Let Them Eat Cake?

The exhibition Let them Eat Cake presents works with the motif of food that Croatian artists have created from the beginnings of Modern to the present day. The exhibition covers works from the second half of the 19th century to the present days. Along with the exhibition a comprehensive catalog is printed and it includes reproductions of all works in the exhibition, as well as expert texts - both art related, and those concerning food through historical, sociological, cultural, political, religious, gastronomic, anthropological and psychological aspect and with this it will present a broader cultural understanding of nutrition in modern civilization.

Today's society, globally and locally, produces food quantities that are qualitatively and quantitatively immeasurable to any previous civilization, but despite this, a large number of people are starved of hunger and inadequate diet.

Food preparation is sophisticated to the extreme, and its serving and function in social life is ritualized to an epidemic of contradictory phenomena such as eating disorders. While on the one hand the civilization spectrum is suffering, and the excesses of food are thrown away, on the other hand, one dies of starvation. And while the necessity of feeding in every society has developed itself into a completely specific diet culture, so that, for example, global globalization and multiculturalism in the food segment will be reflected as a cuisine of fusion and the development of science as molecular gastronomy; in visual art, the motif of the food developed in the millennium period of traditional artwork into a separate sub genre of still lives, and is used by modern visual artists as a platform for the criticism of civilization and the indicators of the distribution of political and economic power.

The exhibition, named after a famous statement acclaimed to Queen Marie-Antoinette, will present this paradigm shift through the work of Croatian artists in all the media where contemporary visual creativity is realized - from traditional art disciplines to photography, video, installations and interactive content. Works from different decades and in different disciplines are set up to complement their aesthetic experience and their level of meaning, so the exhibition, while considering well-known themes, has a powerful educational potential in the evolution of the twentieth century artistic trends.

Professional concept and exhibition set-up: Jasminka Poklečki Stošić and Branko Franceschi.