carried out in APC Microbiome Institute in University College Cork, is literally turning this concept upside down, as we begin to fully realise 14


the importance of gut function and the food that we eat as critical to our mental wellbeing. Of course, some of the evidence of this brain-gut axis goes back much earlier.

The Man with the Hole in his Stomach On June 6, 1822, William Beaumont, a US Army Surgeon, was stationed in Fort Mackinac in rural Michigan when he came upon 19-year-old Canadian fur trapper Alexis St. Martin who had been accidently shot in the stomach. Through Beaumont’s interventions, St. Martin survived but a fistula or hole in his stomach remained, giving Beaumont a literal window into how the mechanics of digestion occurred. Beaumont took advantage of this to experiment on St. Martin – essentially making him his human guinea pig over many years – and these studies lay down the major tenets of digestion and how the gut works. Of particular interest was Beaumont’s discovery that emotion affected digestion - St. Martin, perhaps understandably, sometimes became irritable during the experiments! This opened up the concept that the brain influenced the gut, a concept that was also recognised by greats of modern biology such as Charles Darwin, Ivan Pavlov, William James, Claude Bernard and Walter Cannon.

Let Food be Thy Medicine The realisation of the importance of gut health and diet to overall health is not news to Hippocratic scholars. Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC), the father of Medicine, believed that “all disease begins in the gut” and proclaimed “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. However, with the emergence of pharmaceutical approaches to disease, society has somewhat forgotten that there is actually some validity to these ancient phrases. More recently, the advent of brainimaging studies has helped prove that the brain-gut axis originally described by Beaumont is bidirectional and that the gut can also influence the brain. Such studies show clear activation of key areas of the brain following certain diets and the stimulation of the gut. These approaches are also uncovering the role of the brain in integrating the emotional aspects of the “feelings” from the gut. We are now fully appreciating how “a state of gut” will markedly affect your 15


“state of mind”. In addition, the importance of a new player has emerged; the microbes within our gut (collectively known as the microbiome) has changed our understanding of this relationship dramatically.

We are living in a microbial word Advances in sequencing technology have allowed us to appreciate the extent of the numbers of the microbes in our intestines, which act as a bioreactor/fermenter, and whose sheer numbers are extremely humbling. According to the latest estimates, the human microbiota consists of a staggering ~100 trillion cells and in terms of genes we are >99% microbial. They weigh about 3lbs, similar to that of our brain. Understanding the intricate relationships with our microbiota has swiftly become one of the most exciting areas of modern biomedicine, and targeting it promises new ways of treatment in multiple disease conditions extending way beyond gastrointestinal disorders, from obesity to psychiatric and stress-related conditions.

Mother’s little helpers For the most part we are sterile before birth, acquiring our intestinal microbes immediately as we are being born, with the frontier bacteria being those obtained from our mothers as we pass through the birth canal. Several factors play a role in shaping the bacterial landscape in the infant. These include mode of delivery at birth, access to breast milk – which is rich in key sugars that only bacteria can digest, taking antibiotics, the environment we live in, and the individual’s own genetics. The importance that such alterations in the microbes have on health – including brain health – is slowly being unravelled. We know that without these little gut critters, things can go terribly awry in the brain. Animal studies have shown that in the absence of gut bacteria, brain structure and function are affected with alterations in memory and emotional states. When they are stressed they have much greater hormonal responses and can exhibit autistic patterns of behaviour. These findings lend credibility to the healthy effects of probiotics – bacteria with a health benefit. It is now becoming clear that 16


certain bacteria – we call them psychobiotics – might have a mental-health benefit too.

What’s bugging you? How exactly do gut bacteria influence the brain? We are still in the process of figuring it out, but the mechanisms are slowly becoming clear. Bacteria are little factories for producing chemicals that may influence our brains and our immune systems. However, we are still a long way from the development of clinically proven psychobiotics. Despite marketing claims to the contrary, most putative probiotics have no psychobiotic activity. Until recently, lax regulation in both the US and the European Union allowed manufacturers to make outlandish claims without supporting data. This situation is changing in order to protect consumers from fraudulent marketing, but the reality is that only a small percentage of bacteria tested have positive behavioural effects. Some bacteria fail to survive storage in the health food store or are eliminated by acidity in the stomach. Even if they do survive gut transit, they may be devoid of health benefits. Buyer beware.

It Takes Guts to Be Social One of the most surprising areas of our research on brain-gut interactions is the finding that in order to have normal social behaviour it is important to have appropriate bacteria in the gut. This leads us to question why on earth, from an evolutionary point of view, would we require bacteria in our gut to interact with others? Why are microbes so important for our feelings and especially for social behaviours? To answer this we have to remember that the microbes were there first and that all of human evolution, including evolution of brain and feelings, has occurred within a microbial milieu. Given the social nature of how we eat and the cultural importance of food to societies we can draw all sorts of scenarios from these findings – would no one have showed up for Babette's Feast, or would the Last Supper have been a solitary meal…?

Interoception Interoception is key for our understanding of gut instincts. It can be defined as the sense of the physiological condition of 17


the body. Interoceptive ability is relevant to ‘peripheral’ theories of emotion that date back to the work of the 19th Century philosopher William James who proposed a basis for emotional feelings in bodily physiology. From this it is thought that individuals who are more attuned to bodily responses experience emotions with heightened intensity. Does this influence the chocolate buying habits of our morning market strolls? Fast-forward to the 1990s when the work of Antonio Damasio and his colleagues at the University of Iowa allowed a growing appreciation that cognition is also embodied, and that cognitive and emotional processes are interlinked at a visceral level. Thus when Morrissey sang that “it takes guts to be gentle and kind” he was reflecting two centuries of science at the interface of philosophy, physiology, psychology and neuroscience.

Trust your gut? It's that classical conundrum – from human resources to buying those chocolates – do you go with your gut feeling or not? In a quote often (and probably incorrectly) attributed to Einstein: “the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift”. However, in our society, the legacy of intuition is less than inspiring. Freud quipped that it is "an illusion to expect anything from intuition" and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman has been showing that our intuitions systematically ignore important sources of information. Nonetheless, as we appreciate the wonders of the gut-brain signalling, this may change. Indeed, recent studies in traders in the London Stock exchange have shown that the interoceptive ability of traders predicted their relative profitability, and strikingly, how long they survived in the financial markets. Thus our ability to sense our (literal) gut feelings may be instrumental to our success in the world.

Food, Art & Feelings Food has long been the subject of works of art. In more recent times, artists have also examined eating behaviours and the way we handle food in our everyday lives as a way to comment 18


on contemporary society. From sculptural works that take on the aesthetic materiality of food, to works that test the boundaries of good taste and revulsion, Gut Instinct provides audiences with an opportunity to consider cutting edge questions in food, neuroscience and gastrointestinal research. In the 20th century, the major focus of microbiological research was on ďŹ nding ways to kill microbes via antibiotics. This century, the focus has changed somewhat, with a public recognition that bacteria may have beneďŹ cial effects on the immune system. Hopefully, they will soon also recognise that a healthy gut microbiome may be essential to happiness as well. There are an increasing number of threats to the diversity of our microbiota, such as antibiotic use, Caesarean delivery, bad diet, infection and stress. Future mental health strategies may need to consider these factors and work hard to protect healthy gut-brain communication. Gut Instinct explores both the visceral and emotional aspects of how we interact with food and our feelings, and suggests how artists are instinctively exploring the conversation between mind and microbiome so that we can all reect on the importance of our gut feelings.

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Gut Instinct Exhibition overview

The relationship between artists and food has a long history; from painted still life depictions of fruits and vegetables to the incorporation of food as a sculptural material to instances of artists running restaurants as sites of creative collaboration. Food is integral to everyday life, to our shared language, our interactions with others and our recollections of past events, and these ways in which food affects our behaviour is explored throughout Gut Instinct: Art, Food and Feeling. Drawing on the research undertaken by John Cryan, Professor and Chair, Anatomy and Neuroscience, University College Cork and his colleagues at the APC Microbiome Institute, the exhibition looks at the reciprocal relationship between brain and gut, the impact of digestion upon mental and emotional states, and how food affects and inspires us. The emotive connection that we have to what we eat is captured in Neil Shawcross’ paintings. His portrayals of tins of soup, bottles of ketchup, packets of cake mix and various foodstuffs are less about the brash consumerism of Warhol’s Pop Art and more about conveying the mixed emotional responses we have for particular comfort foods and products. The correlation between these two ‘brains’ – the state of gut and the state of mind – is captured in artworks that blur the distinctions between mind and body. In Siobhan McGibbon’s sculptures, pristine white legs emerge from enlarged, misshapen organs while her drawings – seen through microscope-like viewing devices attached to mechanical arms – depict microbes merging with simplified human forms. 23


Guilty Pleasures Elif Erkan employs an unusual approach to her materials, ‘feeding’ substances such as St. John’s Wort and Omega 3 into abstract plaster forms to reveal unexpected juxtapositions of the organic and the synthetic. The infusions either disappear into their materials or slowly, visibly, rot and decay. Named after the mythical Lotus Eaters who became addicted to the narcotic fruits of the lotus tree, Erkan’s sculptures are instead treated with natural medicines and herbal remedies. In Thomas Rentmeister’s Untitled, we encounter a vast, painted field of densely textured Nutella spread. Just as the scale of the work overwhelms the human viewer, the sheer amount of inedible sweetness is both enticing and revolting. In Rentmeister’s other work here, a rounded mound of rich brown resin recalls a giant sweet, a globule of chocolate that may have plopped down from his nearby painting – or could this too be something unappetising, a dropping of a different kind?

Acquired Tastes Our sense of taste can carry a powerful emotional charge, recalling past memories and stimulating new associations. Marina Abramovic's film The Onion offers a uniquely physical take on language and identity. In this recording of a live performance work, the artist eats a raw onion while recounting a litany of complaints: “I am tired of always falling in love with the wrong man. I am tired of being ashamed of my nose being too big, of my ass being too large”, with the camera offering an unflinching portrayal of her discomfort and disgust. Sonja Alhäuser’s detailed drawings can be both intimate and monumental in scale, combining anatomical diagrams and processes of ingestion to examine the rituals of eating. In her works, animals such as lions and fish erupt from human bodies, fluids transforms into plant matter, and skeletons float alongside bowls of soup. In her portrayals of feasts and harvests, figures and foodstuffs, Alhäuser employs mythological 24


references and symbolic allusions to consider the importance of how we eat for our mental and bodily states.

Dinner is served The wider cultural associations of food, its significance in the rituals and routines of everyday life, is also featured in Abigail O’Brien’s installation With Bread. Comprising sculptures, video and photography, her work reveals the role that bread plays in our shared culture: metallic loaves are arrayed across a series of tables, while, in her photographs, images of kneading and baking dough are named after her female artistic peers. An accompanying video work shows the slow-motion rising sourdough as it overflows from its jar. In Fiona Hallinan’s installation Patterned Activities, plate-like platforms suspended by cords and pulleys create an interactive site that serves as both a sculptural arrangement and a space for public events. The placement of potted houseplants and soft foam seating suggests a relaxed, informal atmosphere, where food is not simply a means of sustenance: instead, it serves to encourage conversation, communication and conviviality. In the work of The Domestic Godless, performative events introduce participants to strange – and often repulsive sounding – new recipes. Here, they have created an installation which explores notions of disgust and digestion and that includes anatomical drawings, fermented cabbage, and custom-made probiotic toothpastes and suppositories. Throughout Gut Instinct, food is explored as a means and subject of artistic practice, whether through the exchanges that happen around the dinner table or through the effects that certain foods can have on our emotional and bodily lives.

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Gut Instinct Artist information


Marina Abramović Born in Serbia, 1946 For Marina Abramović, the body has always been both subject and medium. Exploring her physical and mental limits in works that ritualise the simple actions of everyday life, she has withstood pain, exhaustion and danger in her quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. From 1975-88, Abramović and the German artist Ulay performed together, dealing with relations of duality. She returned to solo performances in 1989 and for her 2010 work The Artist Is Present, she sat motionless for at least eight hours per day over three months, engaged in silent eye-contact with hundreds of individual strangers. Marina Abramović was one of the first performance artists to have major solo exhibitions in galleries and museums including Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Neue National Galerie, Berlin; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford; Serpentine Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Wien; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She has also participated in international exhibitions including the 37th and 47th Venice Biennales and Documenta VI, VII and IX, Kassel. Marina Abramović has also established the MAI (Marina Abramović Institute) to support the future exploration and promotion of performance art. She is represented by Lisson Gallery, London and Sean Kelly Gallery, New York. Exhibition works The Onion 1995, video (colour, sound), 20’03” 10 minute performance for video, UTA Dallas, 1995 Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives and LIMA Amsterdam

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Marina Abramović, still from The Onion, 1995, video (colour, sound), 20’03” 10 minute performance for video, UTA Dallas, 1995

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Sonja Alhäuser Born in Germany, 1969 Sonja Alhäuser sees her works as “instructions for rituals”. Depicting the consumption of food and its journey from the stomach to the intestines, her drawings imaginatively capture the physical and emotional sensations that accompany digestion. Emphasising the transformation of organic matter and its reincorporation into the environment, allowing other species to nourish and grow, they offer an allegory of the life cycle that simultaneously reveals the ways in which the artist conceives of her practice. Sonja Alhäuser has had solo exhibitions at Galerie der Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig; Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern; Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia, Salvador; and Kunstverein Ulm. She has also exhibited in group shows at Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg; SITE Santa Fe; Kunstverein Wolfsburg; Blackbridge Offspace, Beijing; Bregenzer Kunstverein; and Smart Museum of Art, Chicago. Exhibition works Drei Wünsche frei 2011, wooden object box, handcoloured etching, apple spice liqueur, chocolate drinking horns Eucalyptica 2016, watercolour, pencil, acrylic on paper, laminated on canvas Gegenmittel Pferde im Bauch 2016, watercolour, pencil, acrylic on paper Magendrehen (rotating stomach / upset stomach) Paar – Suppe (Couple Soup) Sodbrennen (Cardialgia) 2016, watercolour, pencil, ink, acrylic on paper All works courtesy of the artist

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Sonja Alhäuser, detail from Gegenmittel, 2016, watercolour, pencil, acrylic on paper

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The Domestic Godless Formed in Ireland, 2003 The Domestic Godless have been a thorn in the foot of Irish gastronomy for over ten years, with an irreverent disregard for current fashions and culinary trends. They have introduced to the world such delights as Sea Urchin Pot Noodle, Foot & Mouth Terrine, Carpaccio of Giant African Land Snail and Victorian high tea wrought from all manner of fertilizer, often in the setting of anarchic installations. Founded by artists Stephen Brandes and Mick O’Shea (later to be joined by Irene Murphy), it has been their mission to explore the potential of food (its taste, its presentation, its history and its cultural values) as a vehicle for artistic endeavour and experimentation. Through recipes, installations and public presentations, they employ food as both a concept and a medium through which to convey humour, empathy and other qualities that distinguish art from purely craft. The Domestic Godless have been involved in numerous performances and exhibitions at galleries, festivals and venues including Tulca, Galway; Kinsale Arts Festival; IMMA, Dublin; Gracelands, Co, Leitrim; The Dock, Carrick-On-Shannon; West Cork Food Festival, Skibbereen; and Cork Caucus. Exhibition works Die Anti-Nietzschean Lacto-Fermentation Auto Bio-KriegsfuĚˆhrung (The Anti-Nietzschean lacto-fermentation auto bio-warfare) 2016, mixed media, posters Courtesy of the artists

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The Domestic Godless, Die Anti-Nietzschean Lacto-Fermentation Auto Bio-KriegsfuĚˆhrung (The Anti-Nietzschean lacto-fermentation auto bio-warfare), 2016, mixed media, posters

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Elif Erkan Born in Turkey, 1985 In Elif Erkan’s sculptural artworks, the combination of unusual materials provokes irrational behaviors and reactions that befit her synthesis of literary references, personal memories, and classical associations. In her series entitled Lotus Eaters, the artist explores the ancient Greek myth of those who consumed the narcotic fruits and flowers of the lotus tree, except updated with natural remedies and health foods such as Omega 3 oils. Embedded within (and slowly contaminating) plaster casts, the works ask whether an object can suffer depression, do they feel the effects of their own fragility. Based in Los Angeles, Elif Erkan has exhibited her work in solo presentations at Maison des Arts, Brussels; Portikus, Frankfurt am Main; Mixer ArtLab, Instanbul; and Opelvillen Schleuse, Rüsselsheim. She has also shown in group exhibitions at Honolulu Zürich; Ellis King, Dublin; Galerie Balice Hertling, New York; WIELS Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels; KfW Stiftung, Frankfurt am Main; and M3, Lausanne. She is represented by Weiss Berlin and Park View, Los Angeles. Exhibition works Frown 2016, plasticine, pigments, fleece tissue Primitive Improvements (Lotus Eater / Shelter Piece) 2016, wheat grass, omega 3, St. John’s wort, plaster Small Talk 2015, plasticine, pigments, lime Taken Care Of (Lotus Eater / Shelter Piece) 2016, wheat grass, seaweed, plaster All works courtesy of the artist and Weiss Berlin

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Elif Erkan, Small Talk, 2015, plasticine, pigments, lime

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Fiona Hallinan Born in Ireland, 1984 Fiona Hallinan’s multi-disciplinary practice revolves around ideas of collaboration and hospitality, and sometimes includes food as a material and conduit for exchange. Through designing situations, which bring awareness and attention to how we meet others within a new space or place, Hallinan explores patterns in society and the interactions between human beings. She works in a range of media, including drawing, photography, sound, installation and the organisation of relational art events. Fiona Hallinan is co-founder of the Department of Ultimology, Trinity College Dublin, and the creator of a number of collaborative projects involving hospitality, food and education such as Heterodyne, iterations of which have taken place in Paris, Istanbul, and Wicklow; The Hare, an artist run temporary café at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin; Concrete Tiki, a series of site-specific food events at IMMA; and HOMESTAY, a hospitality project for Science Gallery, Dublin. She is currently devising a number of new projects working with food in an art context including the initiation of a cafe in the Grazer Kunstverein, Austria. Exhibition works Patterned Activities 2016, rope, powder-coated steel trays, reconstituted foam blocks, chain, clip hooks, rings, fasteners, house plants, pots, glassware, kefir water Courtesy of the artist

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Fiona Hallinan, installation view of Patterned Activities, 2016, rope, powder-coated steel trays, reconstituted foam blocks, chain, clip hooks, rings, fasteners, house plants, pots, glassware, keďŹ r water

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Siobhán McGibbon Born in UK, 1986

Siobhan McGibbon is interested in trans-disciplinary practice, particularly the intersections between art and science. She works conceptually with sculpture, installation, drawing, animation and biomaterials. Exploring the notion of “the modern Prometheus” through a series of unusual investigations in sectors of anatomical, medical and biological exploration, her latest works are created collaboratively with scientists utilising processes and materials used in the development of medical devices. Siobhan McGibbon was previously artist in residence at the Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CÚRAM), Galway, and at Galway University Hospital in the departments of histology, pathology and radiology, as well as a fellowship in the Mutter Museum and the Historical Medical Library of the College of Physicians, Philadelphia. Her recent exhibitions include solo shows at Roscommon Art Centre; Luan Gallery, Athlone; and Talbot Gallery, Dublin; a joint exhibition with Joanna Hopkins at Galway City Museum, and group exhibitions at Millennium Court Arts Centre, Armagh; Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; Rubicon, Brussels; and Tulca, Galway. Exhibition works Proteus Syndrome (Haemangioma series) Venous Malformation (Haemangioma series) 2012, fibreglass resin, enamel paint The Cell That Consumed Me 2014, ink on paper, mechanical arms All works courtesy of the artist

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Siobhรกn McGibbon, drawing detail from The Cell that Consumed Me, 2014, ink on paper, mechanical arms

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Abigail O’Brien Born in Ireland, 1957 Using a range of media including photography, embroidery, video and sound, Abigail O’Brien explores themes of domesticity, the habitual nature of everyday life and rites of passage. Her interest in bread, its elemental properties, the magical process that takes place in its making, its centrality in human daily life across race and culture and religion, its familial, social and cultural importance, and its rich symbolism, spans some twenty years and is expressed in her extensive installation of sculpture, video and photography entitled With Bread. Abigail O’Brien’s previous solo exhibitions include Limerick City Gallery of Art; The Dock, Carrick-On-Shannon; Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda; Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf; Letterkenny Municipal Arts Centre; Centre Culture Irlandais, Paris; and Haus der Kunst, Munich. Her recent group exhibitions include shows at Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin; The Cable Factory, Helsinki; SOMA Contemporary, Waterford; IMMA, Dublin; and Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Exhibition works With Bread 2013, silver casts, lamdachrome prints Grand Dame 2013, video, 2’52” All works courtesy of the artist

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Abigail O’Brien, installation view of With Bread, 2013, silver casts, photographs Detail from With Bread of Paula Rego, photograph

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Thomas Rentmeister Born in Germany, 1964 Thomas Rentmeister is renowned for his sculptures that incorporate everyday objects and materials such as chocolate spread and baby cream. By using prefabricated, industrial brands, he removes these materials from their original context and places them in a purely formal one reminiscent of Minimal Art. In this way, his artworks arouse responses of both seduction and repulsion, while continually evoking a sense of surprise and uncertainty in the viewer. On the other hand, his repertoire can also be calm and reduced, as in his series of polyester resin sculptures, with their shiny, appealing surfaces lending the works an air of glittering promise. Thomas Rentmeister’s work has been exhibited internationally in solo shows including Galerie Tobias Naehring, Leipzig; Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam; Contemporary Food Lab, Berlin; Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts; Kunstmuseum Bonn; Kunstverein Viernheim; Centraal Museum, Utrecht; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; and Kunsthalle Nßrnberg. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at museums including Museum Tinguely, Basel; Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro; Kunstverein Sundern-Sauerland; Marta Herford; Frankfurter Kunstverein; and Kunsthalle Mannheim. Exhibition works Untitled 2011, Nutella on laminated chipboard Courtesy of the artist Untitled 1993, polyester resin Private Collection

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Thomas Rentmeister, installation view of Untitled, 2011, Nutella on laminated chipboard and Untitled, 1993, polyester resin

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Neil Shawcross Born in UK, 1940 Neil Shawcross sources his still-life subjects from his immediate surroundings and commonplace advertisements. He translates the mundane domesticity of these objects into a painterly statement invested with character. A noted colourist and technical innovator, his paintings of consumer products exude vitality and demonstrate a highly personal approach that contrasts with the stylised celebration of mass culture in the Pop art movement. Based in Belfast, Neil Shawcross has been the winner of a number of prestigious awards and is ďŹ ve-time recipient of the Royal Ulster Academy Gold Medal. He was Professor of Painting at the College of Art in Belfast until his retirement in 2004 and his work is represented in many private and corporate collections, including the Ulster Museum, Ulster Television, AIB, Aer Rianta, the OPW and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He is represented by Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin. Exhibition works Heinz Condensed Cream of Tomato Soup 2007, oil on canvas Lo-Salt 2013, oil on canvas Marshmallow Fluff 2010, oil on canvas My-T-Fine Pudding and Pie Filling Van Camp’s Pork and Beans 2008, oil on canvas All works courtesy of the artist

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Neil Shawcross, detail of Marshmallow Fluff, 2010, oil on canvas

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Gut Instinct Art, Food and Feeling

Artists: Marina Abramović, Sonja Alhäuser, The Domestic Godless, Elif Erkan, Fiona Hallinan, Siobhan McGibbon, Abigail O’Brien, Thomas Rentmeister, and Neil Shawcross. Curated by Chris Clarke, John Cryan and Fiona Kearney in association with the APC Microbiome Institute, UCC

Gut Instinct: Art, Food and Feeling was presented at

The Glucksman, University College Cork from 25 November 2016 - 19 March 2017

A public programme of artists talks, academic discussions, creative workshops, and curatorial events accompanied the exhibition.

Gut Instinct is supported by APC Microbiome Institute, University College Cork, Science Foundation Ireland, the Arts Council of Ireland and private philanthropy through Cork University Foundation. Thanks to: All artists, Seán Aherne, Elke Arendt, Stephen Bean, Birte Bosse-Michaelsen, Trish Brennan, Loretta Brennan Glucksman, Mark Buckeridge, Catherine Buckley, Ellen Byrne, Willie Carey, Paula Cogan, Mike Collins, Cork University Press, Conal Creedon, Tadhg Crowley, John Cryan, Sally Cudmore, Michelle Darmody, Lindy de Heij, Toby Dennett, Ted Dinan, Claire Doyle, Mareta Doyle, Cathal Duane, Brian Fay, Caroline Fennell, Chris Fite-Wassilak, Eoghan Flynn, Aisling Fogarty, Jane Foster, Nicholas Fox Weber, Joe Geaney, Nora Geary, Pamela Hardesty, Rebecca Harte, Rachel Hobbs, Olivia Hope, Renée Jackson, Damian Jones, Elaine Joyce, Andrew King, Jonathan Ellis King, Sarah McAuliffe, Manus McConn, Stuart McLaughlin, JP McMahon, Jackie Mead, Cillian Moynihan, Bryan Murphy, Michael Murphy, Claire Nash, Lynne Nolan, Rory O'Connell, Claire O'Connor, Killian O'Dwyer, Lawrence O'Hana, Sinead O'Mahony, Michael O’Sullivan, Mark Poland, Colin Sage, Regina Sexton, Fergus Shanahan, Kerstin Weiss, Irene Woods, G.T. Wrixon, Jean Van Sinderin-Law, Linda Young, Theus Zwakhals. Catalogue prepared by Fiona Kearney and Chris Clarke. Installation photography by Tomás Tyner. © The artists, authors, and the Glucksman, 2017. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electrical, mechanical, or otherwise, without first seeking permission of the copyright owners and of the publishers. ISBN: 978-1-906642-89-1 The Glucksman University College Cork Tel: + 353 21 4901844 www.glucksman.org


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