Press information

Daniel Spoerri: I love Contradictions

Exhibition
Press downloads

The exhibition I LIKE CONTRADICTIONS at the Falckenberg Collection offers a fresh perspective on the work of Daniel Spoerri (1930–2024) and the enduring relevance of his artistic thinking. After his first career as a classical dancer, Spoerri co-founded the Nouveau Réalistes group in Paris in 1960 together with Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, and other fellow artists, becoming a defining figure of object art. Spoerri rose to fame with his snare-pictures (Fallenbilder), in which he glued down fleeting everyday scenes—remnants of a feast with plates, glasses, and food scraps – turning them into assemblages and, in a playful yet subversive way, elevating them to art – or anti-art. This exhibition—the last to have been agreed upon in close consultation with Harald Falckenberg— presents a comprehensive overview of Spoerri’s work from 1959 to 2018, including lesser-known series, across four floors. Placing his art in direct dialogue with works from the Falckenberg Collection—American and German “counterculture artists” ranging from Ray Johnson to Jonathan Meese, the show situates Spoerri’s oeuvre within a broader cultural and political avant-garde that, since the 1960s, has challenged conventions in art, life, and society.

About the artist

Daniel Spoerri was born Daniel Isaac Feinstein in 1930 in Galați, Romania. In 1942, he fled with his mother and five siblings from the Nazis to Zurich. He worked as a stage designer and dancer before turning, as a self-taught artist, to the visual arts in the 1950s. His first snare-picture was created in 1959, with many more to follow – now housed in major art collections worldwide. A passionate cook, Spoerri often invited people to meals – he loved to celebrate and bring people together. In 1968, he opened the Restaurant Spoerri in Düsseldorf and his Eat Art Gallery, where he regularly organized exhibitions of works by various artists working with food. In the restaurant, a number of snare-pictures were created after meals were served. In Hamburg, in 1978, he designed the stage set for Peter Zadek’s production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. In the sculpture park Il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri in Tuscany, he assembled 115 installations by more than 50 different artists. This year, Daniel Spoerri would have turned 95.
Catalogue

A catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be published by Snoeck Verlag in December 2025. 192 pages, German/English, approx. 100 illustrations, some full-page, with texts by Belinda Grace Gardner, Dirk Luckow, Barbara Räderscheidt and Beatrice von Bismarck.

Press Information

Press releaseAdd to downloads

Pressemitteilung Daniel Spoerri - Ich liebe Widersprüche

Stand: 19.09.2025
Press releaseAdd to downloads

Press Release Daniel Spoerri

Press Images

Welcome to the press area of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Here you will find current press releases, press photos and other material on our exhibitions and projects. The use of all media-relevant information is free of charge in the context of current reporting.

For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us at presse@deichtorhallen.de.