Drake, AdrienneLinford, SarahNaves-Penkwitt, Ananda Kai2024-05-272024-05-272023Naves-Penkwitt, Ananda Kai. "From Art to Table: The Use of Food in Daniel Spoerri's Sculptures and Performances". BA Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2023.https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14490/16Thesis (B.A. in Art History)--John Cabot University, Fall 2023.This thesis explores the use of food as a medium in Daniel Spoerri’s sculptures and performances, with a specific emphasis on the exhibition The Grocery Shop (1961), his dinner, L’Ultima Cena (1970), and lunch, Dejeuner Sous l’Herbe (1983) for Eat-Art, with a focus on their relational qualities. Through the utilization of chance, embodiment, and a multi-faceted use of food, Spoerri generates dynamic social exchanges that he ultimately freezes within his tableaux-pièges, simultaneously elevating the quotidian to the realm of art, questioning the art market, and exploring traditions while also transgressing them. Cultural implications and the physical, ephemeral, sensorial and transformative qualities of food as a medium are manipulated to engender different significances in each artwork analyzed here, particularly considering their different forms of execution. The post-war art world in which Daniel Spoerri worked was characterized by a rapidly expanding culture of intense commercialism and a rejection of established norms, which witnessed a diversification of styles and mediums, reflecting a dynamic and experimental atmosphere. Spoerri was one of the artists in the 1960s who expanded the ontological definition of art. In the context of his artistic milieu, the intersection of everyday life and art became more pronounced, particularly evident in works with performative emphases, such as his Eat-Art projects during the 1970s. Food is certainly a ubiquitous material that is easily overlooked on a daily basis, and through Spoerri’s works, the viewer is encouraged to consider these objects thoughtfully and in new ways. Existing literature on Spoerri has focused on his use of food to comment on temporality, consumption, and how he fits within the context of his time, while this thesis aims to analyze the range of the role that food plays in both the aesthetic object and performative work.vi, 63 pagesenAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Daniel Spoerri, 1930-Food in artThesis