Daniel Spoerri: I liebe Widersprüche / I like contradictions

Out of the pictures and into life

The exhibition "I Love Contradictions" at the Falckenberg Collection offers a new perspective on the work of Daniel Spoerri (1930–2024) and the enduring relevance of his artistic thinking. After his initial career as a classical dancer, Spoerri co-founded the Nouveaux Réalistes group in Paris in 1960 with Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint-Phalle, and other artist friends, becoming a pivotal figure in object art. Differentiating himself from abstract art and building on the readymades and the neo-Dadaism of the 1960s, Spoerri created his own art genre with his "snare-pictures" and pioneered Eat Art in the 1970s. In dialogue with works from the Falckenberg Collection, the diverse connections between Daniel Spoerri's artistic approach and the consumption- and society-critical attitudes found in the collection unfold. Artists such as Dieter Roth and Emmett Williams were Spoerri's contemporaries in the 1960s and 1970s; Gianfranco Baruchello, Öyvind Fahlström, and Spoerri first exhibited together with the Nouveaux Réalistes in New York in 1962. Material-aesthetic and conceptual parallels can again be found with Mark Dion, Mariella Mosler, Pope.L, Thomas Grünfeld, Cosima von Bonin, and John Miller – for example, Spoerri's characteristic use of everyday materials, criticism of the concept of the artwork, and an ironic engagement with the meaning of authorship. The works in the Falckenberg Collection reflect interdisciplinary connections with Spoerri's art, which has developed across national borders through Fluxus, Nouveau Réalisme, and conceptual art, continuing into the present day. Exhibition: Falckenberg Collection / Deichtorhallen Hamburg: until April 26, 2026