İrem Günaydın’s ‘Salad Cake’ exhibition at The Pill Gallery

ISTANBUL

İrem Günaydın’s exhibition titled “Salad Cake” at Istanbul’s The Pill Contemporary Art Gallery approaches the two main disciplines of art history, which are painting and sculpture, around a letter written by the artist. In the exhibition, painting and sculpture come close to each other in a two-and-a-half dimensional setup.

Speaking to Milliyet Sanat, Günaydın explained how the idea of the exhibition came up. “I came across a Vegedeco salad cafe online where cakes are made from salads. The dough of the cakes is made from soy flour and the cream from tofu. It is filled with various marinated, chopped and cooked vegetables such as radishes, carrots and cucumbers. The owner of the cafe describes the products as ‘Neither cake nor salad, but salad cake.’ This attitude, which changes perceptions about what ingredients a salad can be prepared with and when it can be eaten, is in line with my attitude when producing the works in this exhibition.”

Though the letter in the exhibition sounds surreal and fantastic, she said, it was actually a very grounded text. “The characters in the letter are important figures known from the history of art and popular cultures such as Paul Cèzanne, Gods in the Trojan story, DJ, Renè Margritte, non-artist İrem, Nicolas Poussin, Bugs Bunny, Flemish painter Cornelis Gijsbrechts, Neo from Matrix and Morpheus, Hera, Athena, Aphrodite and the prince of Troy, Paris,” she added.

The exhibition can be seen through Feb. 10.