L'optique moderne

For Daniel Spoerri every form of art presents an optical lesson. Artistic interventions draw attention to areas or situations of everyday life that we usually never even register. This understanding of art comes to the fore in his collection of spectacles L’optique moderne, which he began in Copenhagen in 1961 and first displayed one year later. The glasses and optical instruments were fitted to a three-piece wooden set and juxtaposed with nails, spirals, gills, and ventilators, partly provided by artists like Raymond Hains and Meret Oppenheim or specifically created for this purpose. Parallel to the collection Spoerri took photographs of himself wearing every pair of these glasses. These photos were eventually published in 1963 in a Fluxus publication with comments by Francois Dufrêne in a text entitled Inutile notules that uses phonetic French and creates new words. L’optique moderne is thus enriched by an augmented understanding of language. One of the comments refers to the poet Emmett Williams, who snatched a pair of glasses from Fluxus artist Robert Filliou’s nose, broke them in two, trampled on them, eventually packed them pulverized in an envelope and sent them Daniel Spoerri.