The paintings of Daniel Spoerri, between art and ethnography
Neumann, Gerhard
The paintings of Daniel Spoerri, between art and ethnography - 2005.
43
Rituals are those synapses in the cultural fabric which produce impulses for human society and human communication. This has been the case since the beginning of human society. A dominant interest – stimulated by ethnological theories – in the function and cultural significance of rituals did not become evident until the 20th century. This interest arose in the light of what have been called the corporal turn and the performative turn of 20th century culture, that is, a turn against the hitherto valid practices of abstraction and representation. One of the most important rituals concerning corporeality and performativity – since Plato’s “Symposium” and the beginning of the Christian Holy Communion – is the socially coded act of food consumption, the banquet. It was Daniel Spoerri, who took up this theme with his “Eat Art” and installed this act of eating anew in 20th century culture with the keyword rituel piège. The “rituel piège” as enacted by Spoerri draws attention on the one hand to ritual’s task of providing cultural meaning; on the other hand, it shows how rituals become ideological “traps”, into which those who take them literally as acts of cultural communication and take them for granted fall. Spoerri is therefore one of the artists of the 20th and early 21st century who by way of their art reflect on the twofold cultural function of ritual: on the one hand it keeps the cultural process alive, on the other hand it produces ideologies which make political myths appear as nature, into whose traps consumers – of art and of food – fall.
The paintings of Daniel Spoerri, between art and ethnography - 2005.
43
Rituals are those synapses in the cultural fabric which produce impulses for human society and human communication. This has been the case since the beginning of human society. A dominant interest – stimulated by ethnological theories – in the function and cultural significance of rituals did not become evident until the 20th century. This interest arose in the light of what have been called the corporal turn and the performative turn of 20th century culture, that is, a turn against the hitherto valid practices of abstraction and representation. One of the most important rituals concerning corporeality and performativity – since Plato’s “Symposium” and the beginning of the Christian Holy Communion – is the socially coded act of food consumption, the banquet. It was Daniel Spoerri, who took up this theme with his “Eat Art” and installed this act of eating anew in 20th century culture with the keyword rituel piège. The “rituel piège” as enacted by Spoerri draws attention on the one hand to ritual’s task of providing cultural meaning; on the other hand, it shows how rituals become ideological “traps”, into which those who take them literally as acts of cultural communication and take them for granted fall. Spoerri is therefore one of the artists of the 20th and early 21st century who by way of their art reflect on the twofold cultural function of ritual: on the one hand it keeps the cultural process alive, on the other hand it produces ideologies which make political myths appear as nature, into whose traps consumers – of art and of food – fall.
Réseaux sociaux