Anna & Bernhard Blume
kitchen fever, 1985

Artists
Anna & Bernhard Blume

Title
kitchen fever

Year of creation
1985

Technique and dimensions
Silver gelatin print, 10-part sequence, each 200 x 126 cm

Year of acquisition
2008

Acquisition of the foundation

"Are potatoes just potatoes, or can they also be signs of the soul? Shouldn't we see them as objectifications, e.g. of suppressed, unlived desires, drives? Can't potatoes then sometimes be mirages, photogenic manifestations of a long-frustrated soul that would otherwise have to remain speechless ?" Anna and Bernhard Blume themselves record these thoughts regarding their work of art in their “Statement on the sequence 'Kitchen Fever'”. They emphasize that this interpretation is just one suggestion among the many ways to see this work of art. According to their interpretation, the potatoes are no longer subject to the forces we know in our everyday lives - for example, the force of gravity. Rather, they obey the “housewifely soul forces”. The viewer should see himself objectively with the help of the picture, as he has previously refused to perceive himself in this state, says Blumes. Looking at this work of art is a kind of “phototherapy”.

Anna and Bernhard Blume, who describe themselves as "a typical lower-middle-class, Catholic-German couple", also conduct self-experiments in many of their other works of art, researching the Little Germans who live in pairs in living rooms.