Given my sweet tooth, love of all things chocolate, and previous job as an Account Executive on the M&M Mars Account, I couldn’t resist going to this show featuring a recreation of the Columbina Chocolate Factory at the David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea. The artist, Oscar Murillo, collaborated with Colombina, one of the premier food companies in his native Columbia, to make this happen calling this exhibition “A Mercantile Novel”.
When my daughter Bonnie and I walked in, it smelled and looked like the M&M Mars candy factory I used to visit in Hacketstown, NJ. Bonnie looked very happy, perhaps pleased that we were looking at REAL chocolate rather than paintings of chocolate!
This is an exhibit where you can touch and participate. Tens of thousands of candies are being produced and given away for free at the gallery and Columbina, certainly a way to get their name out there to American consumers. Visitors and volunteers are invited to take smiley-faced packages of chocolates and give them to people throughout the five boroughs, embracing the diversity of NYC communities. A part of me loved the unexpected novelty of this show, and the other part felt like I was participating in one giant advertisement for the company.
While we were visiting the gallery, we ran into a tour of smiling and engaged participants. Unfortunately we arrived near the very end and missed the commentary. At home, I found an interesting UK article showcasing photos of the 13 Columbian factory workers who were brought over for the exhibition.
At the end of the tour, the guide offered to take photos with the visitors. Of course, I had to take him up on the generous offer… Later on, I found out he was Jerry Salz, the esteemed art critic for New York Magazine (whose reviews I has read religiously through the years) and Pulitzer Prize winner.
When he asked me who I was, I told him I was Beverly, the dessert painter, and showed him a postcard. He looked at it, threw up his hands, and exclaimed, “Just accept this show! Accept it!”. I really wasn’t sure what he meant. How do you interpret this?
Attention all chocoholics: You can still stop by and get your own chocolate snacks through June 14th, 2014. Enjoy!
