How These 98 Identical Food Cubes Were Made
By Elyssa Goldberg
“Cubes,” by Lernert & Sander.
When Cubes, the photo of 98 different foods—from mackerel to grapefruit to romanesco—cut into tiny little, well, cubes went viral last week, the first thing we did was try to figure out how many of those cubes we could identify. (We got just over 50.) The second thing we wondered though was, how did they do that? So we called up the artists, Lernert & Sander, to get the inside scoop on why and how they took 98 foods and cut them into 2.5 by 2.5 by 2.5 centimeter cubes and arranged them in a perfectly symmetrical pattern to be photographed.
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Can you guess which cube is which food? Photo: Lernert & Sander
The idea for Cubes came to the Dutch duo when newspaper de Volkskrant commissioned them to take a photo for a food-related feature. The only guidance the newspaper gave was that the work had to be tied to food. But, “food is an overwhelming subject,” Lernert said. “You can go so many different ways. How can you photograph something when you can’t decide?” So they did the only thing that could be done: make all of the food seem equally important by cutting everything into uniform pieces, he said.
These food cubes are ready for their close-up. Photo: Lernert & Sander
As for the rationale behind which food they chose to use for the cubes? That was determined by what they could find in local grocery stores and shops. And the foods couldn’t be processed, at least in the traditional sense. “We realized that if you cut up everything, it has this nastiness of everything becoming processed,” explained Lernert. “That’s the inside story.”
Lernert doesn’t have complete faith in the food that lands on our tables. In fact, in The Netherlands, he described, every time he’s at a birthday party, people make negative comments about the food. Not about how it tastes or what it does for your heath, but about its origins and the politics behind it. With that in mind, Lernert said, “People instantly talk about negative stuff—for instance, Monsanto, how stuff is produced. We wanted to show finger food where each item has its own terrible story when you think of it individually.”
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Cubes decoded. Photo via Reddit
But Cubes has taken on a life of its own. People all over the internet (us, included) have taken to decoding what each cube represents. And art-lovers have been ringing the Dutch studio non-stop to secure a copy of the photograph. According to Lernert, going viral wasn’t what they were after, but now they can barely keep up with the demand for Cubes: “We have too many buyers. It’s taken over our lives.” But he conceded, “We realize now how powerful our work is.” And they’ll keep the success of Cubes in mind as they’re prepping for the next big thing: a gallery show in Amsterdam in September.
This wasn’t the duo’s first foray into food, and it won’t be their last. In 2007, they made waves for a video they released of a chocolate bunny getting its face melted off. That video was for a TV show designed for children between ages 2 and 6. Said Lernert: “We wanted to say, you can’t always get what you want.”
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