As was already the case in his studio in Holzgraben, Thomas Rehberger also has a large table in the kitchen of his new domicile in Osthafen at which his entire team assembles for lunch. The SCHIRN MAG was allowed to join them.

Three times a week at nine a.m., someone from Rehberger’s team goes grocery shopping. This has been the custom in the artist’s studio for more than four years now. In an interview for the magazine Essen & Trinken, Tobias Rehberger once spoke about how wonderful it would be if he and his staff had a nice lunch they cooked themselves. A couple of months later, this idea was put into practice.

There was no kitchen available during the renovation of his new studio spaces, but for several weeks it has finally been possible to cook again, and the artist’s staff members agree: something was missing. At one o’clock, they all assemble at the long table: the studio team, the employees of Tau von den Wiesenof, the organic herbal tea production company Rehberger manages, and the staff of the furnishing company Morgen Interiors, who reside in the same building.

Twice a year, everyone who would like to partake regularly has kitchen duty for a week and takes care of everything. Often there is one or the other guest—journalists, gallery owners, or friends of the house—so that on occasion there may be more than twenty people at the table. Two courses are created from fresh products—there is either an appetizer or desert in addition to the main course. Today it is fish and a desert crème. If someone has a birthday, they can request their favorite dish.

The Rehberger kitchen in the former studio spaces in Holzgraben may be familiar to some: it also housed Ata Macias’s Club Michel, which has meanwhile moved to the area around the train station. His concept: those who register in a newsletter can participate in a meal prepared by a guest cook and served in a relatively private atmosphere. There is another address in Frankfurt that combines cooking with art: the Freitagsküche (Friday’s kitchen) in Mainzer Landstrasse, cofounded by the Städel graduate Michael Riedel. In the meantime there is a public lunch, but Friday evening, on which a guest from the art scene cooks for everyone, is still the focal point.

The combination of art with cooking has a long tradition in Frankfurt. In 1978, Peter Kubelka came to the Städelschule as a professor and taught a combination of subjects that was created for the first time specifically for him: “Film and Cooking as Art.” And the idea was upheld even after he left in 2000. For the Städel graduate Rehberger, who is meanwhile a professor at the art school, a collective lunch is one of the most important parts of his everyday work in the studio. That this practice results in good art can currently be examined in Tobias Rehberger’s exhibition Home and Away and Outside at the SCHIRN.