What can six apples not be?

06.-28.11.2026

Opening: Thursday, 05.11.2026 | 18:00

Davy Art Space, Lindengasse 51, 1070 Vienna 

GROUP SHOW 

Artists: Linus Barta, Daniel Ferstl, Martin Fink, Rudolf Fitz, Dominika Kováčiková, Emma Peinhopf, Ramsko, Paul Riedmüller, Sophie Schweizer, Titania Seidl, Melanie Thöni & Bettina Willnauer

“What can six apples not be?” Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary in 1918, after encountering a still life by Paul Cézanne depicting a group of apples. Her question opens up a broader reflection on the possibilities of art: How can something as ordinary as an apple give rise to such a remarkable range of meanings and interpretations?

Few objects are as familiar, yet so rich in cultural and symbolic meaning, as the apple. Across mythology, religion, fairy tales and art history, it has come to symbolise temptation and desire, knowledge and prohibition, power and mortality. From the biblical forbidden fruit and the golden apples of Greek mythology to still-life painting and contemporary popular culture, the apple carries centuries of associations. Today, it also raises questions about consumption, cultural identity and our relationship with nature. At the same time, it remains an ordinary fruit. Something we encounter, buy and consume in our daily lives, often without a second thought.

Bringing together twelve contemporary artistic positions, What Can Six Apples Not Be? explores the apple as both a culturally charged symbol and a starting point for artistic experimentation.

Spanning painting, printmaking, ceramics and textile works, the exhibition brings together conceptual, sensual, critical and playful approaches. Some artists explore the apple’s relationship to the human body, touching on ideas of intimacy, vulnerability and desire. Others revisit the long tradition of still-life painting, using the apple to investigate colour, form, composition and space. Elsewhere, the fruit becomes an object of everyday observation, playful reinterpretation or a departure into abstraction.

Returning to Virginia Woolf’s question, the exhibition embraces the openness of the subject and highlights the many ways in which an ordinary object can become a source of artistic inquiry.

Opening Hours: Wed-Sat, 13-18:00 & by appointment 

Cover image: Martin Fink, a love letter to the genre, 2023, oil on canvas, 195 x 146 cm.