John McQueen (1943-2025)

Four Food Groups was featured in John McQueen's solo exhibition, Dead Center, held at the Nina Freudenheim Gallery in Buffalo from May 20 through July 19, 2006. Like many of McQueen’s works from the past few years, it incorporates words that are literally woven into the sculpture. McQueen also creates texts in flatter, wall-hung works that require patience in deciphering their coded messages, as in Spekigntungs (written as phonetic shorthand for “Speaking in tongues” similar to contemporary text messages). While his imagery sometimes references particular Renaissance paintings, the black birds and block words in Four Food Groups operate as symbols in a contemporary memento mori, reminding us that we all face death. McQueen uses natural materials, such as the willow branches, with white plastic fasteners to construct the table which is topped by the words “BACON,” “BEER,” “CAKE,” and “COFFEE,” assembled in a food pyramid that the FDA would never authorize. The scavenging crows, themselves molded from another fibrous material, appear to be disrupted from their feasting. In his typical fashion, McQueen uses humor while subliminally cautioning people to consider the choices we make that will affect our lives. — Nancy Weekly, Head of Collections and Charles Cary Rumsey Curator, 2006)

I chose Four Food Groups by John McQueen for the exhibition, A Focus on Wood, for its relationship to several dreams I’ve had recently. It depicts a post-dystopian future where plants have consumed the wastelands of the Industrial Age. In this future, all structures are built of sticks, held together by various types of twine and this particular work has appeared in my dreams several times. The only difference is rather than birds, the object has squirrels perched on it and they are chanting “The Future Is An Illusion.” (Don Metz, Associate Director, 2019)