rainer ganahl credit crunch

credit crunch drawings - preparatory drawings

CREDIT CRUNCH MEALS - free food for all !!!

(Finanzkrisenfrass; Bouffe de la crise de finance; Cibo crisi; ..--- EVEN FOR VEGETARIANS

two publications

MANTHATTAN MARXISM 2018, STERNBERG PRESS

CREDIT CRUNCH, , Darling Publications, Cologne 2012

In the beginning is FOOD and GREED

Since 2008, I have created special Credit Crunch Meals, inspired by the obscene combination of unregulated financial markets, high finance and politics. The so-called CREDIT CRUNCH CRISIS is a perpetual crisis we seem unable to escape. The CREDIT CRUNCH epoque started in 2007 with an early climax in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, one of the biggest US banks in 2008 that nearly collapsed the world financial system. The effects of this crisis haven't gone away.

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.

Some of the food sculptures are later replicated in porcelain and can serve for ‘do it yourself’ style combinations with again real food items. :

BREXIT/ fish and chips/ / BARBARA WEISS, berlin 2017

brexit song : marx punk

SYRIZA , defacto bankrupcy in Greece - July 1, 2015

CREDIT CRUNCH / GREEK MYTHOLOGY / BASIC GERMAN, 2013

STILL LIFES / CRUNCH LIFES nature morte / économie morte -- porcelain

July 2015 - Greece effectifly in defaut and banks closed

- group show at KAI MATSUMIYA, NY 20015

CREDIT CRUNCH PIZZA, 7 % / PIZZA CRISI ECONOMICA, 7 % Bologna 2012

7% PIZZA, Bologna, Vivere sulla Luna, a group show curated by Lorenzo Bruni for Astuni Gallery, Bologna 2012

7 % was the bold yields to be paid by the state of Italy to raise money in bond sales . This number is considered to be leading into bancrupcy. Currently Italy pays less but the danger is not over. Greece is currently unable to raise money on capital markets at any rate. Portugal just issued 10 year long bonds for 17 % which is unsusatainable.

Painting a Pig Head in Front of a Giorgio Morandi, 2012