Franklin Parrasch Gallery is pleased to present This Is Not Lunch, a new body of work by California artist John Cederquist. With this latest series, Cederquist, whose work constantly explores issues of perception, this time investigates the aesthetic presentation of Japanese cuisine.

Throughout his career Cederquist has addressed issues of Japanese art and its cross-cultural influence upon western aesthetics.  Images of seemingly haphazardly constructed slats of wood comprise the structures of each of the five chairs in this series. Extending his fascination with Magritte’s The Treachery of Images (1929), each seat incorporates an image of a tray of food, artfully arranged and presented in the manner of Japanese cuisine.  

Highly stylized depictions of whole fish awaiting consumption probe the notion – much as Magritte did with his pipe -- that desire plus image equals fulfillment -- thus reducing the definitive impact of reality. Here Cederquist comments on the ways in which food is recognized and sought after, and how those activities are key to the development of perception.  What draws the viewer to the chairs is a platter of edible enticement rendered in a Toontown version of Ukiyo-e graphics.

This exhibition also includes five wall mounted Tray pieces each of which replicates the imagery on the seats of the chairs.  These corresponding Wall pieces further exaggerate the conundrum of deciphering what is flat, what is image, and what is an image of another image.  In attempting to interpret these chairs one is forced to identify each surface and its respective depth of field and figure out where, or even how to take a seat.