Serendipity led a great artist to Tuscany, a man best known as the father of “Eat Art” and for his contributions to the Neo-Realism movement, Daniel Spoerri.
A native-born Romanian, long a Swiss citizen, Spoerri’s path has led him to Zurich, Paris and even the unexpected rural destination of Seggiano, Tuscany. It seems appropriate that the motto “Hic Terminus Haeret” adorning the entrance to his Tuscan sculpture park, which hosts installations by 55 contemporary and internationally renowned artists as well as his own, translates to mean “here transitions are defined; here limits are overcome.”
Spoerri’s first creative steps were into the world of performance, not visual art. After World War II, he embarked on a dancing career that took him all the way to the esteemed position of lead dancer at the Bern Stadtheater (1954-7). An act of natural selection plucked the statuesque artist from among the era’s petit dancers, leading Spoerri to his next role: a pantomime actor.
During this time he experimented with movement in Paris, where he preferred the company of visual artists to performers. His friendship with Jean Tinguely was to strongly influence his artistic style. “I was inspired by Jean to capture the movement and the stop of a movement — like a photograph,” he says. This creative exchange was the impetus for his widely recognized “tableaux pièges” or “snare pictures,” in which Spoerri creates a static “diary” by securing meaningful objects to a table. The table or “canvas,” protruding somewhat precariously from a wall, to which it is fixed, provides the viewer with a snapshot of reality.
In the spirit of friendship, the sculpture garden in Seggiano — an ongoing project of great sentimental value — is a tribute to the artists with whom Spoerri has worked closely throughout his career. The garden, too, was discovered by chance. “I didn’t look for Tuscany nor did I look for this place but rather it fell from the sky,” he says. Having almost abandoned hope of living in Italy, Spoerri finally saw a piece of land, which for its rolling terrain and potential for innovation, he could not resist buying.
As one tours the garden, stumbling upon the works of Eva Aeppli and Arman amidst olive and chestnut trees, the juxtaposition of imposing contemporary art and an otherwise unchanged, traditional landscape is striking.” A 500 meter stone wall installation illustrating the union of man and woman, is an ode to the fertile mother earth, a theme which reappears in Dani Karavan’s “Adam and Eve” – an olive tree whose split, gold-painted trunk naturally resemble the figures of a man and woman. Perhaps the most remarkable work in the garden is Spoerri’s bronze replica of his room, down to the details of the bed and sheets, at the Hotel Carcassonne in Paris, built on an angle. This results in a loss of equilibrium, which, while disorienting, forces one to look at the world as if it were “unhinged.”
Article republished from a 2007 issue of Magenta’s regional magazine, Vista, Florence & Tuscany.
