(ANSA) - Milan, April 8 - The exhibit "Arts & Foods: Rituals Since 1851" opens at the Triennale Museum in Milan on Thursday, and will remain throughout Milan Expo 2015, the food-themed world fair taking place from May to October. The Triennale exhibit on the relationship between art, design and food is curated and designed by major Italian talents Germano Celant and Italo Rota. Celant is an Italian art critic who famously coined the term Arte Povera in the late 1960s, spreading renown for an important Italian contemporary art movement. Rota is a multiple prize winning architect and a fixture of international contemporary architecture and design. Their show traces international food culture and design from modes of transport to the dining room, from 19th century cafes to modern fast food kiosks, exploring even "instruments for cannibalistic rites". More than 2000 pieces from all over the world illustrate the relationship between humans and food. Arts&Foods is an artistic journey through the history of the most familiar space in that exists: the spaces of the home where food is prepared and consumed, from the dining room to the hearth, from the aristocrat's to the peasant's table. The show includes films from different eras, and artworks by masters such as Giorgio De Chirico, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio Morandi, and Andy Warhol. The show closes with reflection of contemporary artists on today's contradictions: the existence of world hunger on one hand, and the food disorders of opulence, like bulimia and anorexia, on the other.
    Arts & Foods is being flanked by a related design exhibit, "Kitchens & Bodysnatchers", which traces the history and presence of appliances in our kitchens. The exhibit constitutes the eighth annual edition of the Triennale Design Museum.
    The title of the design exhibit was inspired by the book "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" by Jack Finney, in which aliens insinuate themselves among the inhabitants of the earth, just as domestic devices have.
    The itinerary is organized by themes and senses: refrigerators speak of water and cold, from minibars to massive storage and the modern blast freezer. Stove ranges fit into the history of the kitchen fire. Kitchen garbage treatment explores the relationship between the earth and the kitchen. The exhibit continues with air, touch and smell, ambling from kitchen hoods to chopping and slicing blades. The olfactory sense is explored through coffee, with a selection of more than 100 electric machines that trace the brew's evolution from the early 1900s to today.