Food & Drink

A slice of fun: American artist to debut pizza-based exhibition in Manchester

An internationally renowned media artist will be debuting a unique pizza-based exhibition in Manchester next month.

Andrew Salomone will combine animations with the famous Italian dish as part of an eight-week exhibition that will launch with a preview and workshop on July 9 at PLY in the city’s Northern Quarter.

The American artist expressed his inspiration about his new ‘zoetrope’ ideas for the free exhibition entitled ‘Ravenous Apparitions’.

Mr Salomone told MM: “I was thinking about memes and animated gifs that are shared on the internet and I’d noticed how imagery from the internet was turning up in our everyday lives in the way that we talk and express ideas.

“I knew about zoetrope animations, which were about the same length as most GIF animations, and I knew that record players could be used to view zoetropes.

“When I realized that the average frozen pizza was the exact same size as an LP, I thought that making an animation on a pizza was a nice way to bring all these pieces of our everyday lives together in a compelling way.”

The zoetrope is a 19th-century optical toy consisting of a cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface that, when viewed through slits with the cylinder rotating, give an impression of continuous motion.

Andrew will be making two zoetropes for display – a sculpture of a pizzoetrope, and a zoetrope made from found record covers.

“They’ll both be versions of a vintage animation from of unknown origin from The Richard Balzer Collection,” he said.

Beki Rymsza, Marketing Manager at PLY, explained he was very excited to host such a unique event.

We’re really happy to be working with Andrew and to be hosting such a unique and interesting exhibition,” he said.

“It’s a true first and ties disco and pizza together in a way we could never have imagined!”

The preview and animation workshop will take place on Thursday July 9, whilst the exhibition runs from July 10 to August 30, 2015.

You can find out more information about the event and workshop by visiting www.plymcr.com.

Image courtesy of Andrew Salomone via FlickR, with thanks.

Related Articles