Anagnost/Take It Away
Anagnost and Take It Away were two works featured in ‘Sense and Nonsense’ a group show curated by artist Gerry Smith for the Danielle Arnaud Gallery in 2003
Each was a text piece. In Anagnost, I used pre-existing hunting scene wallpaper into which I collaged roughly four hundred words each of which reflected some element of food culture that I was interested in.
Anagnost, according to Larousse, is the name the Romans gave to a slave whose job it was to read during meals. The wallpaper piece was to act as a meal-time talking point, a word list de-coder acting as a present-day Anagnost.
Take It Away is an extensive poem made from many takeaway menus dropped through my letterbox and collected over a year. I cut up the text, stripped away visual references, reassembled and retyped descriptions of meals to create a very long, blank verse. Deprived of colour, image and graphic frippery, Take It Away seemed to lay bare the less attractive elements of cheap food. For the show, the poem took the form of a long scroll. Later, I was filmed reading out the poem in the gallery.
Section of Anagnost with an ‘E’ Number fan
Accent Acesulfames AVH Index Additive ADI Adulteration Agetinetia After-Taste Ageusia Aid Agency Algaeblooms Allergy Allotiophagy Algae Ambient Replenishment Controllers Anagnost Analeptic Angelica Annatto Anorectic Drugs Anorexia Nervosa Anorexy Anti-caking Agents Anti-spattering Agents Antibiotics Antioxidants Antisialagogues Apastia Aphagosis Apositia Appetite Acquaculture Archestratus Aricel Arlequin Aroma Arsenic Artificial Ascalaphus Asitia Aspartamate Auto-Intoxication Digestive
(An earlier) Take It Away dress made from restaurant menus outside Dr Johnson’s House
Basella Beast Becqueter Belshazzar Bird’s Foot Trefoil Black Tongue Bleach Bleaching Body Mass Index Bog Yrtle Borage Botulism Bradyphagin Brillat-Savarin BSE Burning Feet Syndrome Butylated Hydroxyanisole
Very small section of Take It Away poem
Cachexia Cachexy Cachou Calorie Canner’s Alkali Cannibal Cardoon Castagnaci Chemical Ice Chicken Fat To Power Lorries Chinese Restaurant Disease Syndrome Chorleywood Bread Process Cibophobiacissa Clary Clone Cockle Pickers Colour Colours Condemned Poultry Convenience Foods Cook Cooking Cosmetic Country-style Couch Potato Cyclamate
All works featured: Sandra Cross Image of Take-Away Dress outside Doctor Johnson’s house: William English circa 1997