exhibit at Buoy to feature Jell-O shot Cosby portrait

When you combine the elements of Jell-O, Bill Cosby, vodka and art, good times are almost certain to ensue. And that’s just what local artist Andrew Salomone has in mind for his upcoming exhibition at Buoy in Kittery, Maine. The exhibit will feature a portrait of Bill Cosby made from approximately 1,000 Jell-O shots.

Salomone will begin crafting the portrait around 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 12. Once it is complete, guests (age 21 and over) are invited to gradually wreck the artwork and themselves by consuming the Jell-O shots, which will contain modest portions of vodka. The audience can enjoy other aspects of the exhibit while casually devouring Cosby’s face. Tentative plans also call for a live Internet broadcast to let other viewers witness the spectacle from home.

Salomone said he has been brainstorming an interactive Jell-O shot art project for a long time. “I knew Jell-O came in enough colors to make just about any image out of it,” he said in an e-mail. “I think I originally liked the idea of making an art project out of the refreshments at an exhibition opening, so that the more the audience enjoys the refreshments the more the work gets destroyed.”

Most of Salomone’s recent work addresses “the absurd ways that ideas get circulated through popular culture,” he said. For instance, he recently made a photo-realistic copy of a famous bigfoot photograph made from “pixels” of colored faux furs. For another project, he constructed a portrait of Paris Hilton’s head made from paparazzi photographs stitched together and mounted on a wooden plaque.

The Jell-O shot portrait of Cosby has required significant planning. Salomone recently found a Lite-Brite at the Kittery dump and attempted to use it as a template for the Cosby image, using the colored Lite-Brite pegs in place of Jell-O shots. It didn’t work out exactly as he planned, but he did manage to create a Lite-Brite portrait of the freaky clown from the movie “It.”

The exhibit at Buoy, called “Jell-O Head,” will incorporate the audience members, who will erase Cosby’s likeness piece by piece as they engage the exhibit. The event’s title is a reference to both the Cosby portrait and the audience members after a few shots.

“I’m curious about what sort of social situation this project is going to initiate, considering that the audience will be such an important part of the whole process,” Salomone said. “I dunno what kind of shenanigans there might be, hopefully the fun kind.” 

Bill Cosby’s Jell-O promotions fit perfectly with Salomone’s focus on the dissemination of pop culture concepts. The comedian and actor served as the trusted face of Jell-O products for several years, although he probably never imagined his profile would one day be molded from alcoholic Jell-O chunks. Salomone said he’s not an especially big Cosby fan, “but ‘Leonard Part 6’ is a total classic.”

The Buoy gallery is located at 2 Government St., Kittery, Maine.