Dieter Roth | MACBA Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona

artist

Dieter Roth

birth

Hannover, Germany, 1930

death

Basilea, Switzerland, 1998

last update

27-03-2024

The painter, draughtsman, sculptor, action artist, poet and editor Dieter Roth was born in Hanover in 1930 to a German mother and a Swiss father. Due to the war, he and his brother were taken to Zurich in 1943, and Roth subsequently spent his life living between Germany, Switzerland and Iceland. Roth entered the art world through the field of industrial design, and proceeded to expand its scope until it encompassed almost all areas of artistic endeavour. The defining characteristic of this artist – whose work can be said to fit within the Neo-Dada movement – is the tendency to dissolve the distinction between art and life, an attitude that he shared with artists' groups like Fluxus and the new realists. In 1953, Roth co-founded the magazine Spirale in collaboration with Eugen Gomringer and Marcel Wyss. In 1954 he created his first artist’s book, a genre in which he brought together his best-known work. Unlike the American artist Edward Ruscha, Roth refused to use commercial technology to mass produce books, because he considered each page to be a unique work. His first baked bread sculptures date from 1954, and from that time forth his interest in organic transformation became part of his strategy to subvert the mechanisms of the commercialisation of art. In the late fifties, Roth worked in New York, where he organised happenings and produced kinetic works and rubber stamps that included texts and still photographs. In the seventies, he collaborated with artists such as Arnulf Rainer (1972–1979) and Richard Hamilton (1975–1977), with whom he often spent time in Cadaqués. Roth, who used variations of his name – Dieter Roth, dieter roth, DITERROT, diter rot or Dietrich Roth, depending on the work and the context – was always a rebel who sought new media and defended constant change and mutation. He died in Basel in 1998. His work can be found in numerous collections including those of major museums such as the Tate Gallery in London, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

The texts of the MACBA web draw on previous documentation. Please let us know if you find any errors.

works

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[3535_001_pub_l / Imatge] 3535_001_pub_l.jpg

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[Conjunt d'obres de diversos artistes dedicades a Lanfranco Bombelli]

1973-1997

Richard Hamilton

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Lorelei - Langstreckensonate

1978

Dieter Roth

[3175_001_cmyk_l / Imatge] 3175_001_cmyk_l.jpg

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150 Speedy Drawings nos. 1501-1650, 2-handed

1978

Dieter Roth

[3278_001_pub_l / Imatge] 3278_001_pub_l.jpg

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Correspondencen (per a Margarita Bombelli, per a Franco Bombelli... a la Galeria Cadaqués)

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Tibidabo

1978

Dieter Roth

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[3181_001_rgb_l / Imatge] 3181_001_rgb_l.jpg

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[Cartell d'INTERFACE's III a la Galeria Eude de Barcelona]

1977

Richard Hamilton

[3333_001_rgb_l / Imatge] 3333_001_rgb_l.jpg

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[Cartells de les exposicions en col·laboració de Richard Hamilton i Dieter Roth]

1977

Richard Hamilton

"Collaborations" Readings

1977

Richard Hamilton

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INTERFACEs 53 i 54

1977

Richard Hamilton

[3332_001_rgb_l / Imatge] 3332_001_rgb_l.jpg

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Suite Two. The Rotham Certificates

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INTERFACEs, Artists Statements, September 1997 - February 1978

1977 - 1978

Richard Hamilton

[Cartell d'INTERFACE's II a la Galeria Maeght]

1977

Richard Hamilton

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[Cartell d'INTERFACE's I a la Galeria Eude]

1977

Richard Hamilton

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[3178_001_pub_l / Imatge] 3178_001_pub_l.jpg

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Collaborations of Ch. Rotham

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Sausage Wearer's Arms, with Rampant Sausages Bearing + Atypical Certificate with Buster Jaxon Indicating a Typicall Sausage

1976

Richard Hamilton

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Sancho Panza in Deserted Landscape + Typical Certificate

1976

Richard Hamilton

[3277_001_pub_l / Imatge] 3277_001_pub_l.jpg

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Escrit original de la relació d'exposicions relaitzades sota el nom de "Collaborations"

1976

Dieter Roth

[3534_001_pub_l / Imatge] 3534_001_pub_l.jpg

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Certificate. About "Collaborations"

1976

Richard Hamilton

[3520_001_pub_l / Imatge] 3520_001_pub_l.jpg

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Rampant Red Hampton. The Rotham Arms

1976

Richard Hamilton

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Banner with a Strange Device: "Received Degnarts" + Seascape Supported

1976

Richard Hamilton

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Three Sausage Bearing Busts + Sausages dell'Arte

1976

Richard Hamilton

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Self-supporting Twinned Sausage, Assis + Self Supporting Hindless and/or Headless Hunds

1976

Richard Hamilton

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[Disseny per a la coberta de "Canciones de Cadaqués"]

1976

Dieter Roth

[Tríptic "Exhibition Collaborations" + dibuix Dieter Roth]

setembre 1976

Dieter Roth

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Canciones de Cadaqués

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Kleine Wolke

1971

Dieter Roth

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documents

77 results