Does This Taste Funny?
John O’Connor and Melissa Brown were both students at Skowhegan twenty-six years ago. The idea for this collaboration came up over drinks in Chelsea, after Melissa saw The Apex is Nothing, the exhibition John co-curated at Pratt Manhattan Gallery. The two decided to co-curate a show at the nearby colleges where they teach, and humor emerged as the subject that interested them both. Working largely remotely while at separate residencies, they organized Does This Taste Funny?, a group exhibition of 40 contemporary artists at The Gallery at Heimbold Visual Arts Center, Sarah Lawrence College, and Lehman College Art Gallery, CUNY. The exhibition treats humor as a generative method for shifting perception. Six thematic groupings (The Body, Material Absurdity, Politics, Language, Art Humor, and Technology) show how artists use slapstick, satire, wordplay, parody, and deadpan to disarm viewers and expose incongruities in political, personal, and institutional life. In this conversation, John and Melissa discuss how Does This Taste Funny? came together.