In Keb Cerda’s latest exhibition, Delectable Threats, the artist presents his signature images of war and violence, and tackles the commercialization of war through satire and parody. This time, he illustrates military hardware as food and beverage items being processed, likening them to mass-produced goods that appeal to one’s appetite.
As such, paintings reveal assembly lines, not just of machines capping bottles or coating sweets but also, contraptions that assemble weapons, battle gears and even armies. By comparing weapons of mass destruction with consumer products, life-threatening and potentially destructive objects turn into mouth-watering and delectable treats for the consuming public to enjoy. Such play between taste and pleasure on one hand, and aggression on the other, satirizes the enduring occurrence of armed conflicts and atrocities, perpetuated by humanity like an insatiable craving that needs to be constantly satisfied.
Cerda takes this hypothesis to the fore by experimenting with new media. Apart from the traditional tools of his trade, he has tapped mobile technology in his latest exhibition to provide viewers new dimensions in experiencing and constructing the meaning in art. Interestingly, viewers will see the fusion of food processing and war imagery through a mobile application called Omniscope, which animates the paintings into video clips.
Cerda is a graduate of the Technological University of the Philippines and finished with a degree in Advertising. His works mainly reference history and politics through the appropriation of archival objects such as old photographs, and offers personal reflections and commentaries by injecting humor and parody to the original images.