Tag: POTATOISM

  • Revisiting The Dialectical Potato (2024)

    While recently preparing a lecture for the United By Potato Power conference in Cēsis, Latvia, I returned to a paper I had not carefully revisited in many years: The Dialectical Potato: Potato in Art, Art in Potato.

    Originally published in 2003 by Donald Kuspit, the essay was written while I was completing graduate school at Stony Brook University. At the time, I regarded it primarily as an art historical investigation into the appearance of potatoes within art and culture.

    Reading the paper again more than twenty years later was a satisfying experience.

    What I found was not simply an early survey of potato imagery, but the beginnings of ideas that would later become central to my work. Concepts now associated with POTATOISM, Potato Humanities, the Potato Art Spectrum, and the Think Potato Institute were already present in embryonic form throughout the text.

    I was particularly struck by how many of the questions that continue to guide my research today were already visible in those pages. Why does the potato repeatedly emerge as a symbolic object across cultures and historical periods? How can a humble food become a vehicle for mythology, identity, labor, humor, ritual, politics, and artistic expression? Why does the potato seem uniquely capable of sustaining contradictory meanings simultaneously?

    What appeared in 2003 as a graduate school paper now felt more like a foundational document.Revisiting The Dialectical Potato also made me realize that the project remains unfinished. Since its publication, more than two decades of new potato artworks, exhibitions, performances, films, photographs, and cultural artifacts have emerged, while countless historical examples have come to light that I was unaware of at the time. What once appeared to be a finished paper now feels more like the opening chapter of a much larger project—one that I hope to continue through a future publication, POTATOISM: The Global History of Potato Art.

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  • The Dialectical Potato Accepted for Publication (2002)

    Entering my last semester of graduate work at Stony Brook University, I have just received encouraging news: my paper, The Dialectical Potato: Potato in Art, Art in Potato, has been accepted for publication in Art Criticism thanks to the auspices of Professor Donald Kuspit.

    The paper began with a simple question that had occupied my thoughts for years: Why do potatoes keep appearing in art, and what do these appearances mean? What started as an attempt to chronicle the major appearances of the potato in the work of avant-garde artists gradually expanded into a much larger investigation. The more I researched, the more connections I discovered. Potatoes seemed to emerge everywhere—in mythology, folklore, religion, agriculture, conceptual art, performance, photography, politics, and popular culture. What many people dismiss as an ordinary vegetable increasingly appeared to me as a surprisingly rich cultural symbol.

    For months I immersed myself in the writings of artists, critics, philosophers, anthropologists, and cultural theorists. Ideas from many different disciplines seemed to converge and inform my subject.

    Admittedly, I was a bit nervous presenting such an unconventional topic to my professor, the art critic Donald Kuspit, but his response was enthusiastic. He described the paper as “unique and brilliant,” comments that have encouraged me tremendously. Although many people might consider the potato an unusual subject or symbol for serious inquiry, Kuspit’s remarks make me feel vindicated in pursuing the project. Three semesters studying with Kuspit and engaging the thinkers he introduced undoubtedly helped shape this text.

    The acceptance of The Dialectical Potato in Art Criticism makes me genuinely excited. I put a great deal of effort and creativity into this research, and publication feels like an important milestone. The paper grew out of years of looking at artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Joan Miró, Joseph Beuys, Sigmar Polke, Jörg Immendorff, Matthew Barney, and many others. What began as a simple observation developed into a broader investigation of the potato as a recurring image, object, and symbol within art and culture.

    The acceptance of this paper by a reputable academic journal gives me confidence to continue pursuing these ideas. For now, I am simply excited to see the article in print and curious to discover where this line of research leads.

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  • Spuds Unwrapped

    The Food Network, Television Appearance, April 21, 2002

    Tonight I appeared on Food Network’s Unwrapped as part of a special potato-themed episode called Spuds Unwrapped. Seeing myself on national television talking about potatoes and performing was surreal. Host Marc Summers introduced me as a “Potato Artist” and called me “the potato’s number one fan.”

    The segment featured an installation of my potato collection, potato-themed artworks, and documentation from EMERGENCY PÖTATOFÊTE, a performance organized with fellow graduate students at Stony Brook University. The event had originally been scheduled around a planned Food Network visit in September 2001. Following the events of September 11, it was unclear whether the production would continue at all. The title EMERGENCY PÖTATOFÊTE reflected both that uncertainty and my belief that gathering people together through food, humor, and art felt especially important during that difficult moment.

    During the interview I talked about some of the reasons why I originally became interested in the potato, explaining:

    “I started finding all sorts of connections, anthropological connections, all around the world, folklore dealing with the potato. The global significance of the potato became something for me that I could attach to.”

    I also explained one of my favorite concepts:

    “The potato seems to be this unifying symbol of egalitarianism. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t eat potatoes.”

    The segment ended with Marc Summers holding one of the THINK POTATO t-shirts I had given him and saying:

    “Here’s one of Jeffrey’s works of art. Looks pretty cool.”

    Which made me laugh. Hopefully it might even lead to a few more sales of my potato t-shirt designs online.

    The potato continues to drive me and delight audiences. It has introduced me to people I never would have met, conversations I never would have had, and opportunities I never could have predicted. Tonight’s television appearance feels like the latest chapter in an ongoing project that keeps growing in unexpected directions. What began as a curiosity has somehow become a nationwide conversation

    .Related Timeline Entry:
    • Featured on Food Network’s Spuds Unwrapped (2002)

    Related Documentation:
    • POTATOLAB (2002)
    • EMERGENCY PÖTATOFÊTE (2001)