Why Did This Dutch Museum Cover the Floor With an 800-Pound Installation of Creamy Peanut Butter?

“Pindakaasvloer,” or “peanut butter floor,” highlights the absurd sense of humor that artist Wim T. Schippers captured in his artwork before he died last month

Michele Debczak | Correspondent

July 9, 2026 2:15 p.m.

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Wim T. Schippers reached audiences through radio, television and found-material sculptures, but the medium he was perhaps best known for was a common pantry stable. One month after his death on June 10, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in the Netherlands is paying tribute to the Dutch artist by recreating Pindakaasvloer—a famous artwork of his made entirely from peanut butter.

As Molly Quell reports for the Associated Press, two employees of the museum spent several days spreading 40 tubs of smooth peanut butter across a 270-square-foot hexagon. The edible material added up to 800 pounds, or roughly 15,000 sandwiches’ worth. They used drywall trowels to spread it to an even thickness of 0.8 inch from edge to edge.

“It was a lot of work,” Leon Duenk, who helped recreate the piece, tells AP.

Schippers debuted Pindakaasvloer, or “peanut butter floor,” at the Mickery gallery in the Dutch village of Loenersloot in 1969. By that point, he was already well known in avant-garde circles in the Netherlands for his experimental art installations and his provocative television show Hoepla, which was banned after a few episodes. Pindakaasvloer remains one of his simplest works, and a sticky example of his absurdist sense of humor.

It was recreated at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht in 1997, and then again at the ZINGERpresents gallery in Amsterdam in 2010. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen bought the concept that year, with the museum’s director, Sjarel Ex, calling it “one of the most important acquisitions made in 2010” in a statement.

The purchase brought a new wave of attention to the artwork, leading many people to question its artistic value. The Dutch art critic Anna Tilroe pushed back against these reactions, writing that a sense of the absurd in the ordinary is essential to the Dutch identity.

Schippers continued to provoke and delight audiences throughout his career. As Jim Henry reported for Wallpaper in 2022, Schippers hosted a popular radio show from 1984 to 1991, and he staged a play starring a cast of German Shepherd dogs in 1986. People of a certain generation know him as the voice of Ernie and Kermit the frog in the Dutch-language version of Sesame Street.

When the artist died last month at age 83, he left behind a 20-point plan for recreating one his most famous works. According to a statement from the museum, he stipulated that the peanut butter should be applied as smoothly and monotonously as possible, and the work should not be approached with any educational purpose. He also emphasized that the variety used should not be chunky and preferred the Dutch brand Calvé, which donated the peanut butter used in the latest iteration.

The museum will serve peanut butter sandwiches at its restaurant this summer.

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Michele Debczak is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York. She appears in seasons four through six of History Channel’s “The Food That Built America,” and her work has been featured in Mental Floss, IndieWire, Eater and Vice.