DIETER ROTH

A driving force of Post-War European art, Dieter Roth produced a diverse oeuvre during his five-decade-long career that included drawing, painting, sculpture, film, immersive installations and bookmaking.Roth experimented with materials and language, exploring the interplay of different mediums, whichunderscores his distinct approach to art making.

The bar, comprised of scavenged materials, embodies a central motif found throughout Dieter Roth’swork. Both bar and studio were central concepts and locales for the work of Dieter Roth. Since itsfirst iteration, the bar has gradually evolved, as for each exhibition site-specific materials have beenincorporated into the installation. Roth Bar (2004–2015) was first unveiled in the exhibition Dieter Roth:Lest / Train at Reykjavik Art Museum in 2005. It was last shown at Museum Tinguely in Bern, Switzerland,in 2019. The story of ‘Roth Bar’ at Hauser & Wirth began when Dieter Roth insisted that a bar form partof his first show with the gallery in 1997. Along with his son Björn, Dieter Roth installed the functional Bar2 (1983–1997) in Zurich and every beer bottle served became a part of the bar installation and visitors’conversations were recorded and archived.

Roth Bar will be presented in St. Moritz alongside the rare painting Doppel-Selbstbildnis (Double Self-portrait) (1973), revealing an important dialogue between Dieter Roth’s work from the 1970s and hiswider practice. Self-portraiture was central to Roth’s practice, which he rigorously explored through artand journals. Combining Roth’s ceaseless experimentation with his abiding interest in self-portraiture,‘Doppel-Selbstbildnis’ is an ode to the artist’s boundless imagination. In this work, Roth renders thepictorial devises that underscore figurative painting in an enigmatic manner, challenging the conventions of traditional self-portraiture. Executed in an Old Master style, gradually building up thin layers of oil paintto achieve a rich tonal range, Roth’s profile is cut from a plane comprised of a myriad of luminous andsubtly blended colors. In line with the title, another barely visible cut-out on the curled bend is included.

About the Artists

Dieter Roth was born in Hanover, Germany in 1930, relocated to Switzerland during the war, and marriedand moved to Iceland in 1957. He died in Basel, Switzerland in 1998. Björn Roth was born in Reykjavik,Iceland in 1961. He began working closely with his father on painting, music, films and publications as wellas exhibiting in various galleries and museums.

Dieter Roth was an artist of an immense diversity and breadth, producing books, graphics, drawings,paintings, sculptures, assemblages, installations, audio and media works involving slides, soundrecordings, film and video. He also worked as a composer, poet, writer and musician. He often collaboratedwith other artists, subverting the principle of authorship. Those partners included such significant figuresas Richard Hamilton, Emmett Williams, Arnulf Rainer, and Hermann Nitsch. But it was Roth’s long andsymbiotic collaboration with his son, artist Björn Roth, that stands as testament to the enormous andenduring potency of his relentless process.

Through much of his life, Roth was restlessly peripatetic, moving between studios in many cities. His twoprimary bases of activity—Iceland and Basel—were decidedly outside the mainstream. Throughout hiscareer, the artist continually circled back to earlier ideas and processes, reinterpreting and transformingworks so that linearity and closure are consistently defied. Transience and order, destruction andcreativity, playful humour and critical inquiry, the abject and the beautiful, all maintain a consistent balancethroughout his work.

Roth represented Switzerland at the 1982 Venice Biennale and received a number of awards and prizes,including the 1991 Genevan Prix Caran d’Ache Beaux Arts, a prestigious Swiss prize. In 2004, TheMuseum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City jointly presented the majorhistorical exhibition ‘Roth Time: A Dieter Roth Retrospective,’ a project co-organised with SchaulagerBasel, Switzerland and the Museum Ludwig of Cologne, Germany.