Hangar Bicocca in Milan is opening tomorrow a huge exhibition dedicated to the career of Dieter Roth (Hannover, 1930 – Basel, 1998), one of the most versatile artists of the 20th century, entitled Islands and realized thanks to the collaboration of his son and close collaborator Björn and with the curatorship of Vicente Todolì. The retrospective, conceived with the support of a group of Icelandic friends and artists – he got married with an Icelandic student and his two primary bases of activity were Iceland and Basel –, will present more than 100 works of the Swiss-German emblematic figure, retracing his main paths of research.
The multidisciplinary creative practice of Dieter Roth consists of poetry, design, painting, drawings, sculpture, assemblages, film and video, the most famous prints, books and multiples. His experiments include the use of different tools, furniture elements, monitors, and above all organic materials, which contributed to creating unusual works such as the multiples of plastic toys covered with chocolate or sugar, the variations on printed postcards, as well as the series of artists’ books culminated in Literaturwurst (Literature Sausage), a book filled with paper in place of meat.
This show will present Roth’s original studio, The Studio of Dieter and Björn Roth, rebuilt exactly as it was with all the objects that made it: lights, ashtrays, paint cans, brushes…; the Economy bar, a real café that will be open to all visitors, changing according to its exploitation during the show; the well-known Selbstturm (Self tower), 5-meter towers with shelves full of myriads of self portrait sculptures made of chocolate (4.000 kg of dark chocolate); and the memorable Solo Scenes, a film created in the final years of the artist’s life, of himself going about his daily activities, more than 100 monitors recording every single moment of his dailiness.
After representing Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 1982, and reaching numerous international contemporary art temples worldwide – his works were displayed at some editions of Documenta Kassel, at the MACBA Barcelona, the Ludwig Museum, the Schaulager in Basel and MoMA in New York –, at last Dieter Roth’s art gets to Milan and, no matter what, Islands is worth a visit!
