Emmaline Zanelli, Sweet Dreams (AGSA diorama of ice cream wafers) (detail), 2022, digital photograph. Courtesy Emmaline Zanelli.
To the Board and Associates,
We write to you today from our generous research quarters here at the Art Gallery of South Australia, to present an update on our current examinations. It has been several months since the beginning of our assignment, and already we have made many discoveries.
Our assignment has firstly required the development of a structure by which to classify and digest the over 47,000 artworks that we are tasked with assessing. This is our largest nutrition assessment effort to date, with previous largest assessments Woolworths and Coles stocking 38,525 and 25,827 products respectively. As you will see in these research excerpts, we suggest a co‐classification system merging the Nutrition Australia’s Healthy Eating Pyramid (2015 edition), and six diet styles currently popular in restaurants in the Adelaide CBD. We believe the function of this categorisation will be to encourage the public to utilise their own dietary habits and food knowledge as a means to critique and relate to the artworks and potentially the gallery as a structure. Some initial discoveries made through the use of this structure include: the most prominently featured protein within the collection is seafood (FISH, SHELLFISH), vegetables are alarmingly absent given their foundational role in the food pyramid (2015 edition), the most featured fruit in the collection are grapes, and sugar plays an insidious role across different areas of the gallery, often without being visible.
Please note that these research excerpts are not intended to describe any resolved findings yet, and as such may appear abstract.
Yours in Good Health,
E. Zanelli and K. Bosecke
A.B.C.D.E.F.G.H. Project Researcher Team
Australian Bureau of Cultural Dietetics and Eating For Good Health
Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, [collage], mixed media, 2022, featuring (from top): National Treasure, 2004, directed by Jon Turteltaub, Walt Disney Pictures; Pieter Claesz, Still life with a Roemer, a crab and a peeled lemon, 1643, oil on wood panel. Courtesy the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Listen to artist Kurt Bosecke read his handwritten text from the Nutritional Content of Collection visual essay.
Kurt Bosecke, Eloise Holoubek and Emmaline Zanelli, video still from Impressive Vibrant Fantasy Buffet, featuring Bowl with Grapes, Iran (artist unknown), 1800-1900, earthenware, glaze. Courtesy Eloise Holoubek.
Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, [collage], mixed media,2022, featuring (top left): Auguste Rodin, The Walking Man, large torso, c. 1905 (E. Godard Foundry, cast 1985), bronze. William Bowmore AO OBE Collection. Gift of the South Australian Government, assisted by the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 1996, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide; (top right) Kurt Bosecke, Eloise Holoubek and Emmaline Zanelli, video still from documentation of Nutritional Index tour, 2022. Courtesy Eloise Holoubek; (bottom) Screenshot of Google results from search Joe Rogan and Liver King, 2022.
Kurt Bosecke, Untitled (Muscle man with anatomy), 2022, chalk markers on acrylic sheet, photographed on green background. Courtesy Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli.Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, [collage], mixed media, 2022, featuring Luca Giordano and Guiseppe Recco, The Riches of the Sea with Neptune, triton and two nereids (after Recco and Giordano), 1684, oil on canvas, Mary Overton Gift Fund 1997, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide.
Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, [collage], mixed media,2022, featuring Emmaline Zanelli, The Riches of the Sea with Neptune, triton and two nereids (after Recco and Giordano), 2022, collage on paper. Courtesy Emmaline Zanelli.
Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, [collage], mixed media, 2022, featuring (top): Kurt Bosecke, Zombie Michael Jackson holding two lollypops for a thriller night and its delicious and sweet while grooving around doing thriller night dance from the song!, 2022, marker on paper. Courtesy Kurt Bosecke and Tutti Arts; (bottom) Emmaline Zanelli, Sugar Cubes - after Edward Steichen (Cillian Murphy runs from a flaming infected zombie in 28 days later, 2002), 2022, digital photograph. Courtesy Emmaline Zanelli.
Kurt Bosecke and Emmaline Zanelli, [collage], mixed media, 2022, featuring Emmaline Zanelli, close up of a McDonalds cup, 2022. Courtesy Emmaline Zanelli.
Contemporary South Australian artists Kurt Bosecke, of Tutti Arts, and Emmaline Zanelli created Alternative Guided Tour: Nutritional Index in partnership with Tutti Arts and the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) as part of Tutti Arts’ project Reaching Out. Tutti Arts fosters the talents of learning disabled and neurodiverse creatives who work across visual art, theatre, music, screen, dance, and technology. Reaching Out sees learning disabled and neurodiverse visual artists work side-by-side with non-disabled peers artistically responding to leading cultural institutions. Nutritional Index was presented at AGSA in February 2022. Their video work Impressive and Vibrant Fantasy Buffet: 5 essential rules to help you achieve an Auguste Rodin torso in under two months will screen during SALA opening celebrations on 5 August. Reaching Out is supported by Arts South Australia. Award-winning visual artist Kurt Bosecke, of Tutti Arts, creates bold and dynamic work in riotous colour. Kurt has a comic and narrative style, often informed by fantasy and screen culture. Emmaline Zanelli is an early-career artist born and based in Tarntanya, Kaurna Country. She works across photography, video and performance, and is a member of The Bait Fridge collective.
In a sparse gallery space, a detached hydraulic door closer lies splayed on a white panel. This unassuming readymade by Belgian artist Steve Van den Bosch provides a subtle topographical deviation on the dull cement floor. Titled Assistant (2021), the closer was relocated from the gallery director’s office for the duration of Round About or Inside (30 September 2021 – 20 November 2021) at Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane. Appropriately placed on the ground—the anti-art/anti-functional gesture par excellence—the artwork suffices as a miniature monument to technologies of access, reflecting on how we move through spaces and what mechanisms exist to ensure our safe and comfortable journey, to welcome us, or to deny us entry.
All struggles are essentially power struggles. Who will rule, who will lead, who will define, refine, confine, design, who will dominate. – Octavia E. Butler. Some struggles are invisible simply because a single word is missing from public discussion. I find that this is particularly the case with words that carry life-giving concepts and that challenge social hierarchies. Their absence can give clues to who might be excluded and what is considered of less value within a given society. One such word is ‘neurodiversity’, and it is missing from exhibition records within some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading public art galleries.
