Dieter Roth: A look at a mysterious artist star

Dieter Roth and the art world: a case for specialists

Karl-Dietrich Roth was born in Hanover in 1930 and died in Basel in 1998. German art scientists, media etc. like to classify Roth with the celebrated German artists - which is formally correct, as a child of a German, he acquired German citizenship with birth in Germany.

Otherwise, Dieter Roth spent his early youth in Germany and equipped more exhibitions than in all other countries in the world, but is to be regarded with a Swiss father and many years of life in Zurich and Bern with the same law as a Swiss artist.

introduced the audience a wide range of art poetry and graphics, action and object art, artist books, drawings, painting, assembly, installation, literature and films . He also presented the audience a wide range of artists' names, Dieter Roth, Diter red and many fictitious other names.

With all his artistic activities, he has come far from the artists of the world: in the most comprehensive "ranking of art" (artfacts.net, set up by VA after exhibition presence and sales success) he is currently in 27th place in the front third of the 100 "best artists in the world", currently (June 2016).

And yet: "Around Dieter Roth" - partly before him, partly after him - artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Ai Weiwei, Marcel Duchamp, Marina Abramovic and Damien Hirst, whose names really knows every person, while the question of the artist Dieter Roth and his works of art also conjures up a questioning expression on the face ... What does an artist do about the world's top of the art, his work and his work Can only classify awareness? An inexplicable fascinating that calls on a closer examination:

Everyone knows this (who knows Dieter Roth): a few typical Dieter-Roth comments on our world

Those interested in art who have experienced the wild 1968s or are so deeply involved in the art world that they have studied the works of all top artists in our world, certainly know several of Roth's main works:

From 1968, Roth put together various "garden sculptures" , which allows the heart of the hobby gardener to beat all faster with pronounced DIY ambitions. One of them is z. B. in the collection of the Nationalgalerie State Museums in Berlin (in Berlin there are a lot of hobby gardeners with pronounced DIY ambitions).

In 1969, 1970 the "6 Piccadillies" , six cassettes with six screen prints, arose on wooden cardboard, which bring a lot of color into the world.

In 1971, Roth only gave a statement in the "self -portrait as a top flower" on how he sees himself and his stem in the world.

In the same year he shows with the "garlic chest" (12 garlic -filled glass boxes on rollers, with wooden frames and individually open windows) in a highly creative form, which really makes life meaningful.

From 1972, Roth shaped several "Köttel carnickers" , stylish made of rabbit manure and straw.

From 1974 the art object "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: works in 20 volumes" . The paperback edition crushed in the snippet, filled with spices and lard enriched into 20 sausage heats, does not testify that Roth saw the claim of Hegel's philosophy - the really existing world in its entire diversity since its origin - saw in a way of interpreting and systematically fulfilled in a way that delighted him as a reader.

In the long period from 1978 to 1998 the "large table ruin" , a room installation of texts, art, scrap and waste; Even though there are a ban on studies, it takes time for a "art-measurement" to be banned.

"Flat waste" showed the meaning of his work for the working bureaucrat and five wood shelves - not really, the "flat waste" is really flat waste, Dieter Roth has collected all consumption every day that are not thicker than three or four millimeters. Until the 623 file folders were full, probably Roth was already persecuted by militant office clips in the dream - but what do you not do for art.

1997-98 the "solo scenes" , a Roth discer in media art, were created by video installation with 128 monitors and 131 video bands.

That was a very short excerpt, a first outlook on what is to be discovered in Roth's work. And there is a lot to discover, Dieter Roth's art touches a wide variety of areas of interest:

All people who are interested in visual design, decoration, homework, processing and combination (perhaps unknown or newly used) materials will find "slanted Roth art" 111 times www.hauserwirth.com , in which things are processed very differently than is common.

All people with interest in language and their commitment to communication or as a work of art will make a profit from dealing with Dieter Roth's collected interviews. Roth sees the interview as its own art form with a high priority; Nothing should be deleted so that the "nonsense" is not lost.

With "nonsense" Roth means journalistically unusable recording z. B. from his German -colored Swiss German (thirteen -hour interview Roths with the Swiss author, publisher, cabaret artist and actor Patrik Frey: "Conversation Patrick Frey - Dieter Roth," Zurich, Switzerland, May 1998), interruptions by staggering tapes, cable cheeks, etc.

The interview, for Roth a kind of “entertainment music together”, is often used by him to present views on life and his work. And also used very comprehensively, as an endless continuation interview ( Dieter Schwarz, "Interview with Dieter Roth on September 25, 83", Tell, 1983, No. 19 ) or as a long-term event ( "Interview with Irmelin Lebeer-Hossmann", Hamburg, Germany. September 28-30, 1976 ).

The "collected interviews" published in 2002 posthumously; Roth had commissioned the artist book publisher, bookseller and gallery owner Barbara Vienna to research all of his tapes and to publish all the conversations that he had held with artists, journalists and friends. This was done in accordance with the order: "Collected interviews", edited by Barbara Vienna. With an afterword by Barbara Vienna and a text by Tomas Schmit. Edition Hansjörg Mayer, London/Berlin 2002.

All people with a pronounced urge to reflect can be encouraged by Dieter Roth's diaries. Roth led two to three diaries in parallel to take ideas to collect words (for Roth "cheap pictures") and to have vocabulary with which he fought sham -logical word creation of other people.

This is how Roth has already corrected the dissertation of an art scientist in which he criticized "typical gallery catalog words" such as "assembly" and "mixing technique" ", which adjusted the view of his work (Roth had obviously hit his comments, said art historian named Dirk Dobke was curator of the Dieter Roth Foundation and Head of Derter Roth Museum).

All people with a soft spot for graphic representations could be liked to find Roth's paper works, which are often far more complex than the first glance suggests.

Dieter Roth's path to art: consistent passion since teenage times

Karl-Dietrich Roth was born on April 21, 1930 as the third son of a German-Swiss merchant family in Hanover and attended the elementary and high school in Nazi Germany. Until his parents promoted him to foster parents in safe Switzerland in 1943, the parents only left Germany three years later and also come to Zurich.

At about this time, Roth produces his first etchings (on can sheet), his first oil painting and poems. In the later youth he developed a work name enthusiasm for artistic drawing, pastel drawing and watercolor .

In 1947 Dieter Roth in Bern with Urs Friedrich Wüthrich began training as an advertising graphic artist, but after the end of which in 1951 there is no employment. He starts working as a freelance artist, and founds the magazine "Spirale" with graphic artist Marcel Wyss and the Bolivian-Swiss writer Eugen Gomringer (appears two years later, is stopped in 1954 and still discussed today: www.e-periodica.ch) . Roth earns his livelihood during this time with decorations and other occasional orders.

In 1954 Roth manufactured the first "baked plastic" , in 1955 he designed patterns for the textile design company Unika Vaev in Copenhagen, and in 1956 he experimented with Super 8 films .

In 1957 Roth moved to Iceland and soon moved the Icelander Sigridur Björnsdóttir (from whom he demands on the occasion of the marriage to throw away all of her books and clothes from previous life). Son Karl was born in 1957, and son Björn was born in 1961. In the mid -1950s, Roth founded in Iceland together with the Icelandic poet Einar Bragi the Verlag Forlag Editions, which also published some of Roth's works.

In 1958 Roth traveled to Philadelphia with a Oneway ticket, he had a vague promise for a job at the School of Art. Which, however, proved to be too vague, whereupon Roth tried to gain a foothold in New York without the desired success. A critical situation, Roth lacked the financial means for the return flight.

A compatriot, the Swiss Herbert Matter, who worked as a photographer and graphic designer in the United States since 1936 helped him from this emergency. After working for Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Arts & Architecture, Fortune Magazine, Town and Country, Matter was commissioned by the MoMA in 1944 to make a film about the sculptor Alexander Calder, the great success of this film brought him a professorship for photography and graphic design at Yale University (1952 to 1978); From 1958 he also worked as a consultant at the Guggenheim Museum New York and Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

Matter conveyed a teaching position at Yale University and then a job in the advertising department of the Geigy test laboratories in Yonkers near New York. He is said to have been interested in Roth's constructivist work; At that time, however, it was simply common for people of the same origin help each other abroad.

Roth saved money for the return flight to Iceland, not without trouble, because he often invested wages in comforting alcohol out of frustration about his failure (the teaching position in Yale cannot have run long).

Back in Iceland, a time of kinetic pictures and sculptures and constructivist stamp images followed in the early 1960s, and Roth also published numerous artist books. In 1964 Roth's marriage was divorced, followed by an unsteady life between Iceland, Germany and America. Which started in an amazing artist career in the same year, with the first solo exhibition in September 1964 in the "College of Art" Philadelphia:

Dieter Roth conquers the world of art (and shows us how small this art world was in the way internet)

In 1964 in Philadelphia Roth had works out for the first time and showed with chocolate, that was really well received and was his big breakthrough. This leads to the fact that in the future he always uses organic material when designing his art.

The joyful "chocolate time" follows a period of a more differentiated view of the world ("spice images"), which results in increasing disillusionment, from "decay objects and pictures" to the "mold pictures" . Roth only needed about half a decade for this development, and the chocolate images had already been eaten up by chocolate moths.

In 1967 Roth met the American painter, graphic artist, object and video artist Dorothy Iannone, who had just arrived in Reykjavík with her husband and fluxus co-founder Emmett Williams. The (also in practical exercise) passionate fighter for the sexual freedom of the woman published a book in the same year that listened to all men with whom she had lived this freedom one night, took Dieter Roth to the muse and separated from her husband.

A little later, the two joined the fluxus movement of Emmett Williams and Robert Filliou , they live alternately in Basel, Düsseldorf, Reykjavík and London. Roth meets Roth Jean Tinguely and Daniel Spoerri through the Fluxus friends and is infected by their "Noveaux Réalisme" , he continues to move away from constructivism and preferred to make other works from EAT-Art .

But not only, at the end of the 1960s and in the 1970s, Roth also designed a whole series of book objects that Dada and Kurt Schwitters stood near, wrote many many poems for Iannone, was painted by her -and

For example in 1968 on the "Documenta 4" and 1977 on "Documenta 7" (and postally on Documenta 11 2002), 1979 at the 3rd Biennale of Sydney. He stocked individual exhibitions in the Kunsthalle Basel, in the Gemeentemuseum den Hague, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London, at the Academy of Arts Berlin, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Group exhibitions with his works were among others in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New York, in the Palais of the Beaux Arts Brussels, the new Nationalgalerie Berlin and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York.

At the end of the 1970s, Dieter Roth had been among the most important contemporary artists of the time. He works with other important artists of that time, Happenings with the Austrian painter Arnulf Rainer and joint pictures and interviews with the British painter and graphic artist Richard Hamilton . In 1982 Roth was commissioned to design Swiss pavilion at the Venice Biennale

More than 1,000 exhibitions ...

The art of Dieter Roth has been seen at almost 1,000 exhibitions , most of them (around 350) in Germany, approx. 150 in his second home in Switzerland, 110 in the USA, 70 in Austria and a good 40 in France. A good 200 solo exhibitions face almost 800 group exhibitions; An indication that Roth Marketing preferred to make it better than take care of it ...

If it was not the lively presence in the USA and France and the close relationship with Iceland, Dieter Roth could be classified as a DA-CH artist (DA-CH: Kunstword from D for Germany, A for Austria (Austria) and CH for Confoederatio Helvetica (Switzerland), used for the designation of activities and events that affect Germany, Austria and Switzerland together.

An event was always the art of Dieter Roth; In his artists' books, he also dealt with the language quite comprehensively, which is referred to as "standard German" and is the so -called "roof language" in these three countries. Even if in a rather disrespectful way in which this standard German is often cricked down to the foundations ...

The solo exhibitions confirm the image of the DA-CH artist (Germany 47, Switzerland 6, Austria 8). At the same time, the list of other countries in which Dieter Roth issued during his lifetime provides us with an illuminated precise snapshot of the spread of art in the previous internet times:

The year in which Dieter Roth died is one of the years in which a crucial turning point takes place in the culture of the civilized world. The computer networking developed by the US Department of Defense from 1969 (for better communication between universities and research institutions, Arpanet) had been standardized by several, not necessarily compatible "Arpanet protocols" to an "Internet Protocol" in the early 1980s and was more and more called "Internet" from then on.

In 1984 the domain name system was developed, which enabled worldwide communication via the Internet, first spread over the universities of the world and was made in 1990 by the American National Science Foundation for commercial purposes and thus publicly usable.

At the same time, Tim Berners-Lee invented the basics of the World Wide Web in 1989, he had developed the hypertext markup Language HTML, after developing the necessary "accessories" (transfer protocol HTTP, URL, Browser Worldwideweb, web server CERN HTTPD, operating system NextStep) August 6, 1991 publicly and available worldwide - the WWW was born and started his triumphal march around the world.

In 1998, this triumphal march fell so far that a "New Economy" started its development and the EU an initiative for global internet rules; The Internet was in part to become part of everyday life for all curious people.

During his lifetime (until 1998), Dieter Roth has just exhibited in 10 countries apart from the (local) roof states (18 x USA, 9 x France, 7 x in Iceland, 6 x in the Netherlands, 6 times in Great Britain, 4 x in Spain, 3 x in Denmark, 1 x each in Belgium, Canada, Italy). After his death, Norway, the Czech Republic, Greece, Portugal were not very many countries - typical of artists in his generation.

Only very few artists who have become famous shortly before the networking of the international art world through the Internet in a nationalities limited to certain nationalities are now developing into world artists - "world artists" in the sense that an artist is immediately issued by each country, which is sufficiently advanced in terms of security/civilization/democracy, to be sufficient to do its citizens in terms "To be able to treat art".

Of the “recently” (recently ”(recently” is at least 1 century, the oldest traditional works of art are at least 40,000 years old) who died or still living artists at the top of the world's best list of art can only be seen three artists all over the world: Andy Warhol (No. 1) Pablo Picasso (No. 2) and Joseph Beuys (No. 4).

Bruce Naumans Art (No. 3) can be seen primarily in the traditional strongholds of art; Like the art of Gerhard Richter , Cindy Sherman , John Baldessari , Lawrence Weiner, Ed Ruscha, Sol Lewitt , Thomas Ruff and Sigmar Polke, which would make the leading dozen full. These top artists are also distributed over the newly emerging art centers, but only gradually, in a kind of continuous process of art discovery.

First of all, it is reserved for the legends of art to conquer the last remote angle of this world at which art is issued. That are not in the front places of the current world rankings of art compiled after sales and exhibition success, because the works (often a few) have long since been secured as a world heritage in any public museum.

No chance of disappearing against a few million over the auction counter in the basement of a publicly shy collector ... and so the real stars of art end up in the back ranks ( Vincent van Gogh : 227, Claude Monet : 212, Édouard Manet : 379, Pierre-Auguste Renoir 359, Paul Cezanne: 224, Max Liebermann: 1111 ;​

In doing so, they show a sales prices (including grotesque market developments) impressively impressively its limits ... and the "artificial newcomers of the world" are lucky enough to be able to train their knowledge of art in the old masters before they are allowed to be surprised at why someone is paying for a printed and colored "Colored Mona Lisa " by Andy Warhol (leader of the current world rankings) or for an oversized "Balloon Dog" (balloon poodle in orange).

Dieter Roth in the "world of today"

The 1,000 exhibitions with Dieter Roth art will not be the last; The fact that only around a third of these exhibitions ran during the artist's lifetime and around two thirds after his death gives an indication of where the trip goes.

In order to correctly evaluate these figures, however, statistics would have to be included to what extent the art exhibitions in the world have increased since the art world has been a global art world ... There have been significant indications that there have been significantly more art all over the world since the planning of exhibitions through the networking of the owners or authorized persons (art in public collections belongs to the people of the respective country).

In 2016, works by Dieter Roth were shown in five exhibitions in three countries. Dieter Roth obviously remains faithful to the roof countries as during lifetime, or they-they have a noticeable share in the last decade in the “world rankings of art”, graduated in the last decade (2005: 62, 2015: place).

Dieter Roth Foundation takes care of Roth's artistic estate. The foundation of the foundation dates back to the 1970s when Dieter Roth began to create a private museum with an affiliated Werkarchiv together with his most committed collector, the Hamburg lawyer Philip Buse.

Today in the Museum of the Dieter Roth Foundation on four floors originals from Roth, an almost complete collection of its pressure graphics including many printing preliminary work, the entire artist books, several pieces of jewelry, exhibition posters and other design designs are presented.

"Schimmelmuseum" also belonged to the collection, a coach house that has decreased for decades, which the artist discovered in 1991 and inspired as a "mold and chocolate laboratory"; Until 1998 he was there on cooking, pouring, bubbling and experimenting. Roth's art experiments probably accelerated the decay of the moist coache a little when the molds and EAT art objects continued to "did their work" before and after his death, so they vigorously banged.

The end of the "mold museum" heralded neighbors, who complained to the museum for fear of overarching germs, which was torn down in 2003 in several ways.

However, you can still visit the mold museum by computer today, on the website of the Dieter Roth Foundation Dieter-roth-foundation.com you will be invited to a virtual tour, although without the "characteristic smell" and "gluing under your shoes" , as the introduction expressly emphasized. But this is probably very pleasant ... You can also look at a number of selected works Roth from the inventory of the collection described above.

Pictures from Dieter Roth are still available at prices that could afford normal people:

• "1 of 5 Hermaphrodites", mixing technique, 1981, Estimate: € 4,000
• "Motorcyclist", multiple of 1969, estimate € 5,000
• "Kiss in the window 2", mixing technique, 1976, estimated price 10,000 €

Here are the current offers for the auction: kettererkunst.de .

In addition, Dieter Roth left a lot that we can access today:

Books by Dieter Roth:

• Ideograms, 1959
• Mundunculum, 1967
• The Blue Flood, 1967
• 246 Little Clouds, 1968 something Press New York
• With co-author Daniel Spoerri: Anecdotes for a topography of chance. 1998. Luchterhand, Neuwied 1968, new edition 1998 Nautilus, Hamburg

Collected works in 20 volumes, 1971–79, Edition (later expanded to 40 volumes)

• With co-authors CE Shannon, John McCarthy (ed.): Studies on the theory of machines (automata studies). Extended edition and translation by Franz Kaltenbeck and Peter Weibel.

Roth time: a Dieter Roth retrospective

• Published by Theodora Vischer and  Bernadette Walter. Large collection with chronology and work comments. Available as a bound edition on Amazon.

Drawings by Dieter Roth. Rogner and Bernhard, Munich 1974 (EA: Princeton 1956)

• Dieter Roth: Early writings and typical shit. Selected and with a bunch of part -digested Oswald Wiener. 1200 Exx the under no. 125 In 1975, published in 1975 in 1973, preserved in 1975 and published by Edition Hansjörg Mayer in an additional envelope. Stuttgart, London. Reykjavík
• Journal for everything, 10 editions No. 1-no. 10b, 1975–1987
• Collected interviews. Posthum published by Barbara Vienna. Edition Hansjörg Mayer, London/Berlin 2002
• Dieter Roth in America, London 2004
• Dieter Roth in Greenland, Amsterdam 2005
• Inside in front of the eye. Lyric and prose, ed. by Jan Voss, Beat Keusch, Johannes Ullmaier, Björn Roth. Frankfurt 2005

Works by Dieter Roth are preserved in 50 public collections for prospective artists of the future:

• Belgium : Stedelijk Museum voor actuele art ghent
• Denmark : Museet for Velvet Art / Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde
• Germany : Daimler Contemporary + Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, Weserburg Museum for Modern Art Bremen, Kunstmuseum Celle, Museum Ostwall Dortmund, Collection Alison & Peter W. Klein Eberdingen-Nussdorf, Kunstpalais Erlangen, Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt/Main,
  Karl-Ernst-Osthaus-Museum Hagen, Hamburger Kunsthalle + Collection Reinking, Spretel Museum Hannover, Hanover
  Center for Art and Media Technology Karlsruhe, Artothek Kassel, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach, Art Museum + State Gallery Stuttgart
• France : Musée de l'Abhet Blois, Frac Bretagne Châteaubiron, Musées D´Art Contemporain Marseille, Fondation Cartier Pour L'Art Contemporain + Center Pompidou Paris, Frac Champagne-Ardenne Reims
• Island : Nýlistasafnið The Living Art Museum, Reykjavik
• Canada : Simon Fraser University Art Gallery Burnaby, BC
• Austria : New Gallery Graz, Essl Museum Art of the Present Klosterneuburg
• Spain : Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona
• Switzerland : Kunstmuseum Basel, Kunstmuseum Bern, Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Vögele Kulturzentrum Pfäffikon, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Kunsthaus Zug, graphic collection of the ETH + Museum Haus constructive + Kunsthaus Zurich
• USA : University Art Museum University at Albany of State University of New York Albany NY, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago IL, University Art Museum of California State University Long Beach Ca, Museum of Modern Art New York City NY, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art Norman Ok, David Bell Gallery Ri, Saint, Saint Louis Art Museum Saint Louis Mo, The William Benton Museum of Art Storrs CT
• United Kingdom : Kettle's Yard Cambridge Cambridgeshire, Tate Britain London

Legendary sayings by Dieter Roth, a "look behind the scenery"

quotes Dieter Roths are mainly handed down :

I don't believe that the asceticism is good for anyone except that it is a triumph of those who practice "

(found on fluxus-plus.de ), a quote Dieter Roth's worldview of the fluxy artists, which he himself never really lived with Dorothy Iannone.

If someone thinks about something, it is actually only like if they want to win vocabulary. Like a mine that needs to be exploited ... my life gives me vocabulary with which I can successfully combat other people "

(found on synapse section.de ).

This quote can be flashed by that of the (self-) destructive side of the artist, also in the "collected interviews" mentioned above, the Roth, which is eaten by ambition, always comes through, which tirelessly works out on role models, which he feels as a threat. Roth's reality of life was determined by failure due to his own demands, was a feeling of uncertainty because he "could not acquire security".

After all, he tries to use this attitude to life productively:

In uncertainty you can do everything you want, smear, piss, chat and also make kitsch ... I can go into the unrest and uncertainty and there I actually feel safe because I remember that I can live from it ".

(Quote from the "collected interviews").

What "actually" means, the Swiss filmmaker Edith Jud in her film portrait "Dieter Roth" : the film begins in Iceland, with running water over mossy ground, bubbling mud in geysers; Elements in fermentation, which are also in fermentation a little later, but now show pictures from Dieter Roth's "Schimmelmuseum".

The film continues calmly, tells a lot of life and incidentally a lot of art, tells of drinking and despair; From a son who wants to save the father: "Don't you see that you are down?", From a father who replies: "One has to do research below." A wistful film about an artist from world fame who never enjoyed his success and finally drank all the way down.

Dieter Roth's work delivers many ideas

From 1964 Dieter Roth passed on his artistic knowledge to the next generation of artists: he received numerous teaching posts , including from the architecture division of Yale University, the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, the Watfort School of Art in London and the Düsseldorf Art Academy. In teaching, Roth is also said to have caused a destructive art grid to be capricious, so you should have cleared your studio and destroyed the works because of strong smell of decay ...

Those who are not so much up to decay will also find more than enough in Roth's work, weird irony and amusing bizarre to draw positive suggestions from them:

has always wanted to reverse the saying "You don't play with the food" "do chocolate lion towers" , "Self -towering" (poured portrait heads) and "double seasoning windows" .

Those who like to tinker, form, model them are z. B. find the 360 ​​° objects "motorcycle races" , "letter complaints" and "drawer" irresistible.

And whoever loves language comes to language works of art such as

"Balle Balle Bang
when we hit the hall?
We shoot when the bang comes
and bang what the Baller is pious!
Bang Knalle Ballert
so ballerts in the hall"

(Quelle: Deutschlandfunk.de ), which Roth dodged as a representative of "concrete poetry" , not over anyway.

However, this “concrete poetry” has an infinite and sometimes surprisingly profound language joke to offer, it can be able to captivate people for a long time - there should be recitation artists who have spent half of their life to develop Christian Morgenstern's “Fisch Sungsang” But that is again a very own topic.