Ripe Art Gallery • Rexer’s Crossroads Farm • Huntington, New York • 24 September–21 October 2016
In 2016, Ripe Art Gallery and Rexer’s Crossroads Farm invited Jeffrey Allen Price and the Think Potato Institute to develop an ambitious series of exhibitions, events, agricultural projects, performances, and public programs celebrating the twentieth anniversary of THINK POTATO. The resulting initiative, The BIG POTATO, transformed the gallery and surrounding farm into a temporary center for potato art, culture, agriculture, food, music, and community engagement.
Conceived as both an exhibition and a living cultural experiment, The BIG POTATO brought together artists, musicians, farmers, collectors, educators, and members of the public through a diverse program of interconnected events. The project represented one of the most comprehensive public realizations of the Think Potato Institute’s mission to explore the cultural, symbolic, historical, and artistic life of the potato.
At the center of the project was The BIG POTATO exhibition, a large-scale group exhibition featuring more than two dozen artists from across New York and beyond. Organized by Price, the exhibition invited artists working in a wide variety of media to create new potato-themed artworks, transforming the gallery into a celebration of the potato as symbol, subject, material, and cultural artifact. The exhibition demonstrated the remarkable diversity of artistic approaches that can emerge from a single, humble source of inspiration.
Beyond the gallery walls, the project expanded into a series of related public events including Think Potato Festival V, the Potato Masquerade Ball, and a reunion performance by POTATOTRON. These programs combined food, music, performance, participation, and celebration, extending the exhibition into a broader social experience and reinforcing the communal spirit that has long characterized Think Potato Institute projects.
Photo courtesy of Carrie Anne Gonzalez
A unique component of the initiative was The BIG POTATO Patch, a dedicated plot at Rexer’s Crossroads Farm where one hundred potato plants were cultivated as part of the project. The resulting harvest became both agricultural activity and artistic material, blurring the boundaries between farming, collecting, documentation, installation, and conceptual art. Together, The BIG POTATO and its related programs represented a temporary potato-centered ecosystem—part exhibition, part festival, part farm project, and part social sculpture—demonstrating the expansive possibilities of Potato Humanities in practice.
Photo courtesy of Barbara Lubliner.
Explore Further
→ Think Potato Festival V
→ The BIG POTATO Patch
→ POTATOTRON Performance