Renowned for his adventurous experimentation with both materials and subject matter, Dieter Roth (b. 1930 Hanover, Germany – d. 1998 Basel, Switzerland) is getting a new exhibition, Islandscapes, at Hauser & Wirth. Roth generated a multifaceted oeuvre that transcends boundaries between painting, sculpture, design, literature, poetry and music, and this exhibition, features a selection of graphic works, monoprints, multiples and unique pieces spanning from the early 1960s to 1975, with a specific focus on Roth’s printmaking, which accompanied every phase of his life and practice.
Roth produced his first etchings on tin sheet metal at age 16 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. He would go on to master traditional printmaking techniques, including intaglio, woodcut, offset and screen-printing, via a roundabout education that included an apprenticeship to prominent Swiss graphic designer Friedrich Wüthrich, as well as lessons in lithography and typography with artist Eugen Jordi. Centering works in the landscape genre, Islandscapes highlights Roth’s heterogeneous techniques, the radicality of his approach and the key aesthetic principles he explored through printmaking, such as repetition, doubling, symmetry and inversion.
Never one to consider printmaking a minor art form, Roth tested the concept of reproducibility—not only with his prints but with his sculptures and installations—deconstructing the ideal of a fine artwork as a discrete and original aesthetic object. Moreover, through his notorious use of foodstuffs as an art medium, Roth created works that challenged conventional understandings of display, conservation and ownership. His persistent use of commonplace materials, from mass-produced images to supermarket goods, allies Roth’s art with a tradition of subversion that extends from Duchamp’s concept of the ‘Readymade’ to the Pop art movement.
The vast panoramas of Iceland, with its striking topographic contrasts, figure decisively in the works which comprise Islandscapes, revealing the deep psychological impact of Roth’s move to Reykjavik in 1957, as well as his lifelong engagement with the island country thereafter. Popular images of Iceland co-opted from postcards (which Roth termed ‘Melancholic Knicknacks’) served as the starting point for several of the bodies of work in this exhibition. Some, shown here, are constructed from a basic act of assemblage. By cutting two copies of the same postcard along their horizontal axes, rotating one half 180 degrees, and taping either two top- or two bottom-halves together, Roth produced uncanny symmetries and inversions, simulating the effect of an island, city or skyline reflected in an undisturbed body of water.
Extant images of Iceland’s landscapes also provided fertile ground for Roth’s experiments with printing techniques. To create the four ‘Icelandic Landscape’ works shown here, Roth reproduced Polaroid photographs using halftone block intaglio, a pointillist printmaking technique which translates the tonal range of an image into circular divots of varying depths and diameters. By reducing the precision of the original photograph to a muddied impression, the prints in this series emphasize the defining feature of any landscape: a horizon line.
On Saturday 1 March and Saturday 15 April, Hauser & Wirth will host screenings of filmmaker Edith Jud’s 2003 documentary, ‘Dieter Roth,’ in the amphitheater at the gallery’s 18th Street location in Chelsea. Through archival footage and interviews with Roth’s friends and companions—as well as extensive conversations with his son, Björn, who worked with Roth for the last 20 years of his life—Jud’s film presents a fascinating portrayal of a truly singular artist. Viewers will embark on a journey exploring the link between Roth’s peripatetic life and his expansive, genre-bending oeuvre. For more information, please visit hauserwirth.com/events.
Will you be checking this one out?
