Peanut butter floor returns to Rotterdam museum as tribute to Wim T. Schippers

Wim T. Schippers’ peanut butter floor will return to the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam next month as a tribute to its creator, who passed away last week at the age of 83. The museum considers it a fitting way to honor the artist and voice actor.

Schippers considered art just as nonsensical as life itself, the museum said. It doesn’t have to make sense, but it is always worthwhile.

“We are going to miss Wim T. enormously for his individuality, versatility, humor, and ability to put things into perspective,” said Sandra Kisters, acting director of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. “For him, art was a means to make people think, but never in an overly serious or melancholic way. It is not without reason that he called his work of a floating stone: ‘It is quite something.’ And so it is.”

His peanut butter artwork, consisting of peanut butter from a brand of your choice “masoned” into a framework of any size, was first exhibited in a gallery in 1969 and was acquired by the Rotterdam museum in 2010. In that edition, Schippers spread hundreds of kilograms of peanut butter carefully over three days to create a sleek, even floor.

In recent months, the museum worked with Schippers on agreements regarding the execution of his artwork. “It may be executed in any geometric shape, but with peanut butter without chunks, and above all, it must be easily spreadable!” the museum said.

What the new edition will look like and when the exhibit will start is not yet certain. “Given the idea behind his work, to show something differently every time, it is illogical to create exactly the same work,” a spokesperson for the museum told Rijnmond. “We are still discussing a lot.”

Schippers was known to the general public primarily for his voice work on Sesame Street, where he voiced Ernie, Count von Count, and Kermit the Frog.