Mahlzeit! Feinkunsthalle

Mahlzeit! Feinkunsthalle

In 2026, the Museum Gunzenhauser will be dedicating ist exhibition series Mahlzeit! (Bon appétit!) to the theme of food in art.
More than just everyday consumer products, food in art serves as an artistic and historical documentation of social conditions and human concerns. It becomes a source of meaning, an imagery for socio-political discourse and socio-economic conditions, social orders, cultural codes, intercultural diversity and structures of power.

With the first exhibition, we welcome you to the Feinkunsthalle. Based on the spatial structures of a grocery store, you can discover the most delicious food and delicacies from the collections of the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz in the exhibition rooms of the Feinkunsthalle. From the museum’s own bakery to the fruit and vegetable section, along the meat counter to the chewing gum at the cash desk, the exhibition presents a wide range of artistic representations of food across different eras.

As an essential part of life, depictions of food have always been a central and multilayered motif in art. From numerous still lifes, which serve as the primary genre of food depiction in art history, to the reform movements in the 1920s, in which questions about vegetarian and vegan lifestyles gained importance, to malnutrition in unstable phases, to the consumption of meat: in the Feinkunsthalle‘s multi-perspective compilation, historical and contemporary works enter into a dialogue about food as a cultural, economic and social product.

Feinkunsthalle explores the representation of the consumption and cultural history of food in art. What stories can be told through depictions of food? Which products were consumed at a particular time and how? What can we learn from this about historical circumstances?

Overview of the Mahlzeit! exhibition series:

Feinkunsthalle
7 March – 14 June 2026
Inspired by the spatial structure of a grocery store, the exhibition spaces of the Feinkunsthalle invite visitors to discover the finest foods and delicacies from the collections of the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz.

Serving Gender
4 July – 1 November 2026
The second exhibition explores the relationship between gender roles and food. It presents artworks from across different periods that connect labour and care, bodies and social roles with the preparation and distribution of food, and invites visitors to reinterpret visual narratives from a feminist perspective.

Zu Tisch (At the Table)
27 November 2026 – 4 April 2027
The third part of the exhibition series focuses on the social and cultural aspects of food in art: convivial moments, social situations, communal contexts, as well as cultural traditions, celebrations, and rituals. At its core is the question of how culture around eating and drinking takes shape — and when food itself becomes a cultural phenomenon.