Daniel Spoerri

Daniel Spoerri (German pronunciation: [ˈʃpœʁi];[1] 27 March 1930 – 6 November 2024) was a Romanian-born Swiss visual artist and writer.

Although his father, Isaac Feinstein, had converted from Judaism to Christianity,[3] after Romania entered the War on the side of Nazi Germany he was arrested and killed in 1941.

He later staged several avant-garde plays including Ionesco's The Bald Soprano and Picasso's surrealist Desire Trapped by the Tail.

[6] In 1959 Spoerri founded Editions MAT ("Multiplication d'art Transformable"), a venture which produced and sold copies of three-dimensional constructed artworks by artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Dieter Roth, Jean Tinguely, and Victor Vasarely.

Spoerri later explained snare-pictures as follows: "objects found in chance positions, in order or disorder (on tables, in boxes, drawers, etc.)

The Topographie Anécdotée* du Hasard was printed as a small pamphlet of 53 pages plus a fold out map and index and was distributed as an advertisement for the exhibit.

[13] The Topographie Anécdotée* du Hasard is more than just a catalog of random objects, however; read in its entirety, it provides a coherent and compelling picture of Spoerri's travels, friends, and artistic endeavors.

Spoerri was one of the original signers of the manifesto creating the Nouveau réalisme (New Realism) art movement, an avant garde endeavor begun in 1960.

In 1963, he enacted a sort of performance art called Restaurant de la Galerie J in Paris, for which he cooked on several evenings.

Art-critics took over the role of waiters, playing on the idea of the critic bringing the art to the consumers and giving them an understanding of the work.

[23] Spoerri led a nomadic life, living variously in Bern, Paris, the Greek island of Symi, Düsseldorf, Basel, Munich, and Vienna.