Wheat & Steak

Miralda

Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain, 1942
  • Date: 
    1981
  • Material: 
    Fiberglass, polyester, wood, corn and paint
  • Technique: 
    Assemblage and cast
  • Dimensions: 
    518 x 418 x 213 cm
  • Category: 
    Performance
  • Entry date: 
    2010
  • Register number: 
    AD06003
  • On display in:
    Library Building Terrace

Wheat & Steak is a sculpture that illustrates the kitsch-related strategies and tendency towards monumentalisation in Miralda’s work within the recurring theme of food as cultural construct, which runs through so much of his output. The origins of Wheat & Steak can be found in a series of actions done in Kansas City in 1981 as part of the Annual Western Farm Show. Miralda organised a parade through the city centre, an exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the Gold Taste ceremony at the Grain Exchange. He transformed the local festivals into a framework for the construction of a piece that required several years’ planning and was based on aspects such as the exchange of goods, gastronomic culture and the ritual, monumental side of human social behaviour. The main piece of the parade was the sculpture Tri-Uni-Corn, made up of three figures, placed on top of each other like a pyramid, of animals for human consumption. The cow, the pig and the lamb, all made of fibre-glass, with horns covered in corn kernels, resemble figures halfway between the mythological unicorn and a sacrificial totem pole prepared for some collective ritual ceremony, with the names of the various edible cuts already inscribed on their flayed muscles.

Carmen Fernández Aparicio

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