WARNING: This article includes images of nudity.
Outside the gallery space I am more than excited to discuss my foodie habits, but not the intimacies of how I treat my body. There is something almost taboo in Rolando Briseño’s combination of body and food in his 50 year retrospective at the Centro de Artes, curated by Ruben Cordova. The first works in the space are his tablescapes, familiar and safe in their social critique. It’s moving deeper into the gallery that I discover his exploration of the body through various stylistic approaches - all are connected with his interest in food. I find the combination of body and food compelling as I consider how they are both presented for visual consumption.

The abstracted form of a brown-skinned, faceless Michelangelo reaches out towards me as he launches himself from a table filled with fruits. Briseño paints Michelangelo on the Table (1986) with long, gestural brushstrokes. I think about the shopping list that the Renaissance artist provided his assistant, sketches of the food beside the word, and how that might be visualized in Briseño’s work. Where Michelangelo has a side profile of a platter, Briseño has angled the dish to be seen from above so viewers can identify the food, and also added pops of oranges (both the color and fruit). There is also a whole, cooked chicken bouncing off the table and into the air. Briseño pays homage and gives reverence to Michelangelo’s form. But with the nude Renaissance artist springing off the table and scattering the food, it becomes inedible and shifts focus away from the consumption, speaking more to spiritual waste.

More chickens are squandered in Fight at the Table, No. 4. Two boxers pummel each other, crashing into a table and knocking over carrots, oranges, and of course, the chickens. Visually, Briseño’s treatment of the figure has adjusted, though he still has large gestural strokes. The two male figures are more identifiable, with faces, hair, and muscle definition with contour lines. For me, it almost feels like a recontextualization of George Bellows’ painting series of boxers. Instead of the publicized and anticipated ring matches, this is an intimate, personal brawl. These are two brothers who told mom they were just playing around until suddenly they weren’t — and because of their fighting, they ruined her hard cooked meal.
Briseno’s recurring theme of a rotisserie chicken is both playful and thought provoking. Cordova explains Briseño’s fascination with chicken; it's easily identifiable and challenges viewers to analyze the relationship of humans as animals that also eat animals, leading to issues of cannibalism. Will the victor of Fight at the Table, No. 4 ingest the defeated? I can’t see this in a literal sense of cannibalism, but more of a metaphorical approach like Tarisila do Amaral. In this sense, the chicken represents the loss of dignity and self by the loser to the winner. Though I come back to the idea of this is mom’s meal being destroyed - a nod to bystanders who are also affected by the tussle.

Briseño’s celestial tablescape series leans to a more feminist reading. Particularly, I think of Goddess of the Table (2007), where a nude woman poses with her arms spread wide and knees curled towards her, skin digitally manipulated with a plaid tablecloth pattern. She’s laid out in front of the cosmos for all to eat off of her, both as a dining-based pun and sexual euphemism. The universe is something to be shared, fantasized as an equalizer, yet by naming her a goddess she becomes out-of-reach (and world) to mortals. There is a spatial distortion in how Briseño has overlaid her portrait in front of cosmic imagery - is she vertical or horizontal? Viewers are forced to consider their relationship with the table and womanhood. At first, traditional beliefs seem to be affirmed, but the more I look, the more I see a challenge, especially when considering the other celestial tablescapes within this corner of the exhibit.
The sacredness of food and the body is just one of the interesting aspects of Briseño’s retrospective that covers over 50 years of art making. Explore his expansive career for yourself at the Centro de Artes in San Antonio before it closes on February 9, 2025.
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