Intro
Michael Portnoy: Wandbiss
Art Basel, Basel
11 June 2007
Content
Michael Portnoy’s project Wandbiss staged for the first time at Art Basel, offered audiences a “fine biting experience” in an installation that united epicurean pleasures with Portnoy’s longstanding investigation of social exchange and its constraints as media for art.
Small parties of fair-goers could reserve sessions inside the biting room, a private chamber in which participants were fed gourmet hors-d’oeuvres through small holes in the walls and ceiling. Eating was by mouth only: most bites were fed by skewer or edible utensil (vegetables, breadsticks, etc.), and ceiling bites lowered on strands of seaweed or bean noodles, so that the biting experience remained hands-free. Staffed by a reservationist and a team of expert feeders, and with a menu designed by Portnoy and Swiss chef Christina Ramseier, Wandbiss offered gustatory delights and a respite from the norms of art fair sociability.
