FREE ENTRY / Bad Art Gallery - Let Them Eat Fake Open Call

You are cordially invited to a dinner you cannot eat. Come feast your eyes on a smorgasbord of heavenly delights. Through exhibiting a banquet of inedible food, Let Them Eat Fake explores the culture of visual food consumption.

Whilst prioritising visual nourishment, how much importance is left on lining our stomachs? An addiction to eating only with our eyes is perpetuated through an infinite loop of online food pornography. Meals are digested through the white light of our screens, tantalising our senses but failing to nourish our bodies.

Food reveals itself as a taboo, being both pleasurable and shameful at once - an object of virtue to be desired from afar, drifting further away from the dining table and straight into the white-walled gallery.

We will have three separate areas to adorn

ROOM 1

The Bad Art Tea Rooms

Welcome to the most exquisitely tantalising dinner your eyes have ever had the pleasure of beholding. Within this domain you will be tantalised with the rarest non perishables and excruciatingly delectable in-edibles. Line your corneas for you are about to feast you on a banquet you have never seen before.

• think Viennese tea room
• Caviar and cigarettes, killer queen baby!
• Indulgence and extravaganza
• So much cutlery, so little sense

ROOM 2  The Afters

The afters, that like all afters have gone on for far far too long. It’s a mess and the guests have fallen far from grace. The carpet is stained and be careful what tinnie you’re sippin from

• Think, that scene in triangle of sadness
• Think, La Grande Bouffe
• Think, mr creasote
• The feast gone wrong

ROOM 3

The Kitchen

Where the magic happens!

The behind the scenes, behind closed doors, behind every beautiful dish comes a fury of blood, sweat and tears thinly veiled by a pushy door.

For the KITCHEN we are looking for MESS. We want stacks of dishes! Cockroaches! Filthy pots and pans, raw food and the rest of the nitty gritty that goes on in this stainless steel heat trap.

Photographs of the gallery space are displayed below

First photo corresponds to Room 1, second photo to Room 2 and photo 3 + 4 to the kitchen. There is also a small corridor (photo 5&6) connecting rooms 1&2 where we could house a small sculpture or installation.

If you are sending work to be shown in either of the dining areas, we will be following a similar format to the original LTEF and displaying work on tables. For those unaware, our earlier rendition took place in 2022 at The Bomb Factory Art Foundation in London, please do take a moment to look back on images from this show as reference. We are predominantly looking for sculptural pieces, however 2D and audio/visual will also be considered.

We realise that a lot of you are not based in the U.K. and would have to ship work from overseas. Historically we have been able to offer a 50/50 split on shipping costs, however due to the extortionate Brexit customs charges we no longer possess the budget to do so. Please get in touch with us if you face financial challenges transporting the work so that we can try and find a solution.

For Let Them Eat Fake, Bad Art will partner up with Seed, a U.K. based ED charity, giving information, help and support for people affected by eating disorders.

Send your submissions to this email, anna@badartpresents.com with the subject - Let Them Eat Fake 2023 Proposal

We are asking for proposals to come in no later than the 9th of October. As always, we are open to conversation with artists if they want to discuss their ideas and see what could fit best. You can apply with pre-existing work or a detailed description of work and/or sketch you would like to make for the show. We ask you include approximate dimensions, materials and overall look of the piece in your proposal.