There is now a room in Midtown, Manhattan that is fully covered in chocolate – sort of. Pop artist Ed Ruscha‘s Chocolate Room has landed in New York City’s Museum of Modern Art; Ruscha’s only single-room installation, which needs to be remade every time it is presented, is fully covered in sheets of paper screen-printed with chocolate.
Ruscha created this piece in 1970, for the United States Pavilion in Venice, Italy at the 35th Venice Biennale. “He [saw] Nestle has little metal tubes that contain chocolate paste. [reminded] him of the metal tubes for his oil paints,” curator Ana Torok recalls of his initial inspiration. “So he [decided] to use chocolate, screen printing that chocolate onto hundreds of sheets of paper and tiling those sheets across all four walls of a room.”
For the installation’s MOMA debut, he used an on-site screen press to manually screenprint chocolate paste onto hundreds of sheets of paper – which he then used to line the entire room from floor to ceiling.
MOMA shared a video on Instagram that highlights the installation’s creation from start to finish. The chocolate is poured on a giant silkscreen after it has melted. The chocolate is pushed along the silk screen and transferred onto the paper. Once the sheets of paper are dry, they can be handled – and installed in delectable layers on the walls. See it below.
Chocolate Room is open to visitors as part of MOMA’s ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN exhibit, which is on display through January 6, 2024. The exhibit features over 200 of Ruscha’s works – his most acclaimed works as well as lesser-known pieces – in various mediums including painting, drawing, prints, photography, artist’s books, film, and installation. Visit the MOMA’s website For more information, please click here.
Art news from elsewhere Bob Ross’s first television painting is now selling for $10 million USD.
