3RD Ward Gallery, 195 Morgan Ave, Brooklyn, NY
February 9 - March 22, 2007

What are we looking for when we search for a date?  Are we looking simply for fun?  For a long-term companion?  For an ideal mate? 

Petra Valentova’s project, Searching for the Sámi/COOKBOOK explores the conventions and limitations of dating in the 21st century.  Her work touches upon many of the fundamental issues we intend to investigate in The Dating Show.  In this exhibition, we look at dating as a social construct, and emphasize how art can be capable of subverting and overstepping any accepted practice.

Valentova, an artist of Czech decent, possesses an insightful distance to the “rules” of dating, as they exist in the US.  In her search for a self-defined ‘ideal’ mate (a man of Sámi origin), Petra placed an ad on the internet.  Mixing this new means for matchmaking with an element of tradition, she included a surprising request from her dates: the recipe for a dish of their choice that may reflect their own heritage or background.  In effect, this request turns tradition on its head, for it is she, the female, who is pursuing and initiating the relationship, and it is her male suitors who are providing her with a meal!  It also comments on the incongruity of making the preparation of a traditional dish the focus of a date, given the fast-moving context of our contemporary lives.

This cookbook documents the artist’s resulting dates, juxtaposed with the recipes they provided.  Apart from her subversion of traditional roles, Valentova urges us to contemplate the act of self-representation, whether manifested through the use and wording of internet personal ads, through photographs, or through the selection of food recipes.  The artist asks how faithful are these representations?  Can they aid us in our search for a date?  For an ideal partner?  For love? 

Emma Brasó, Dan Leers and Margot Norton / Curators of “The Dating Show