For three days, the gallery functioned as a film set, where a live audience observed Wang and her crew shooting a short film as a continuous performance.
The resulting film, a satirical guide to table etiquette inspired by a 1945 American television commercial, unfolds at a chocolate fountain dinner party, where a narrator questions the potential faux-pas of the guests. As the evening progresses, a surreal sense of absurdity mounts.
Referencing Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), in which a dream sequence reveals that a bourgeois dinner party is staged within a theatrical set, A Beginner’s Guide to the Art of Throwing the Perfect Chocolate Fountain Party explores the constructedness of Western utopia. It dissects the performance of civility, taste, and aspiration within a make-believe social order.
hin a make-believe social order.