Prose Poems 1959 - 1960

Curator: Daniel Spoerri’s intriguing assemblage, "Prose Poems," presents a collection of everyday objects on a wooden board. What's your immediate impression? Editor: It feels like a forgotten still life, a modern-day memento mori arranged with mundane objects. The lone crumb on the plate is especially evocative. Curator: Spoerri, born in 1930, is known for his "snare pictures," where he fixes meals or gatherings to a surface. It challenges the distinction between art and the everyday act of eating. Editor: The remnants of a meal, a book, even a crumpled wrapper, frozen in time... each object speaks volumes. Are they symbols of consumption, or perhaps fragments of a personal narrative? Curator: Perhaps both. By using these materials, Spoerri is exploring how we assign value and meaning through the act of collecting and displaying. Editor: I see cycles—consumption, waste, and preservation. It makes you consider the hidden stories within ordinary things. Curator: Indeed. Spoerri asks us to consider the poetry inherent in the discarded, the leftover, the routinely overlooked. Editor: It certainly makes you rethink your own relationship to the objects around you, doesn't it? I'll be more observant during my next meal.