We invite you to take part in a guided tour of the exhibition Mahlzeit! Feinkunsthalle at the Museum Gunzenhauser with curator Pauline Tigges.
With the exhibition series Mahlzeit! the Museum Gunzenhauser, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz will be focusing on the theme of food in art in 2026. Far beyond its function as an everyday consumer product, food in art is an artistic and historically significant documentation of social and human conditions. It has become a vehicle for socio-political discourse, socio-economic conditions, social orders, cultural codes, intercultural diversity and relations of power.
The exhibition at the Feinkunsthalle marks the start of the three-part series. Based on the spatial structures of a supermarket, the exhibition rooms of the Feinkunsthalle present a variety of artistic representations of foods from the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz. From the store’s own bakery to the fruit and vegetable section, along the meat counter to the chewing gum at the checkout, the exhibition shows a wide range of artistic representations of food across different eras.
As an existential part of human life, the motif of food has always been reflected in art history in many different ways. From still life as the primary genre for depicting food, to food discourses of the 1920s, in which vegetarian and vegan lifestyles gained in importance, to depictions of scarcity and deprivation in times of crisis, historical and contemporary works engage in a dialogue about food as a cultural, economic and social product.
The exhibition explores the representation of the consumer and cultural history of food in art: What stories can be told through depictions of food? Which products were consumed at certain times – and in what way? What can be learned about social and historical contexts from this?
In addition to still lifes and genre paintings from the 19th century, the exhibition presents works of classical modernism by artists such as Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paula Modersohn-Becker and Otto Dix. Furthermore, rarely shown works from the collections will be on display, for example by Kurt Teubner, Martha Schrag and Volker Beier. Contemporary positions expand the exhibition with current perspectives. Artists from Chemnitz such as Jan Kummer and Osmar Osten, Sophie Schmidt and Marie Lynn Specker contribute to contemporary issues with paintings, reverse glass paintings, video works and sculptures.
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