A controversial performance artist whose work explores the safety of food from Fukushima Prefecture is attracting media interest at one of London's most prestigious contemporary art shows.

New York-based Ei Arakawa is offering free soup to visitors at the Frieze Art Fair made from mushrooms and radishes grown in Iwaki, a city about 60 km south of the nuclear plant that suffered meltdowns following the tsunami in 2011.

His performance art is titled, "Does This Soup Taste Ambivalent?" and has been picked up by British newspapers with sensationalist references to "radioactive soup" and "poison."