Rainer Ganahl. credit crunch

'Since 2008, I have created special Credit Crunch Meals, inspired by the obscene combination of unregulated financial markets, high finance and politics.'

Today in 2011, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and even Italy run the risk of national debt default, i.e. of bankruptcy. The Housing Crisis and the high unemployment numbers in the USA (9.1 %) and else where are also a precarious show that seems to not go away and is dragging down any real recovery. The news are full with economists that see in Greeks immanent insolvency the European Lehman Brother that could even trigger the break up of the EURO. Hence the talk is now about a EURO CRISIS that can of course, trigger a new series of big international bank failures. Rating agencies (Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s, etc.) that failed to detect the 2007/2008 financial melt down are now in the business of big downgrades thus creating new headaches and making lending if not impossible so very expensive. Penises and vulvas are symbols of power and might and imply very easily the opposite: post-climactic fatigue, impotence, and refer to the constant promiscuous shift of power and influence. Graphic caricatures of genitals are desirable and obscene at the same time. Combined with political and economic terminology they have an immediate impact in the beholder that is even stronger when made out of perishable material like food. The hidden iunmentionable undertone of this current perpetual crisis is that we experience a massive shift of economic and political power from West to East, from the USA and Europe to China, India and other emerging economies with plenty of cash and important raw materials. This is a process that started with the end of the Cold War and gets only highlighted with this ongoing economic crisis. (for ex. China controlls 96 % of Rare Earth - cruxial for all intelligent products) Each installation is different and depends on the funding, the possibility of intervention and the exhibition frame work. In most cases I am allowed to offer simple food: i.e. a credit crunch meal that doesn’t have to taste bad. In the majority of cases we either use the food left over or make just lentils.
So far, I have hosted them in Sweden, Vienna, Brussels, Stuttgart, Friedrichshafen, Moscow and Greece.' Rainer Ganahl Sprache: Deutsch und Englisch