CENTRO PECCI exhibitions

The exhibition is the most extensive retrospective ever dedicated to the artist in Italy. It reveals the various turns Spoerri’s artistic career has taken as a result of fortuitous situations and unexpected coincidences, but also shows how on the whole these have been wrought by Spoerri with essential coherence and “not by chance”, moving from the particular to the general, from start to finish. As the artist has commented: “I have never departed from a straight line. I follow my own path but am increasingly conscious that I am weaving a kind of motif…”. Promoted by the Region of Tuscany and Prato City Council, and with the support of various bodies and private sponsors, the exhibition comprises 120 works from European museums such as the Mumok Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna, the Kunstmuseum in Solothurn, the Morsbroich Museum in Leverkusen and private galleries and collections in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. The works, which are grouped into nine thematic sections, trace the artist’s entire career: from the evolution of the Tableaux-piège and the “collections” of objects to the development of Eat Art; from the Pièges à mots (“word snares”), Détrompe-l’œil (“disillusion the eye”) and the “multiples” used to undermine the visual and compositional conventions of the artistic tradition to the realization of his Objets de magie à la noix (“objects of dull-witted magic”), bronze assemblages and casts; from the Criminal investigations to the creation of a Cabinet anatomique (“anatomy cabinet”); from the composition of Corps en morceaux (“bodies in shreds”), Work benches and the Carnival of animals to the Genetic chain of the flea market; and finishing with the last series of works produced by the artist in 2004-06 and inspired by the aberrant, fantastic figures of the Idols of Prillwitz trapped in the tangle of bronze casting channels.

The exhibition also investigates the intimate and profound side to Spoerri’s work, in which the artist reveals something about himself: the recollection of Chambre No 13 of the Hotêl Carcassonne, in Rue Mouffetard in Paris (the version in bronze is in the Garden in Seggiano); his encounter with Picasso in Vue cubiste del la Chambre no.13; the facing up to death and the reference to Duchamp in Memento Mori. La fille mère mise à nu par la mort, même; traces of childhood in Les poupées; the demon of alcohol in Santo Grappa; base instincts in La mère du travesti and Bibliothèque de recettes. Rounding off the exhibition is a section devoted to the Small cabinet of curiosities of the artists of the Giardino di Daniel Spoerri, which relates to the Foundation established by the artist in Seggiano (GR). The foundation can be visited (there is an admission charge) from April to October, or by appointment. In the 1990s, on the slopes of Monte Amiata, Spoerri launched his challenge against nature, the last boundary to cross (Hic Terminus Haeret): in the garden that bears his name, he has sited his own works and those of internationally renowned artist friends such as Eva Aeppli, Arman, Roberto Barni, Meret Oppenheim, Nam June Paik, Jesus Rafael Soto, Jean Tinguely, Roland Topor, Not Vital.