eri king
Red 40 Zen MSG Rock Garden, 2018
Hand-pulverized Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Monosodium Glutamate, marble, mortar and pestle, Zen rake, wood, and plastic
Courtesy of the artist

This work is on loan for the exhibition, Living Here, at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, June 20 - December 20, 2025

Red 40 Zen MSG Rock Garden belongs to a body of artworks titled Healthy People Are Bad for Capitalism. It makes use of “like cures like,” a homeopathic doctrine which proposes that a substance that causes harmful symptoms can also bring about healing. In this case the substance is an all-American snack food, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, while the medium through which the Cheetos harm and heal is a karesansui (枯山水), commonly known in English as a Japanese zen garden. Karesansui are traditionally made of gravel, but eri king created this one by pulverising the Cheetos with a mortar and pestle before raking the crumbs into concentric ring patterns, or mizumon (水紋). The gravel space becomes a stimulating shade of fiery red thanks to Red 40, the synthetic petroleum-based dye that gives the snack its color. The large rocks are created from another ingredient that makes Cheetos appealing and commercially successful—the taste-enhancing salt known as Monosodium glutamate, or MSG. (Another Japanese invention, this time dating from 1908.) “The four MSG Healing Rocks are placed inside the garden to cleanse and purify the air from the chemical Red 40,” king explains. In theory, the salt will absorb the moist air around the Cheeto crumbs, trap the toxins inside, and exhale the detoxified dampness. The snack food counteracts its own noxious aura thanks to the karesansui, creating a space where harm and healing enter into neutral balance.