The exhibition explores the theme of food, which in the case of human communities goes beyond a merely biological need to turn into an occasion for communication between people, a reason for human labour, or an essential part of various rituals, rites and traditions.

Regardless of its material essence food is also a social phenomenon inasmuch as the process of its provision and consumption involves communication between people at various levels. From the age of the earliest human communities to the present day, the most widely spread social contacts have been associated with food consumption. Also, in all systems of beliefs, denominations and religions, food has been an essential component of the rituals and sacraments aiming to provide a connection between our material world and its intangible projections. Food is the link closing the circle of humans’ biological and abstract nature, as well as the bridge to their social and spiritual fulfilment.

Used as a theme or an attribute in visual arts, food presents different characteristic features, lifestyles, life stories, moods, seclusion or togetherness, harmony or conflict, thus revealing various aspects of human nature.

The exhibition Food: Essential, Communication, Ritual covers all of the above showcasing Bulgarian paintings from the beginning of the 20^th century through the initial decades of the 21 century, which present relations, conditions, traditions and symbols through the theme of food, while revealing various aspects of the concepts of labour, communication and ritual. The exhibition features works belonging to the permanent collections of the Sofia City Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Art, the National Ethnographic Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Arts, Sofia and various art galleries throughout the country.

The thematic exhibition features works by Ivan Markvichka, Nikola Mihaylov, Peter Morozov, Nikola Avramov, Anton Mitov, Ivan Milev, Ivan Penkov, Vladimir Dimitrov the Master, Bencho Obreshkov, Zlatyo Boyadzhiev, Atanas Yaranov, Svilen Blazhev, Andrey Daniel, Vihroni Popnedelev, etc.

Food, as featured in the artworks included in the exhibition, presents the human life cycle: work or leisure, everyday life or ritual, loss or celebration, loneliness or togetherness, thus painting the complicated contradictory picture of human life.