Sonja Alhäuser

Cycles and transitions

Sonja Alhäuser pursues existential considerations in her work. Here one encounters the drama of life in all its fullness, which manifests itself in lush sensuality, collective festivities and even dark metabolism. In addition to her beautiful, large-format, subtly coloured drawings, which can also be read as instructions or recipes, the Berlin-based artist has become known to a wider audience with her "chocolate machines" and margarine sculptures in refrigerated display cases. For her banquets or "6 Banquets without a Cause", she then invited diners to devour her installations, each dedicated to a specific theme, in an almost orgiastic manner. The exuberant, sensually titillating structure of the table installations with sculptures, hand-painted pennants, crustaceans such as lobsters or crabs, capital fish or large pieces of venison is not only intended to encourage epicurean enjoyment, but also generally stands for the contradiction that defines all our lives between constantly striving for pleasure and constantly striving for self-optimisation. Sonja Alhäuser's art thus confronts us in a disturbing way with the Epicurean world view before we stoically return to the lowlands of fitness and body management.