SMOKE – SOCIETY IN A BLUE HAZE

Smoking is unhealthy, no question, but its influence on society and everyday life is indisputable – and remains so. With a presentation of selected utensils, the special exhibition focuses on the history of tobacco consumption in the 19th century.

Smoking is a habit that has always polarised society: critics of the “devil’s weed” vs. advocates of the “medicinal herb”, the militant non-smoker Goethe vs. the chain-smoker Schiller, the prominent politician puffing an expensive cigar vs. the emancipated film diva nipping at her cigarette holder. Smoking is unhealthy, no question, but its influence on society and everyday life is indisputable – and remains so. With a presentation of selected utensils, some of which were used by prominent figures (of Weimar), the special exhibition focuses on the history of tobacco consumption in the 19^th century. An elegant smoking table of classical modernism, staged as part of the exhibition tour “Strange Friends. Modernism in Historic Buildings”, promises to revive the Biedermeier-period salon once again.

Special exhibition by the Stiftung Thüringer Schlösser und Gärten in cooperation with the Klassik Stiftung Weimar