Artist Michael Portnoy looks at the world through a convoluted lens.
“I like to take very simple things and complicate them endlessly,” he quips. For his latest project the Kalochromes, on display as part of the Villa Toronto exhibition, he created monochrome paintings of kale – “today’s most overexposed vegetable,” he explains.
He then worked with trend forcasters and cryptographers to see what the next trendy vegetable would be, and encrypted this information into his images of kale. The encryption will be revealed in 2034.
Below Portnoy explains the project:
Morgan Mullin: You’ve compared kale to the martini of the 1950s, and “an unavoidable presence in the cultural landscape.” Why do you think we are so kale-crazy as a culture?
Michael Portnoy: It was a joke, but true. Why are we so kale-crazy? I can only explain it as a complete accident… It would be interesting to try to trace the precise cause of the kale epidemic. Mind you, I was an early adopter. I was eating kale in the mid 90s. I used to do a little experiment. I’d cook at home and put a bunch of cooked kale in my mouth, then get on my bike and see how far I’d need to ride until I was finished chewing it completely.
MM: What makes your project even more interesting is that you’ll predict the next trendy vegetable in 2034. How did you predict what it will be?
MP: We had many meetings with the team over a period of a few months, taking all sorts of things into account: predictions about the environment, developments in genetically modified crops, international trade, etc. … I think the “kale of 2034” will be consumed similarly to the kale of today, i.e. as side dish, nutritional supplement, skin cream, clothing, and vapor cigarette fluid.
MM: Why should art deal with diet? What is the connection between the two?
MP: For me the Kalochromes have much less to do with foodie culture than with the secret codes of contemporary art and the strategies of hiding stories within objects. Now, the image is much less important than the story behind it – this is the age of the backstory.
MM: What things do you hope your audience will walk away from the Kalochromes reconsidering?
MP: They should reconsider everything: the privacy concerns of vegetables, the relation between Edward Snowden and an encrypted form of Edward Snowden 20 years from now, and the fact that the future is hidden in everything you see.
Villa Toronto at Union Station runs until Friday, January 23. More info here.
