Visual Takeaway
auf Papptellern zum Mitnehmen
at Axis Gallery
January 5th - 28th, 2024
Gallery hours: 12-5 PM Friday - Sunday
ABOUT THE WORK:
In 2023 Roma Devanbu spent eight months in and around German seeing things with that fresh eye that being a stranger in a new/old world opens up. The images that resulted are served up on Papptellern zum Mitnehmen - the paper plates “To Take” used by both street vendors and bakeries in many parts of Europe. The distinctive rectangular shapes and fluted corners of the plates function as frames for Devanbu's visual takeaway.
In this series of small works one can follow the artist’s perpetually hungry gaze as it samples and savors from the “all you can eat” visual feast she encountered in train stations, cathedrals, baroque palaces, contemporary construction sites, medieval villages, and on the walls of approximately 100 museums.
The locations and dates in the titles refer to where and when Roma Devanbu saw something that triggered the impulse to make the piece.
ABOUT PAPER PLATES IN FINE ARTS:
The practice of incorporating found and otherwise non traditional materials in to fine arts has long been established and that includes the use of paper plates. Paper plate art by the California Beat artist George Herms are in Devanbu’s own collection. Paper plates designed in 1969 by Roy Lichtenstein are in major permanent collections including London’s Tate Modern and New York’s MoMa. And they have retained their value. In 1969 they sold in packs of 10 for a dollar. In recent years those same Lichtenstein paper plates have fetched between $1000 and $5000 a piece at Auction.
Click on any images to see title, size and date.
