Stauffer first became known for his German translation of Eugène Ionesco's play The Bald Soprano, which premiered at the Klein-Theater Bern in 1956 (among other actors, its cast included Daniel Spoerri) and was published by Luchterhand in 1959.
Among other projects, he worked on Dokumentation über Marcel Duchamp (1960), an exhibition organised by Max Bill at Zurich’s Museum of Design.
[3] Stauffer’s early work includes the playful object Jardin public (1960), which was published as an edition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1961.
In 1976, he presented his Thesen zu Kunst als Forschung [Theses on Art as Research] within the context of an F+F exhibition held in the lobby of the Kunsthaus Zürich.
In 1981, he published an essay on "Art as Research" in the book Genie gibt′s – Die siebziger Jahre an der F&F Schule für experimentelle Gestaltung.
This was followed in 1981 by Die Schriften – Zu Lebzeiten veröffentlichte Texte mit übersetzten und faksimilierten Texten von Marcel Duchamp, which Stauffer co-edited with Theo Ruff.
[11] Stauffer maintained a lifelong friendship with the Swiss artist and poet André Thomkins, which resulted in an extensive correspondence.