American artist gets creative with gulab jamuns
Art appeals to different people in different ways. And each artist has his own style of creative expression. Meet American artist Zachary Becker, who explored an entirely different dimension of art in his recent performance at 1 AQ galley’s Ojas Art exhibition, curated by Anubhav Nath.
Zachary’s ‘Trained in excess — sweeten the artist’s mouth’ performance at the gallery’s ‘Roti, Kapda, Makan’ (food, cloth, shelter) exhibition generated a lot of curiosity among art lovers, who were astonished and confused when they saw the performance entailed the seated artist eating all the sweets thrown at him like a projectile from approximately four metres.
Zachary says this art form was a mixed medium and was inter-connected to the central theme of the show; his performance was in contrast to the self-initiated austerity represented by food, cloth and shelter.
Talking about his performance, he says, “It was a two-hour performance, where I had to eat all the gulab jamuns thrown at me from a distance. By the end of the show I had consumed around 104 sweets. Eating the first 10 sweets was easy, but as the intake of sugar increased in my body I could feel a sugar rush in my brain, and by the end of the entire show my mouth was excessively sweet.”
Zachary, who has spent three years in India, reveals that this performance required special practice and preparation. He says, “Indian sweets are too rich and saccharine, so I had to develop a taste for consuming a large quantity of gulab jamuns. I trained myself one month in advance and consumed a large quantity of water. I also had a lot of cabbage because it expands the stomach and makes it more flexible. After the show I got a great response from the guests.”
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