Image via Complex Original
Written by Brenden Gallagher (@muddycreekU)
You’ve seen it. Stumble out of the bar after a night of boozing, and you’ll spot it somewhere between the train and your stoop. When you stop at the local bodega for a sandwich or empanada, you notice huge mismatched images of food: burgers, bagels, and chicken legs arrayed, collage-like, in the window. The cluttered displays are a reminder of where you are and what you came for.
These exhibitions are commonly referred to as bodega art, as work this unique, this visceral, can only be found on the sides of convenience stores and small groceries.
Of course, the work is not without precedent. One could look to Caravaggio's dark and overflowing still lifes for the early roots of bodega art, or the modernist collages of Picasso. Some even argue that bodega art is the logical extension of the popular photorealist movement of the '60s and '70s, where artists mimicked the precision of photographs. Of course, bodega art actually uses photographs. But there's a painterly quality—anyone can see that.
We're lucky enough to have ten pieces of bodega art from the Brooklyn-based Burkat Collection, a small but burgeoning gallery, to help the world better understand this urban phenomenon.
If you are moved by these works and want to share bodega art of your own, tweet us your #bodegaart at @ComplexGuide.
The Pancakes of Gibraltar
Artist: Flatbush Avenue Deli & Grocery
Pancakes, as it’s more commonly known among connoisseurs and collectors, is widely regarded as the prototypical example of bodega art. Why? It adheres to the traditional rules of bodega art to a microscopic degree. To the untrained eye, all collections of foodstuffs on convenience store walls will constitute bodega art. Please, expand your vision. Post-Neo-Modernist bodega art should meet the following requirements:
1. The foods depicted should have no relationship to their size or scale in the real world. Notice that in this piece, the stack of pancakes, iced coffee, and lettuce leaf have similar dimensions.
2. The foods depicted must be drawn from a variety of meals, and with no discernible pattern. Ideally, breakfast, lunch and dinner will all be represented. This is referred to as culinary unity.
3. The last rule is not a rule per sé, but a feeling, a notion, the viewer of bodega art must be overcome by. All bodega art must flow. There must be a cohesion amongst the chaos. As noted critic Alexander Burkat put it, “You know it when you see it.” Which is what porn is like.
Eggs Confronting Death
Artist: Newsstand-Grocery of NYC
While this may appear extreme to even the most avant-garde sensibilities, it’s another exemplary piece of bodega art. Though breakfast foods clearly dominate—the artists displays a near-obsessive craving for representations of the day’s first meal—a cornucopia of foods are featured. Bodega art is not so restrictive that, say, a statement cannot be made or flourishes cannot be added, it is only that such statements must be presented within the confines of bodega art.
Base with Fifteen Sandwiches
Artist: Wythe Street Deli
This piece holds a unique place in bodega art history, as it's the first of its kind. This is the first work ever categorized as bodega art. In 1992, Craig Blankenship, having recently moved to Williamsburg, photographed this work with a disposable camera gifted to him in a care package from his mother, a psychologist based in Topeka. We reached out to Blankenship, now a professor of Convenience Store Arts at Oberlin, and he offered this: “My world turned upside down. When I saw the breakfast sandwich next to the regular sandwich, everything stopped. I fell in love.”
Grillnica
Artist: 38th Avenue Deli & Market
It’s rare to see language adorn a piece of bodega art, but the practice is not unheard of. What’s important is that the words deployed have little to do with the objects apprehended. While some of the foods depicted are “toasted” or “panini pressed,” none are “grilled.”
The Deli Platters of Memory
Artist: F&C Suprette Co.
The same goes for this piece. Most of the foods pictured here in no way conform to the traditional expectations of what is commonly understood by the word breakfast.
Goya
Artist: Grand Morelos Grocery
“Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.” — Francisco de Goya
"What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it." — Andy Warhol
Sandwich, Sandwich, and Sandwich in a Landscape
Artist: Modelo Suprette
While there’s much to admire here, it is not truly bodega art. Note that the sandwiches have far too much in common (they are all lunch stuffs and, worse, are all sandwiches). What truly disqualifies this particular work is that each sandwich is the same size.
Composition with Cola, Fries, and Sub
Artist: Unknown
Some bodega art is defined by the absence of bodega art. Many argue that this is the height of bodega art.
Popeyes #47
Artist: Popeyes
As bodega art has crept its way into the galleries of Manhattan’s swankiest neighborhoods, it has also found its way to Madison Avenue. As with every great movement, attempts have been made to use bodega art for profit. Such is the case with this detail from a display at a popular fried chicken chain. This is always a difficult moment for the discerning art lover. Though a true fanatic would want nothing more than to bring bodega art to the wider world, at what cost? At what cost?
Suprette Composition: Fruit on Fruit
Artist: Cortelyou Fruit Co.
What does the future hold for bodega art? It’s hard to say. Adventurous compositions like this “fruit-based” piece are appearing with alarming frequency and vigor throughout Brooklyn and the wider world (east of New Jersey). Ultimately, this is a good thing. While we hold dear the first breaths of the movement, it’s our hope that bodega art will move beyond itself, to motivate future generations to create inventive food juxtaposition on storefronts everywhere.
Tweet us your #bodegaart at @ComplexGuide.