Detail from The Toaster, a 14.5' x 16.5' mosaic made entirely of toast, by Ingrid Falk & Gustavo Aguerre.
November 2005
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Toaster Art Takes on New Meaning
A Mosaic of Toast in A Great World Museum
A Toast to Ingrid Falk & Gustavo Aguerre
Swedish artists Ingrid Falk and Gustavo Aguerre include bread and food in all forms in their works of art.
In October/November 1999 they created The Toaster Galleria Milano. It uses 3,053 pieces of toast to create a mosaic of seven meters long by 4.6 meters high.
For the First International Art Biennial of Buenos Aires, which took place in Argentina from December 2000 through January 2001, they created a smaller version of their original masterpiece, “only” 5 meters long by 4.5 meters high (about 16.5 feet long and 14.5 feet high), from 2,500 slices of toast. It became the most popular work in the show and was acquired by the Modern Art Museum of Buenos Aires for its permanent collection.
Slices of bread were toasted in ordinary toasters for different lengths of time to achieve the nuances of color to create the mosaic. The colors range from white, beige and tan to ochre, rust and black and white, ochre and rust. It took several days of work and several friends and their toasters to prepare the 2.500 pieces of toast necessary to build the gigantic mosaic, which reproduce a photograph of a toaster.
Up close, the canvas seems like an abstract picture, but when viewed from a distance it is obviously a toaster.
Click here to read more about this work of art in Buenos Aires, and here for its October/November installation in Milan.
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| 2,500 pieces of toast comprise this huge mosaic. |
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