Dieter and Björn Roth: Islands

In the spaces of the Hangar Bicocca the largest ever Italian exhibition on Dieter Roth is the concrete realisation of the key concept of his work: the non-existence of boundaries between artistic creation and real life.

The art of Dieter Roth invades, envelops and interpenetrates space, making it perfect for the vast exhibition spaces of the Hangar Bicocca, the ideal stage for the largest ever Italian exhibition on his work.

The exhibition is the concrete realisation of the key concept at the heart of all the research by this Swiss artist, who died in 1998 and staunchly believed in the non-existence of boundaries between artistic creation and real life. His work is continued by his heir, Björn, who started working with him in the 1980s.

The exhibition route begins with The Relatively New Sculpture, produced in partnership by Björn Roth with his sons Einar and Oddur, and specially created for this occasion. The work is a complex structure formed of two square platforms linked by a passageway in which the gaze is lost as it attempts to grasp all its constituent elements. Many of the installations are assemblies of miscellaneous objects to produce inhabitable spaces that invite visitors to pass through, use and experience them as everyday environments.

The customary dynamics of the separation between work/onlooker and creator/user vanish as visitors find themselves immersed in works that generate interaction with the public, as occurs with Economy Bar, a fully functioning refreshment point at the disposal of the exhibition visitors.

The constructions are constantly evolving and fuelled by a desire to collect memories and freeze them in a timeless dimension where they can be constantly added to, overcoming generational boundaries.

The huge The Relatively New Sculpture dialogues spatially and conceptually with Solo Scenes, the last work produced by the artist before he died and an extreme reflection on the theme of autobiographical narration. Recording his personal experience was core to the Dieter Roth poetic and is, perhaps, the leitmotiv of all his artistic research. The 131 monitors that make up the work show the artist busy in mundane activities and reveal his normality in an intense and melancholic diary of the final phases of his life.

The last work by Roth the father is placed close to a new creation by Bjorn and his sons, a proximity that consolidates the dialogue between the two, highlighting an artistic as well as family closeness.

As well as a desire to conserve, document and stratify memories and make them enduring, there is a conscious decision to use perishable materials for the purpose of artistic creation: chocolate, flour and sugar are elevated to the status of art materials and fashioned to create short-lived self-portraits in the multiples of Selbstturm, the lifespan of which is linked to the food’s deterioration process. The inevitable fate of these sweet-smelling and delightful materials is the same as that of humans in the never-ending process of world regeneration. This harsh and cutting reflection is, at the same time, mixed with an ironic and playful feel that helps alleviate the intrinsic sense of tragedy.

Ambivalence and contrast dominate the artist’s poetic, helping to define him as a complex and multifaceted character who brought together different research and techniques in a system of constant references and associations.

The Islands in the exhibition offer a complete overview of his vast production without neglecting the core aspect of his graphic works and print production. One of the most significant examples is the Piccadillies project, triggered by an innovative printing procedure developed by the artist in collaboration with London publisher Petersburg Press. It was inspired by the popular postcards of the famous London square, enlarged and revisited to assemble as huge unique puzzles in which the image is conveyed by large combined and overlapped fields of colour that tend to blur the identity of the original subject. The art of Roth father and son is an accumulation of time, life, colours and materials in an all-embracing experience that even elevates the floors of the studio where it was created and the clothes used in the process to the status of art.