An art museum is covering the gallery floor with peanut butter in honor of the late Dutch artist – National
A museum in Rotterdam is honoring a pillar of the Dutch art community by covering part of the gallery floor in peanut butter.
Using 800 kilograms of smooth spread, workers created a 25-square-meter hexagon on the gallery floor of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, a visual arts museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, following instructions from conceptual artist Wim T. Schippers, who died last month at the age of 83, and who first created the piece in the 1960s.
To create the “Peanut Butter Floor,” the museum appointed so-called ‘peanut butter polishers,’ who had previously installed the artwork with “high precision” in 2011, according to a description on the museum’s website.
“On July 2nd and 3rd, armed with buckets of peanut butter and plastering tools, they started rebuilding the floor again,” said the company.
Workers spread peanut butter on the floor to recreate the ‘Peanut Butter Floor’ artwork in honor of Dutch artist Wim T. Schippers at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, July 3, 2026.
AP Photo/Mouneb Taim
Described as a “piece of conceptual art” by the museum, it is part of a wider series of floor installations conceived in 1962 by Schippers, who saw him cover the floor with pieces of glass and salt.
The painting is “about the idea that there’s a peanut butter floor in a museum and visitors are wondering why,” according to the museum’s description, which added that it’s meant to raise the question, “Is this art?” and “Am I allowed to get this good?”
Get daily world news
Get daily Canadian news delivered to your inbox so you don’t miss the top stories of the day.
“The Schippers consider art as something that does not have to be rational or useful. It can be irrational – like life itself – and for that reason it must be useful,” he added.
The “Peanut Butter Floor” has been installed many times since it was first introduced in 1962, according to the museum. In each case, it was created according to the instructions written by Schippers, he explained, adding that he chose this work to remember the irreverent figure as it is one of his most talked about and well-known creations, combining his singular vision, sense of humor and tendency to lean on the absurd.
“Certainly because it is characteristic of his way of thinking and working, Peanut Butter Floor is a worthy tribute,” he wrote.
People look at a peanut butter spread on the floor of a museum in honor of Dutch artist Wim T. Schippers, who died last month, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on July 9, 2026.
Niels van der Pas/via AP
Everything down to the type of peanut butter used was decided by Schippers, who chose Calvé because he said it “spreads really well,” though he never specified the shape of the piece.
The artwork has attracted a lot of attention throughout the years. In 1997, schoolchildren vandalized a version of the installation at Utrecht’s Centraal Museum by covering it with chocolate chips and bread crumbs, The Guardian wrote, an effect that Schipper reportedly approved.
Then, at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in 2011, a visitor walked over a version of the installation and slipped into it, the UK store said.
During his career, Schippers presented works including a chair raised from tin noodles, a table covered with peas and, in 2011, he unveiled a four-meter-high structure titled “Unauthorized Parking” that resembled a pile of garbage in the Media Park in the Dutch city of Hilversum. He was also a television writer and comedian. In the Netherlands, he was best known as the voice of Ernie, Kermit the Frog and Count von Count in the Dutch version of Sesame Street.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
