Born 1930 in Galați, Romania
Died 2024 in Vienna, Austria
Daniel Spoerri (*1930 in Galați, Romania and died 2024 in Vienna, Austria) was one of the most outstanding representatives of Object Art. Together with Jean Tinguely and Yves Klein, they were pioneers of the Nouveau Réalisme; Additionally, he is regarded as the inventor of Eat Art. His Tableaux pièges (Engl. trap pictures), created in the 1960s and further developed over decades, capture a very specific time and comprehensible atmosphere, be it an evening with friends, a work desk, or a flea market stall, either way trapping a piece of everyday reality. His artistic work is characterized by vivid subversive energy, his constant curiosity, and his love for collecting the most diverse „marginalized“ objects that have fallen out of their order. They serve as testimonies of the past, their functions and meanings – seismographs of bygone, yet simultaneously preserved times.
With the idea of the „trap pictures“, he had secured himself a place in art history since 1959. In addition to numerous international solo and group exhibitions, he realized major projects, such as a restaurant in Düsseldorf (1968) and the invention of Eat Art, as well as the exhibition principle “Musée sentimental”. From 1978 to 1989, Daniel Spoerri taught in Cologne and Munich. From 1989, he dedicated himself to a new large-scale project, a 14-hectare sculpture garden in southern Tuscany „Il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri – Hic Terminus Haeret”. In 2007, he opened the “Spoerri Exhibition Center” in Hadersdorf am Kamp (Lower Austria).
His works have been displayed in various institutions around the world including: Kunstforum, Vienna, Austria (2021), Le Musée Le Carroi, Chinon, France (2015), MOCAK – Museum of contemporary art, Krakow, Poland (2019/2015), Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria (2012), Collection Essl, Klosterneuburg, Austria (2011), Museo d´Arte Contemporanea, Genoa, Italy (2010), Ludwig Museum in the Deutschherrenhaus, Koblenz, Germany (2009), Centro per l´Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy (2007), Staatliche Museum Schwerin, Schwerin, Germany (2006), Kunsthaus Wien, Vienna, Austria (2003), Kasseler Kunstverein, Kassel, Germany (1998), Centre Pompidou – Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France (1990) and others. His most recent solo show at Galerie Krinzinger goes back to 2019/2020 with the title Eintagskästchen.
