Milan Expo time travels through Arts and Foods Pavilion

Pavilion to explore food in art from 1851 to modern-day life

(ANSA) - Milan, July 25 - Visitors to the Arts & Foods Pavilion at Milan Expo 2015 will have the chance to travel through time to discover some of the ways in which food and the aesthetics of art and design have intersected.

The pavilion will be hosted at the Triennale Design Museum and promises a journey starting in 1851, the date of the first Expo world's fair. "Arts & Foods will involve all forms of media and all languages, from sculpture to painting, from video to advertising, from design to architecture," said Germano Celant, an Italian art historian, critic and curator of the pavilion. Arts & Foods will include contributions from artists, writers, directors, graphic designers, musicians, photographers, interior designers, and architects, all concerning the development of artistic expressions of how people view and consume food.

Celant said the pavilion will showcase "shared public and private places and spaces where furnishings, objects, appliances, and works of art create a narrative with a strong visual impact and sensory impression". The pavilion aims to document, through various art forms, the many ways in which people relate to and interact with food, from simple cooking utensils, to table settings and picnics, as well as food in public spaces like coffee bars and restaurants, and the changes that have come about through road, air, and space travel.

The Arts & Foods Pavilion will open its doors on April 10, 2015 and run through November 1. The theme of Milan Expo 2015 is "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life", with the world's fair focussed on food security, sustainable practices, nutrition, and the best of global culinary cultures. Celant is best known for coining the term "arte povera" (literally "poor art"), a modern art movement, in 1968, and is a leading authority on the subject.