Renowned mashed potato artist Chât G’ptein will be featured in a retrospective at The Broad in Los Angeles starting in January 2025. The darling of a new class of crypto-billionaires, G’ptein has transformed holiday meals in the homes of the superwealthy around the world as the foremost sculptor in the medium of mashed potatoes, or “liberated tubers,” as he prefers to call them.
“This will be the first time the public will be able to feast their eyes on these creations that will be sure to wet [sic] their appetite for more mashups,” curator Boy Ardi, who pointed out that G’ptein’s sculptures have for too long been enjoyed behind the security fences of wealthy enclaves like Beverly Hills, Palm Beach, Greenwich, and all over Silicon Valley.
“The artist will be recreating his greatest hits for the public and we will be preparing a series of activations in our newly launched banquet hall space and throughout the galleries for the duration of the show,” he added.
Born in Blackfoot, Idaho, the artist started his life as one of a team of chefs to Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who sought to purify his diet by focusing on potatoes that reputedly “reminded him of the years he toiled in his father’s emerald mine alongside the people he managed.”
G’ptein’s lucky break happened in 2020 when his viral videos captivated the public during the COVID-19 lockdown, and soon museums in Mexico City, Sharjah, Seoul, and Copenhagen were clamoring for shows of his work.
Titled Mashups, the exhibition brings together historic recreations that suggest a lifetime of fawning over the rich and their banquets of excess. “I take my cues from the delectable royal banquets of the European kings of the 17th and 18th centuries, and the opulence of knowing they had so much while others had so little,” the artist explained in 2021 during a rare interview that appeared on Instagram Live with Saudi princess Sheikha Maliya Bilhawa, who is known for collecting contemporary art and accompanying G’ptein to his various appearances.
