This Berlin exhibition shows the gorgeous and grotesque results of iconic photographers playing with food

Food photography has become banal in the Instagram age where the camera eats first at every meal. In addition to nutrients and vitamins, today’s menus must have filters, likes and comments – you almost forget that behind the right lens, food can hold up a transgressive mirror to society. Curators Susan Bright and Denise Wolf have put together a show, entitled Food for the Eyes. The Story of Food in Photography at C/O Berlin revealing the uncanny visions of how some of the world’s most influential photographers saw food as a subject matter.

While some images like Daniel Gordon’s Technicolor fruit in Pineapple and Shadow 2011 and Ouka Leele’s citrus headdress in Peluquería are beautiful, the majority of the photography, like Joseph Madia’s fish and Martin Parr’s beachside concessions, is bizarre and uncomfortable. Especially memorable are the photographs that show an intense manipulation of food to make it look like something it is not, such as the characters that Swiss artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss have created out of sausages.

“Like the air we breathe or the water we drink, food is necessary for our survival,” commented TK from C/O Berlin. “Because food is part of our everyday life, it was and is a frequently depicted subject. And, like food itself, food photography can raise fundamental questions about a wide variety of societal themes: family, tradition, home life, wealth, poverty, gender, race, disgust, satisfaction, and consumption.”

While Bright and Wolf originated the show at New York’s Aperture Foundation, Food for the Eyes. The Story of Food in Photography will be on at C/O Berlin through 7 July.