Daniel Spoerri: Eggcykloapaedia
Apr 26–Jun 15, 2019
Exhibition view “Eggcyklopaedia”, Photo Giorgia Palmisano.
Exhibition view “Eggcyklopaedia”, Photo Giorgia Palmisano.

When she asks him about the egg over lunch in Vienna, he says it started with language like everything he’s done. He started by circling the word 'egg' in every book he read and then writing sentences around it. “When I started collecting variations all the different elements just started appearing, so I gathered them: later friends added elements and the collection evolved.”

A waiter comes to take their order and she remembers walking through Spoerri’s many assortments of things: small porcelain heads, wooden walking poles, metal frogs, furry masks. Variations, he says, every variation of a thing teaches him something about the thing and then about himself.

Assortments of curiosities, she thinks, and how they continue to tell stories about the circle of life. Daniel Spoerri creates art out of found objects that lose their function as soon as he integrates them into his works, leaving their old life to start a new one. “That was one of the few pieces Conz actually collected, in a classical way, normally he was doing things differently than anyone I knew, (he smiles).” Plates come and others are taken away. “And when did you know it was finished?” “It was never finished, you just stop. Would you like another glass of wine?”

- An extract from a conversation between Yael Salomonowitz and Daniel Spoerri

Daniel Spoerri (Galați, Romania, 1930, lives and works and Vienna, Austria) is a Swiss artist and writer. Spoerri is best known for his "snare-pictures," in which he captures a group of objects, such as the remains of meals eaten by individuals, including the plates, silverware and glasses, all of which are fixed to the table or board, which is then displayed on a wall. Spoerri was one of the original signers of the Nouveau Réalisme (New Realism) manifesto and is closely associated with the Fluxus movement. He was a close friend and collaborator of Conz, produced various editions with him, and largely contributed to Conz’s so-called Fetish collection where every-day objects turned into art, and without alteration, were elevated by the action of the artist’s choice.