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Biography

(b Galati, Romania, 27 March 1930). Swiss sculptor, performance artist and writer of Romanian birth. On the death of his father in 1942 he fled with his family to Switzerland, where he was adopted by his uncle Théophile Spoerri in Zurich. In 1950 he began studying classical ballet in Zurich. From 1952 he studied dance and mime in Paris, becoming principal dancer for the Berne Opera in 1954 while also working as stage designer, composer ... (view more)

Grove Art excerpts - Electronic ©2003, Oxford Art Online

(b Galati, Romania, 27 March 1930). Swiss sculptor, performance artist and writer of Romanian birth. On the death of his father in 1942 he fled with his family to Switzerland, where he was adopted by his uncle Théophile Spoerri in Zurich. In 1950 he began studying classical ballet in Zurich. From 1952 he studied dance and mime in Paris, becoming principal dancer for the Berne Opera in 1954 while also working as stage designer, composer and choreographer for the Kellertheater. From 1957 to 1959 he was assistant director at the Landestheater in Darmstadt. These experiences in the theatre provided the background to the art that he began to produce after settling in Paris in 1959. In addition to organizing banquets, festivals and exhibitions, he established a publishing house, MAT (Multiplication d’Art Transformable), specializing in concrete poetry. In 1960 Spoerri met Yves Klein through Jean Tinguely (whom he had met in Basle in 1949) and became a founder-member of NOUVEAU RÉALISME. In the same year he produced the first of his tableaux pièges (trap pictures), such as Kichka’s Breakfast I (objects fixed to a wooden plank and chair, 1960; see SWITZERLAND, fig. 12), in which randomly ordered objects were glued on to the furniture and other supports on which they rested exactly as they were found. Displaying the resulting sculpture not on the floor but on the wall, so that the objects appeared to defy gravity, Spoerri turned his realist still-lifes into pictures. His use of objets trouvés as fragments of everyday life, together with his reliance on chance in determining the arrangements, confirmed the conscious debts of the Nouveaux Réalistes to the earlier Dada movement.  (hide)

Grove Art excerpts - Electronic ©2003, Oxford Art Online

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