Experimental and time-based in nature, much of the works in Alan Belcher’s new exhibition at the gallery incorporate real food. The works depart from Belcher’s preferences and personal relationship with dishes, ingredients, rituals and places, and continue the exploration of food and consumption as a long established subject matter in his work. This auto-referential aspect of the exhibition is reflected in its title, ‘Since 1957’, that names his birth year.

In the context of food, ‘Since 1957’ reminds us of a best before date, or of a legacy brand’s founding year. Known for a playful approach that departs from merging photography into tactile object-making, Belcher’s unique line of pop-conceptualism often makes use of a work’s title to constitute the art object. Beyond titles, the specificity of date, where Belcher not only lists the year but the actual day an artwork was made, becomes an integral part of this body of work. This precision of date adds a temporal dimension that speaks to the material and vital nature of art, and, more importantly, of its making. While works may strike as bizarre upon first encounter, the materials are in fact as familiar as they are fleeting. Situated along the substantial history of food as subject matter in western painting, Belcher’s works land within the grand traditions of the medium. He says that there has always been an aspect of realism in his work, and in line with his direct style, these works however, are of a genre of painting that isbypassing the paint.

While drawing from a reverence from Nouveau Realist and Arte Povera sensibilities, Belcher’s works emerge within a context of art today, and in this respect, the exhibition serves as a counterpoint to our the atemporal tendency of contemporary art. Belcher describes the works as having an instant vintage quality, a paradox that is sharply aware of new art and its relationship to time today. In discussing the works and their material instability, Belcher notes our unstable times, and says these works are about the moment, and stresses to remind us and that art is not about ownership, lamenting the stuck parameters of cultural production today where the only viable way for art to be shown is if it can be owned and preserved. These works on the other hand, are vital, breathing, alchemical celebrations of what makes life good in the meantime.

—Eli Kerr, Montréal