Close your eyes and imagine the smell of chocolate. Now, picture yourself in a room where you are surrounded by chocolate walls. How would it feel? What would it look like?
When people step into "Chocolate Room," a work of art by Ed Ruscha, their eyes get larger, and their noses begin sniffing the scent of the room. They look around and see walls covered with velvety brown shingles of paper. But this is no ordinary paper. To create "Chocolate Room," the artist squeezed Hershey's chocolate through a screen onto 360 pieces of it.
Ed Ruscha paints and draws with traditional art supplies, but he also likes to experiment. He sometimes paints with things you might find in your kitchen: egg yolk, spinach, tea, onion juice, salad dressing and mustard. He has also made art with things you might find in a garage or a laundry room or a garden, like motor oil, bleach and rose petals.
Using food for art can cause problems. When "Chocolate Room" was first shown more than 30 years ago in Italy, some people wet their fingers and wrote things in the chocolate. Ants also began to eat the chocolaty paper. When you see "Chocolate Room" today, people are not allowed to touch the walls and the room is kept very clean.
The original "Chocolate Room" no longer exists. In fact, every time "Chocolate Room" is shown, it is made new from fresh chocolate. The sheets of paper are carefully stapled to the walls in perfectly straight rows.
On Dec. 5, kids ages 5 and up and their families can see "Chocolate Room" at MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art. It's part of the museum's free family workshops that take place the first Sunday of every month. Drop in anytime from 1 to 3:30 p.m. to take a spotlight tour and do an artist-led, hands-on project involving chocolate.
For more information, call (213) 621-1712 or visit www.moca.org.
This Learning Link was provided by MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art, at 250 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012.
