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Assembling the contents of a 160 year-old still life by post-impressionist master Paul Cézanne, we can pretend to imagine what the French painter saw in his studio.

Recreated with everyday objects found at home, this playful exercise denotes a feeling of accessibility to a genre of art that has associations to textbooks and stuffy museums.

The objects are similar enough, but also different. An aluminium bucket sits in for a pewter tankard. Instead of an artisan baguette, two mass-produced Brötchen, or bread rolls. The eggs have been clearly stamped on an assembly line, labelled with their country of origin and farm identification number — contemporary counterparts of the ‘old world’ objects give away their epoch with markers of the modern industrial complex.

At the bottom: a quote by Cézanne some twenty years after the painting was created.

“Objects never cease to live…these glasses, these plates, they converse amongst themselves.”

Perhaps the objects are still having conversations to this day?

Berlin-based artist Poobeye’s installation plays with classical modes of representation and a popular internet meme where images from pop culture and history are recreated in a way that clearly exposes the means of production.

On view at X Kabinett

Oranienstraße 200

10999 Berlin, Kreuzberg