Daniel Spoerri: I liebe Widersprüche / I like contradictions

Out of the pictures and into life

The exhibition "I Love Contradictions" at the Falckenberg Collection opens up a new perspective on the work of Daniel Spoerri (1930-2024) and the unbroken relevance of his artistic thinking. After his first career as a classical dancer, Spoerri founded the Nouveaux Réalistes group in Paris in 1960 together with Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint-Phalle and other artist friends and developed into a formative representative of object art. In contrast to abstract art and following on from the readymades and neo-Dada of the 1960s, Spoerri created his own art genre with his "trap pictures" and founded Eat Art in the 1970s. In dialogue with works from the Falckenberg Collection, the diverse references between Daniel Spoerri's artistic approach and the consumerist and socially critical attitudes found in the collection unfold. Artists such as Dieter Roth and Emmett Williams were Spoerri's companions in the 1960s and 70s; Gianfranco Baruchello, Öyvind Fahlström and Spoerri exhibited together with the Nouveaux Réalistes for the first time in New York in 1962. Material aesthetic and conceptual parallels can in turn be found in the work of Mark Dion, Mariella Mosler, Pope.L, Thomas Grünfeld, Cosima von Bonin and John Miller - for example, Spoerri's typical play with everyday materials, his criticism of the concept of the work and his ironic approach to the meaning of authorship. The works in the Falckenberg Collection reflect interdisciplinary links with Spoerri's art, which have developed across national borders via Fluxus, Nouveau Réalisme and Conceptual Art right up to the present day.

Exhibition: Falckenberg Collection / Deichtorhallen Hamburg: until 26 April 2026