Kay Rosen
Wish Dish
New York City, USA: Artware Editions, 2020
26.7 cm. diameter
Edition of 175
As is often the case with Jenny Holzer, this editioned work improves on the original, more expensive option.
While known as Wish Dish, the full title is actually Reddish/Yellowish, and it makes more sense printed on a plate than painted on a wall. And the wish of the title improves with the context of the series of plates produced by Artware Editions in collaboration for Collation For the Homeless.
The Coalition for the Homeless is the nation’s oldest advocacy and direct service organization helping individuals and families experiencing homelessness. They partnered with Artware in 2020, at the peak of the Covid19 pandemic, to produce the Artist Plate Project.
The funds raised by the sale of plates provided food, crisis services, housing, and other critical aid to thousands of people experiencing homelessness and housing instability. The purchase of just one plate fed more than 100 homeless and hungry individuals.
Over a hundred artist participated in the series, including Christopher Wool, Ed Ruscha, Elizabeth Peyton, Fred Tomaselli, Glenn Ligon, Jenny Holzer, Jonas Wood, Julian Opie, Laura Owens, Lawrence Weiner, Maurizio Cattelan, Rob Pruitt, Sarah Sze, Tauba Auerbach, Ugo Rondinone, Vik Muniz, Wade Guyton, Yoshitomo Nara and many, many others. The estates of Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol and others also collaborated with the organization.
We bought a copy at the time of release and the price maddeningly more than doubled with shipping costs and customs charges (money which didn’t end up providing food for the homeless).
"WISH DISH ostensibly describes a yellow and red receptacle of desire, but it is really a verbal remnant descended from the past, the legacy of the original roots Yellow and Red before they were compromised into Yellowish and Reddish and then shortened to wish dish. They have not only gone through a name change, but they have also changed speech parts, from adjective to noun. Their transformation from dozen letters is dramatic. It empowers the phrase with entirely new status. As former modifiers, Yellow and Red served in a dependent and accessory capacity to help define nouns. Now they are nouns. Although there is little outward resemblance to their antecedents, a close examination of WISH DISH reveals some genetic baggage. Seventy-five percent of each word is comprised of a suffix, ISH, passed down from Reddish and Yellowish. Twenty-five percent is borrowed from the previous syllables: W from Yellow which, like jello and hello, does not need it for pronunciation, and the extra D from Reddish. The most visual holdover from the past is color, which Wish and Dish have inherited through their chromatic genes Yellow and Red.”
- Kay Rosen, 2004
