Daniel Spoerri (b. 1930) is a Swiss artist and writer born in Romania. The artist was one of the original signers of the manifesto creating New Realism, an avant-garde art movement which began in 1960. Spoerri is also associated with Fluxus, an art movement beginning in the 1960s whose participants were characterized by their dissatisfaction with traditional art, and whose most common thread was their taste for spontaneity and humor.

Spoerri is best known for his “snare-pictures,” a type of assemblage or object art. As described by the artist, snare-pictures are “objects found in chance positions, in order or disorder (on tables, in boxes, drawers, etc.), fixed (‘snared’) as they are. Only the plane is changed: since the result is called a picture, what was horizontal becomes vertical. Example: remains of a meal are fixed to the table at which the meal was consumed and the table hung on the wall.” The artist’s use of found materials characteristic of everyday life reflects his involvement in the New Realism movement, and the oftentimes humorous nature of these assemblages nods to his Fluxus roots.

Though Spoerri is most known for his snare pictures, he began his artistic career as a dancer in the 1950s. In the 1970s, he found success as a restaurant manager, and as the founder of Eat Art, which produced the Eat Art Galerie in Düsseldorf and several banquets. In the early 1990s, Spoerri founded Il Giardino di Daniel Spoerri, an expansive sculpture park in the south of Tuscany. Today, the park boasts 112 installations by 55 artists.

Spoerri’s practice continues to develop, as does unabated interest in his works.