popular in the chocolate business. This terminology applies to a movement by which end point consumers are encouraged to make educated choices about how their chocolate bar is made. Fair Trade certified bars aim to directly benefit the producers of the cacao in developing countries by paying a price for the raw materials that actually reflects the costs, as well as promoting sustainable, long term viable farming conditions. Stefano Cagol believes that we are all guinea pigs in the game of life. His delicate arrays of mouth sized chocolate confections in attractive display trays initially seduce us and compel us to want to taste, but the titling of the work is mysterious and puzzling: “Rat Life”, “Rat Game” and “Rat Time”. The chocolates are however impossible to reach; they are sealed in transparent boxes to prevent a disaster. For along with the usual ingredients, these chocolates are laced with rat poison, leading the viewer to think that his or her own presence here is to be a laboratory mouse, an unwitting subject in a much larger experiment of which we have no real knowledge. Through this visual ploy of both eliciting desire and then immediately denying it, Cagol has demonstrated his interest in increasing the awareness of the toxic additives which are frequently identified in food. The fact that one bite of any one of these beautiful chocolates would cause us physical damage reminds us of our human frailty. Yet the multi billion dollar food industries ceaselessly promote certain food types, substances and additives which have been well documented as harmful to the human body. Cagol states we are all subjects in “…our diffused laboratory of perfection because we are the final recipients of all additives, all altered products we realize for our pleasure, but we don’t really know the consequences on a long term basis. We cannot stay without our beautiful things looking as victims of a contrappasso punishment of a Dante’s Bolgia: we want something perfect and we receive something killing.”8 Like Cagol, Joseph Sabatino has assembled a nasty array of ‘delectable’ treats. Titled “Trick or Treat”, his work focuses on the humble cupcake, a food inextricably linked with childhood pleasure. However, Sabatino’s cupcakes cannot satiate in the way that we remember from our younger years. His nasty treats resemble chocolate but are in fact made with such ingredients as cement, polyurethane, asphalt and tacks. His works do not subscribe to the historical and contemporary belief that chocolate possesses nutraceutical properties. Earlier applications of cacao in Europe after introduction by the Spanish focused on the medicinal properties, and chocolate was promoted as a cure all for everything, be it a stomach bug or fever. Chocolate was thought to be an elixir of life. Sabatino’s works contradict the hype. His neat rows of little matching cakes in clear cubes remind us that for many of the foods we consume, their appearance does not always align with their inherent properties. All kinds of modifications may have occurred, and recently these may have been on
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