All cannibals? - me Collectors Room Berlin / by Claudia Phares

Jérôme Zonder, ‘Jeu d’enfants no.1’, 2010

Wunderkammer, taken with my iPhone

At me Collectors Room is showing ‘All cannibals?’, an exhibition created in collaboration with, la maison rouge, in Paris. Dr. Jeanette Zwingenberger curated this show combining permanent collections of cabinets of curiosities (Wunderkammer), and collectors’ items of various media. Obviously, this show is not for the faint at heart. A lot of it is left to the imagination of the viewer. The show is not about man-eating ‘savages’. Zwingenberger reports that the exhibition is about “the imaginary, the subjective, the biological and social-political relation to oneself and to the other, form the perspective of ingestion”.

The show contains both contemporary and historical works. They are organised around the following themes: Wunderkammer, fairy tales, mother-child relationships, cannibalism and the sacred, and corporeality.

Some of photographers included in the show were Cindy Sherman, Pieter Hugo, Bettina Rheims, and Yasumasa Morimura. Besides photography, there is sculpture, painting, drawings, installation and video art. Next to the ticket booth, there’s also an interesting video of Patty Chang, ‘Melons (At a loss)’ (1998), who is seen spooning out her own breast, a cynical take on anorexia in society.

The show is fascinating for its diverse content on such an interesting concept. I really enjoyed it and found it very inspiring.