TABLE     TABLEau

 

By: Annmarie Ventura And Brittany Venturella

 

As we sit at the dinner table, we bring our past experiences and learned etiquette with us. The table is both a symbol of our daily lives and a connection to our culture. It is a place to eat, research, converse, debate, consume news, tell stories, celebrate, and uphold or defy traditions. In TABLEau, a contemporary art exhibition,  artists share their own personal experiences and together comment on how dinner table culture has changed over time. Because of its many uses, the table appears in memories that define us and is a place where big ideas may be conceived. TABLEau focuses on the way people perceive and remember the table. 

 

 We store these memories of the dinner table as images similar in form to a “tableau vivant,” the French term for “living picture.” Before the invention of color reproduced images, people would recreate paintings for public or private entertainment. As we reminisce, we observe our own memories as an audience would view a “living picture.” We notice who is present, the setting, colors, facial expressions, props, body language, atmosphere and any other important details we can recollect. 

 

Over time, many artists have been inspired by the tables existing in their memories.The dinner table has appeared in important works throughout the art historical canon, demonstrating that the table is a significant icon in many cultural and artistic contexts. Famous artists placed  the dinner table prominently in their compositions. For example:

 

• In Johannes Vermeer’s Soldier and a Laughing Girl, painted in 1658, he goads his audience into thinking the kitchen table is a place for a clandestine meeting between a soldier and a young girl, commenting on seventeenth century dating rituals. 

• Judy Chicago in her work The Dinner Party, completed in 1979, draws attention to women who are under-represented and under-valued in history and the art world by making her own “Dinner Party.” Her guest list comprises of famous, accomplished and worthy women. 

• In 1942 Edward Hopper depicts in his work Nighthawk, a man sitting alone in a diner, maybe having dinner. 

• In her photographs from Kitchen Table Series, 1990, Carrie Mae Weems captures moments highlighting the multiple uses of her kitchen table. 

• And Marina Abramovic’s 2010 performance, The Artist is Present, comments on personal connection through the gaze with only a table between her and a single member of her audience. In each of these works, the table symbolizes a different idea. 

 

The artistic portrayals of the table tell a broader story reflecting changes and variations in American dinner culture.  In Norman Rockwell’s Freedom from Want (1943), citizens of a nation at war rallied together as the table became an advertised symbol of strength and freedom. The dinner table in Rockwell’s work is an icon of equality and hope as well as a connection for those with similar beliefs. Yet, historically the dinner table has also been an indication of separation, a place where economic and social status has been defined. Before the Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, and the abolishment of slavery, people who were enslaved served their “masters.” However, that amendment did not solve equality issues. Throughout much of the 1800s, Victorian merchant families were still employing servants, immigrants and those considered to be of lower social status, to help prepare meals and tend to chores. Typically, both groups never joined the people that they served at the same table. 

 

As society became more and more industrialized and social movements, such as the Women’s Movement and Civil Rights Movement, took hold in the United States, dinner culture slowly changed. Yet, when people socially gather at the table today, there are still ideas of inclusion and exclusion based on culture and human nature. Children may still be designated a specific table away from adults during holidays, and school children sit with their specific group of friends, not venturing out of their comfort zone. Considering the generational shift in dinner table meaning, TABLEau explores the broader social meaning of the dinner table through personal stories and ideas.

 

Within TABLEau, artists utilize photography, collage, painting, craft and sculpture to interpret how people use the table today. Amy Charmatz’s textured paintings depict a woman and her cats at various places inside and outside the home. Acting almost like a visual journal, each of these works also have a thoughtful written sentence. In her work Invitation to Dinner a woman eats her meal at the table with her cats and the accompanying sentence reads, “Her manners were poor, but they included her anyway.” Here as with her other works, the table indicates inclusion and is a place where equality, thought, comfort, and confidence-building takes place. 

 

Also examining equality, Eileen Hoffman comments on gender dynamics around the table in her artwork, Her Mother’s Dishes and Isabella Round. Her abstract knitted sculptures made of non-traditional materials, such as craft stems and vinyl, bring attention to underappreciated tasks like weaving and setting the table considered historically to be housework only done by women. Inspired by her mother’s china dishes, her works provide insight into dinner table decorating and tell of a woman’s pride in the art of table arrangement in the 1950s. 

 

The art of table arrangement is still practiced today. Sandra Bloodworth’s hyper-realistic works are inspired from her collaboration with her husband as they prepare dinner for themselves and their friends. Bloodworth documents specific meals in three works selected from a series entitled Intimate Feasts. Her choice to utilize one of the oldest modes of documentation, painting, relates to a trend occurring now; many people photograph their food and meals and post those photographs on social media. Her paintings depict moments from meticulously designed dinner parties.

 

In addition to designing the dinner table layout, many people take time to fill the dining room with pleasant, often kitschy decorations. Mollie Murphy’s Furnishings series is comprised of objects that at first glance appear to be familiar things we expect to see in a dining room. The plane of color behind each piece on the wall could be a reference to the rectangular plane of the table or even the dining room. Her figurines are unique conglomerations of many different parts collected from numerous places. The decorative plates have seemingly unrelated images incorporated into the original design of the plate. The defamiliarization we experience while looking at Murphy’s pieces may hint at the underlying tension, difficulty, and sometimes humor we experience within the context of the dining room.  

 

On the other end of the spectrum, Robert Knight’s Merry Christmas gives us a familiar look into an intimate family scene during the holiday season where the table is a gathering place, proudly surrounded by the children’s artwork. At the table, holiday traditions take place. Decorations may be made and sorted or stories shared as members wait for that special time when all their loved ones are together. On the other hand, Knight is looking in from the outdoors, perhaps commenting on the state of the artist, always an outside observer.  

 

Susan Napak’s perspective is also one of an outsider. Within the work from her Napak Tableau series, she photographs the table’s reflection in the mirror, signifying some of the cultural differences between her and her Russian immigrant in-laws that caused barriers or a feeling of disconnection. As the table’s owners aged, they modified the table’s uses to fit their needs. Their table once served as a center for entertainment, as indicated by the decorative curtains and the crystal chandelier. Now, it houses the everyday aspects of elderly life: paperwork and pillboxes. 

 

Napak’s “outsider” photographs juxtapose with Julie McHargue’s personally significant textile works. In Memories, McHargue embroidered a vintage table cloth with quotes from conversations that took place at the dinner table. Choclate Pie is her grandmother’s apron with an embroidered recipe. Luncheon is a cloth napkin with embroidered forks. Her smaller works remind us of our own grandparents in the kitchen producing delicious, fragrant meals. 

 

Rather than focusing on the words exchanged, Jen Hitchings captures the younger generations’ activites around the table. Her abstract paintings House Party, Spin the Bottle, and All Hail Tequila, were inspired by candid photographs of celebrations. As individuals gather together to toast or play a party game, there is a sense of companionship and fun. Her choice to delineate the figures by outlining them, rather than painting them realistically, makes them anonymous and therefore universal.  Her line use in the paintings demonstrates movement, and her use of vibrant and dull colors conveys emotion.

 

Megan Maloy’s photographs also tell stories about alternate uses of the dinner table. Although staged, her photographs situate us within moments that could be real life in a way that is similar to a “tableau vivant.” Her photograph Little Grandma Gets a Haircut portrays the table as a temporary hair styling station. Expanding the definition of the dinner table to places outside the home, her photographs Diner Customer,  where a man sits alone in a diner’s booth, and Hartford Fair; Now Serving!, where a woman in a food truck waits to take an order, broadens the definition and explores the necessity of the dinner table.

 

Similarly, Joe Moore’s Jabberwocky asks us to reflect upon the diminishing role that the home dining table plays in dinner culture today. His works are reproductions of McDonald’s happy meal containers with the text printed backwards. The mirrors placed behind the containers correct the prints. He critiques how advertising on fast food containers idealizes contents. This fast food culture is in stark contrast to the idea of the home-cooked meals presented on a lavishly adorned dinner table. 

 

Finally, Molly Heron’s iPodium hints that technology may disconnect us from each other when brought to the table. It can distract us from personally interacting with the people with whom we share meals. This explains why the iPhone packages and their contents seem to be “plugged” in, but the “cords” beneath the table are branches Heron gathered after Hurricane Irene. Her table is also a podium where the story of the changes in the life and the dinner culture of families affected by Hurricane Irene can be discussed. Additionally, through her use of found materials, Heron states that she explores the “essentials and non-essentials of daily life,” such as the excess of plastic in the environment.Today, plastic plays an active role in dinner culture through utensils and food packaging. 

 

In conclusion, the work in TABLEau is comprised of both personal memories and general commentary on the larger picture: the meaning of the dinner table has changed over time.  Every day we uphold or create new traditions at the table. Serving as a place to eat, converse, and work, the dinner table appears in memories that define us.