Description: The exhibition » I Love Contradictions« at the Sammlung Falckenberg offers a new 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 Nouveaux Ré alistes group in Paris in 1960 together with Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint-Phalle, and other fellow artists, evolving into a formative representative of object art. Distancing himself from abstract art and building on the readymades and Neo-Dada of the 1960s, Spoerri created his own art genre with his » snare pictures« and established Eat Art in the 1970s. In dialogue with works from the Sammlung Falckenberg, the diverse connections between Daniel Spoerri's artistic approach and the consumer-critical and socially critical stances found in the collection unfold. Artists like Dieter Roth or Emmett Williams were companions of Spoerri's during the 1960s and 70s; Gianfranco Baruchello, Ö yvind FahlstrÖ m, and Spoerri exhibited together with the Nouveaux Ré alistes for the first time in New York in 1962. Material-aesthetic and conceptual parallels can in turn be found in the work of Mark Dion, Mariella Mosler, Pope.L, Thomas Grü nfeld, Cosima von Bonin, or John Miller - for instance, the play with everyday materials typical of Spoerri, the critique of the concept of the artwork, and the ironic handling of the significance of authorship. The works in the Sammlung Falckenberg reflect interdisciplinary interconnections with Spoerri's art, which developed across national boundaries through Fluxus, Nouveau Ré alisme, and Conceptual Art right up to the present day.
