The Ideas, Identity and Art of Daniel Spoerri

The term “artistic animator” is inspired by the definition “Kunstanimator” given to Spoerri by his longstanding friend Karl Gerstner during an interview with Katerina Vatsella in 1995. Wherever he went, Spoerri was capable of inspiring others to make art, and at the same time he absorbed, interiorized and transformed ideas from others. His fluctuating memberships during late Modernism (Zero, Nouveau REalisme, Fluxus, Mail Art) explain why some areas of this work have not yet received their due attention and their connection to the whole picture has often eluded scholarly inquiry. Beyond his tableaux-piEges, which gave him immediate notoriety through an early purchase by the MoMA, Spoerri discovered a new way to approach the multiples in sculpture (Edition MAT), he transformed his trap pictures into an experimental narrative form (Topographie AnEcdotEe du Hasard), he initiated the Eat Art movement, he tested an innovative curatorial approach (the MusEe Sentimental and the Giardino). Despite constant interruptions due to his semi-nomadic lifestyle, this oeuvre presents an extraordinary coherence, where none of these ventures can be properly understood without considering all the others. This is the first monograph entirely devoted to Daniel Spoerri in the United States to date. With an introduction by Barbara RAderscheidt.

Author Biography

Leda Cempellin (PhD Università di Parma, Italy, 2004) is currently Associate Professor of Art History in the School of Design and Coordinator of Museum Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at South Dakota State University (Professor effective fall 2017). She authored a book on American Photorealism (2004) and monographs on Don Eddy (2000) and Leigh Behnke (2005). Since 2013, she is US Correspondent for the Italian art magazine Juliet, where she has been interviewing renowned personalities in the art world. Her extensive publication record addresses issues of Modern and Contemporary Art History and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, often with interdisciplinary approach. In 2013 she has interviewed Spoerri in person at his Giardino in Seggiano: a portion of the interview has been published in the GiardinoHeft, in occasion of the exhibition Il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri at Forum Kunst Rottweil and Seggiano (Sept. 7 -Oct. 27, 2013). Cempellin has presented aspects of this artist’s oeuvre in several conferences, including the European Studies Conference (2012, 2013, 2014), the Southeastern College Art Conference (2014 and 2015), and the annual conference of the College Art Association (2017).