Golden Bread 

Artist Meschac Gaba (1961)  

Title Golden Bread  

Year 1998  

Material Ceramic with gold paint  

About the work 

This sculpture in the shape of a round loaf is exactly the same size as a real loaf of bread. You can even see the cracks that form when dough rises in the oven. Yet it is clear that this bread is purely for viewing and not for eating, which creates a certain tension. The sculpture refers to an object that is a scarce and precious staple food for the poorest of the poor, but that is nothing more than a cheap and everyday food for richer people. This contrast is reinforced by the fact that the sculpture is covered with a layer of gold, a material that is considered a stable investment and evokes associations with luxury and wealth.   

About the artist

Meschac Gaba is self-taught and creates conceptual work. His best-known project is Museum of Contemporary African Art, an itinerant museum halfway between a contemporary art gallery and an African market. This project originated in the late 1990s when Gaba was artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. He noticed that African art was not very prominent and was often framed in a particular, one-sided way within Europe's art scene. Conversely, he also noted the relative lack of galleries and institutions for contemporary art in African countries in the late 1990s. With his nomadic museum, Gaba sought to create a place where the African and European (art) worlds could come closer together. Today, he lives and works in Rotterdam and in his hometown of Cotonou in Benin. <Read more about the artist>  

In the collection

Acquired in 1998. That year, Museum of Contemporary African Art was exhibited at De Nederlandsche Bank. One of its elements was the work Golden Bread. Gaba's work is still relevant to De Nederlandsche Bank, given that it connects questions about art, value, the global economy and social relations.