Exhibited: “Sven Dalsgaard: Opskrifter”, Tranegården, Gentofte Kommunes Kunstbibliotek, 1978 (folded exhibition poster enclosed).

Finn Terman Frederiksen writes about the series in the book “Merda d'artista - Around a work of art by Piero Manzoni” (Randers Kunstmuseum 1999), p.p. 67–68:

“In 1978, Sven Dalsgaard created and exhibited a series of images that caused strong resentment and still belongs to his most notorious creations: 31 images with the common title 'Recipes'. Depictions of 31 dinner dishes combined with 'visual documentation' of their intake in the form of used toilet paper mounted on the image between small plexiglas plates. In this focus on human food digestion, the artist confronted one of our great paradoxes: the great contrast between our reckless joy in the culinary delights and our almost hysterical disgust at the waste products produced by our digestive system. With it's artistic marking of the cyclical relation between these contradictions, Sven Dalsgaard put himself beyond a taboo that most people find untouchable. How disgusting! most of the critics agreed. Artworks and faeces really have nothing in common, said the critics, most of whom forgot the obvious association to [Piero] Manzoni's can, considering it a single hierostratic piece of galimatias. But Dalsgaard's subtle point could not be ignored: with the 31 images, he actually created a symbol of the artist's working proces incorporating 'soul food' in the form of sensory and emotional experiences, letting them pass and leave that kind of imprint of his spiritual digestion process we call artworks! The parallel is hard to get around - and it actually means that art and crap have thematically pretty much to do with each other! A more distinctive artistic parallel to [Piero Manzonis] 'Merda d'Artista' hardly exists ”.