FOOD at Chiostro del Bramante: 190 artworks and five centuries of art on food, from Bimbi to Abramović and LaChapelle.

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How many great stories have begun around a table? From cinema and literature to theatre and religious traditions, the act of gathering around a table, whether to eat or prepare food, reveals something about who we are and how we feel.

Until 29 March 2027 at the Chiostro del Bramante, a few steps away from Piazza Navona, you can have a “taste” of the cultural and sociological representation of food through the centuries. Curated by Suzanne Landau, the exhibition features 190 artworks narrating food through the body, desire, identity, power and society, and accompanies visitors of all ages through the deeper meaning of food. The visit includes an educational programme and an audioguide in which eight figures from Rome’s food culture, from fruit sellers to market stallholders, comment on eight artworks, offering a view of art far from that of the critic.

With “FOOD. Tasting Art”, the Chiostro del Bramante invites everyone to explore food through five centuries of art, across different levels of experience: memory, the body, culture, imagination and ecology.

Lemons, peaches, pears, ceramics, forks, knives, plates, people depicted eating or arguing around the kitchen table: they can be seen everywhere in this exhibition. From the everyday act of eating to the symbolic, social and cultural dimension of conviviality, food becomes the protagonist of an exhibition that encourages visitors to look with new eyes at what belongs to our most intimate and collective experience. The show brings together more than 60 international artists, including Marina Abramović, who opens the show with a video, David LaChapelle, Sophie Calle, Vanessa Beecroft, Bartolomeo Bimbi, Christian Berentz, Yinka Shonibare, Piero Gilardi, Carrie Mae Weems, Sam Taylor-Johnson, Daniel Spoerri and Ernesto Neto.

Artists transformed the act of eating and food into a visual language, while reflecting on our identities, politics, social status, pleasures and taboos. Food became an allegory, a metaphor, a rebellion, an expression of love, labour, memory and desire.

One of the exhibition’s main takeaways is the realisation that food, whether we are eating it, preparing it or simply thinking about it, is everywhere. It surrounds us and touches virtually every aspect of human life. From religious paintings and magnificent 16th-century still lifes to Bompas & Parr’s immersive installation recreating a Pasta Shell Grotto inside the museum, the exhibition offers a remarkable variety of perspectives. Another highlight is Sweet Memories by Simone Post: a miniature flat covered in marshmallows and sweets, complete with a washing machine.

This is an exhibition well worth visiting with family or friends, whether to admire beautiful paintings, reflect on everyday rituals, or discuss your favourite Italian dish around a table that seems to have stepped straight out of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

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