Daniel Spoerri

Daniel Spoerri was a co-signatory of the Nouveau R alisme manifesto in 1960, an early member of Fluxus and the author of the classic Anecdoted Topography of Chance, which recorded and annotated the contents of Spoerri's desk. In 1968 Spoerri also opened Restaurant Spoerri, introducing his concept of Eat Art, which he had initiated a decade earlier, and which explored the creation, decay and trapping of food upon tables that were then recapitulated as assemblages. Marking the occasion of the artist's eightieth birthday, Daniel Spoerri: Eaten By approaches the theme of food throughout Spoerri's oeuvre, from the early 1960s to the present. It includes the artist's replica of the Restaurant Spoerri, a survey of Spoerri's trap pictures from 1978 to 1992, and a large number of more recent assemblages and sculptures, bringing his audience fully up to date.

Originally published by Something Else Press in 1966 and now acknowledged as one of the most important and entertaining artists' books of the postwar period, An Anecdoted Topography of Chance is a unique collaborative work by four artists associated with the Fluxus and Nouveau R alisme movements, here released in a new edition. Following a rambling conversation with his friend Robert Filliou, Daniel Spoerri one day mapped the objects lying at random on the table in his room, adding a rigorously scientific description of each. These objects subsequently evoked associations, memories and anecdotes from both the original author and his friends Filliou, Emmett Williams, Dieter Roth and Roland Topor. Many of the principal participants of Fluxus also make an appearance (texts by Higgins, Jouffroy, Kaprow, Restany and Tinguely are included, among others). An Anecdoted Topography of Chance is an archaeological game, a poem to the arbitrary, an encyclopaedia, and above all else, a celebration of friendship and creativity. The Topography personifies and predates the spirit of Fluxus and constitutes one of the strangest and most compelling insights into the artist's life. From the banal detritus of the everyday a virtual autobiography emerges, of four perceptive, witty and exceptionally congenial artists.

Daniel Spoerri hat auf seinen Fallenbildern den Zustand nach einer Mahlzeit fixiert und in eine ungewohnte - vertikale - Perspektive gebracht. Doch hat er sich auch um den Moment vor dem Essen gekümmert: ums Kochen! Spoerri ist Sammler historischer Kochbücher, kulinarischer Ethnologe, Restaurantgründer und Provokateur von Auge und Gaumen. In dem vorliegenden Bändchen sind Rezepte, Glossen und Anekdoten zu einer Kulturgeschichte des Essens und einer Einführung in die Eat Art zusammengestellt.