Sonja Alhäuser

Cycles and transitions

In her work Sonja Alhäuser pursues fundamental existential questions. Here one encounters the drama of life in all its abundance, manifesting itself in rich sensuality and collective festivity and extending to a sombre metabolism. Alongside her beautiful large-format, discreetly coloured drawings, which can also be read as sets of instructions or recipes, the Berlin-based artist has become known to a wider public for her “chocolate machines” and margarine sculptures in refrigerated display cases. For her banquets, or “6 Bankette ohne Anlass”, she invited diners to consume, in almost orgiastic fashion, installations each devoted to a specific theme. The exuberant, sensually titillating arrangement of these table installations – with sculptures, hand-painted pennants, crustaceans such as lobsters and crayfish, prize fish or large cuts of game – is not merely intended to encourage Lucullan indulgence, however; more generally it stands for the contradiction that governs all our lives, between the constant pursuit of pleasure and the constant pursuit of self-optimisation. In this way Sonja Alhäuser’s art confronts us disquietingly with the Epicurean view of the world before we stoically return to the lowlands of fitness and body management.