Call for Articles

OTAGO GERMAN STUDIES (OGS), Vol. 33 (https://otagogermanstudies.otago.ac.nz/ogs)

University of Otago – Dunedin | Ōtepoti

New Zealand | Aotearoa

Daniel Spoerri: Collecting, Consuming, Conserving

Retrospective and Prospective Views

The editorial board of OTAGO GERMAN STUDIES invites submissions for a forthcoming

edited volume dedicated to the life and work of Daniel Spoerri (1930–2024), the Swiss-born

Romanian artist, writer, and provocateur whose multifaceted oeuvre has left a lasting imprint

on European and international visual culture.

Best known as a central figure of Nouveau Réalisme and for his iconic “snare pictures”

(Tableaux pièges), Spoerri’s practice extended far beyond object art. His work encompassed

performance, poetry, publishing, culinary experimentation, and institutional critique. He

founded restaurants as artistic laboratories, created gardens and sculptural environments, and

established museums that blurred the boundaries between exhibition, archive, and lived

experience. Among these are the Ausstellungshaus Spoerri in Hadersdorf and his

collaborations with institutions such as the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, where artistic

and scientific modes of collecting entered into provocative dialogue.

This volume seeks to explore the breadth of Spoerri’s practice from retrospective and

forward-looking perspectives. We welcome contributions that examine any dimension of

Spoerri’s artistic, literary, and curatorial production, including but not limited to:

• The aesthetics and philosophy of the Tableaux pièges

• Spoerri’s poetry, publishing ventures, and textual practices

• Food, restaurants, and the Eat Art movement

• The Spoerri gardens and sculptural landscapes

• Collecting, museology, and institutional critique

• Collaborations with artists, writers, scientists, and museums

• Archival practices and materiality

• Spoerri within the contexts of Nouveau Réalisme, Fluxus, and European postwar art

• Reception history and transnational networks

In addition, the volume explicitly aims to consider Spoerri’s relevance for contemporary

debates. Long before such issues entered mainstream discourse, Spoerri addressed themes

that resonate strongly today:

• Environmental consciousness and ecology

• Ethical eating and food politics

• Waste, recycling, and material afterlives

• Consumption and sustainability• The politics of collecting and exhibiting

We invite authors to reflect on how Spoerri’s practice anticipates or challenges current

discussions in visual arts, literature, museum studies, and political thought.

Audience

The volume is intended for scholars and students of German and European visual culture,

literature, art history, and interdisciplinary studies, as well as artists, curators, and readers

interested in Spoerri’s eclectic and boundary-crossing work.

Languages

Chapters may be submitted in English or German. Contributions in other languages will be

considered on the condition that authors provide a translation into either English or German

prior to peer review.

Publication Format

The volume will be published as an open-access, peer-reviewed edited collection in OTAGO

GERMAN STUDIES on the University of Otago’s Open Journal Systems platform.

Publication is free of charge for authors and freely accessible to readers worldwide.

Timeline

• Abstract submission (300–500 words): May 31, 2026

• Notification of acceptance: June 15, 2026

• Full chapter submission: October 15, 2026

• Peer review completed: end of January 2027

• Final revisions: End of February 2027

• Online publication: March or April 2027

Please send abstracts and a brief biographical note (100–150 words) to Cecilia Novero,

cecilia.novero@otago.ac.nz (ORCID: 0000-0002-7011-2548)

We look forward to contributions that engage critically and creatively with Daniel Spoerri’s

enduring and evolving legacy.