The Project Silver Summer Gallery

For the third time, visitors to the Inhorgenta 2004 in Munich will be pleased at the very different kind of outdoor restaurant set up in the designer hall: the Silver Summer Gallery.

The restaurant brings to the trade fair a custom that has become a tradition in the backyard of Professor Ulla Mayer Guests at the home of the President of the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg can select not only their foods, but also the silver utensils they would then like to use for the meal. A range of cutlery and drinking vessels is also available for guests to choose from.

Students and graduates of Professor Mayer's courses provide their own unusual designer pieces for this somewhat different restaurant. They also staff the restaurant and are available to answer questions.

The President of the Academy of Fine Arts hopes that in this way, the designers' works will not be relegated to the ivory tower of cultural industry. "Art is disappearing more and more behind closed doors and into glass cases, because every artist wants to exhibit in good locations," as Professor Mayer explains her intention. "I would like to bring art back to its place among people, thereby setting communication in motion."

There is a lot to say and to discuss in an encounter with the Silver Summer Gallery as it is staged with the aid of Alessandra Pizzini and explained in accurate texts on the menu. The first thing to catch ones eye at the table is the samovar by Ulla Mayer. This modern interpretation of the traditional device is reminiscent of a launch pad for intergalactic travel. Tea and coffee served from pots by Christoph Klement and Michael Hinterleitner, or the water-to-wine poured from carafes by Anna Lang, tell stories. The bubbly water pot "Hannelore" promises wonderful refreshment, while the pot "Kreszenz", with its upturned French spout, seems to say, "just tea for me, please."

The sensitive drinking vessels by Katja Höltermann are available for wine. The round glasses are so well balanced that they lean to one side when the contents are nearly gone. A game that leads to as exciting a communication at the table as Ulla Mayer's horizontal wine bottles. They cling together and it is only through trying that one learns why Drinking from Stefan Kappler's bowls is a delicate matter. Their flat forms require balance on the way to the mouth.

The pieces of the salad set by Ulla Mayer seem to relax in a harmonious embrace after picking up the salad.

Individual seasonings are dispensed from saltshakers and pepper mills by Ulli Leitner, Gabriele Knebel, Katja Holtermann, and Bernhard Musch-Maas, who also contributes a wide variety of cutlery for the salad or appetizer courses. An area in which lgnazio Tola, Bohyung Koh and Franziska Rauchenecker have created beautiful forms for the main dishes.

"Habba Habba" (Yum Yum): as the name indicates, Stefan Sucker considers eating and children in an entirely new way. With a result that makes even some adults green with envy!

And to round out the meal, an espresso. Preferably from the Pocket Coffee Machine by Michae Hinterleitner, which you can always have at the ready, because it really does f it into any pants pocket.

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