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Dieter Roth’s ‘Islandscapes’: Where Art Melts, Mutates, and Breaks All the Rules

Dieter Roth’s ‘Islandscapes’: Where Art Melts, Mutates, and Breaks All the Rules February 25, 2025Art Events, New York0 Comments

Of mayonnaise clouds, melancholic knicknacks and master printmaking…

Dieter Roth’s ‘Islandscapes’: A Masterclass in Chaos, Beauty, and Printmaking Genius

The Art of Transformation: Roth’s Unruly Genius Takes Over New York

Few artists have embraced the messiness of creation quite like Dieter Roth. A restless innovator, Roth turned the art world into his personal laboratory, where painting, sculpture, printmaking, and even perishable foodstuffs became his unconventional palette. Now, Hauser & Wirth New York presents Islandscapes, an exhibition that peels back the layers of Roth’s enigmatic world – a place where mayonnaise clouds drift over melancholic knickknacks, and masterful prints blur the line between order and chaos.

From Postcards to Printmaking: Roth’s Love Affair with the Unconventional

Roth’s work is an exquisite contradiction. Trained in traditional printmaking techniques – intaglio, woodcut, screen-printing – he spent his career deconstructing the very rules he had mastered. Never one to play by convention, Roth’s prints are alive with experimentation, fusing raw textures, radical symmetry, and unapologetic inversions.

Nowhere is this more evident than in his Iceland-inspired landscapes, the heart of Islandscapes. Roth’s move to Reykjavik in 1957 profoundly shaped his artistic identity, leading him to create works that reflected the mystical, untamed essence of the island. Using repurposed postcards – what he called ‘Melancholic Knickknacks’ – Roth created dreamlike compositions by cutting, flipping, and reassembling familiar imagery, distorting reality into something thrillingly unfamiliar.

Art That Refuses to Sit Still

Roth’s work is inherently unstable, both conceptually and physically. His obsession with perishability reached its peak in the 1960s when, as a lecturer at Rhode Island School of Design, he famously incorporated cheese, butter, and chocolate into his prints – an audacious rejection of the art world’s obsession with preservation. His fascination with decomposition wasn’t just for spectacle; it was a meditation on time, transformation, and impermanence.

Islandscapes showcases some of Roth’s most ambitious experiments, including ‘Hut (Hat)’ (1966), a screen-printed bowler hat framing kaleidoscopic variations of Icelandic valleys. In ‘Surtsey’ (1973/1974), Roth merges a volcanic eruption with a steaming dinner platter, equating the raw energy of nature with human consumption. His ‘Giant Double-Piccadilly’ (1969–1973) reimagines London’s famed junction in a hypnotic dance of collage, overprinting, and unexpected decay.

Final Thoughts: The Beautiful Anarchy of Dieter Roth

Dieter Roth didn’t just make art – he provoked it into being, allowing it to mutate, evolve, and sometimes, disintegrate entirely. His works demand interaction, whether it’s by orbiting the asymmetrical madness of his prints or surrendering to the sensory overload of spice-laden sculptures.

So step inside Islandscapes, where landscapes shift, materials rebel, and art refuses to sit still. It’s a world where Roth’s restless spirit lives on, daring us to embrace the chaos – and maybe even find beauty in the breakdown.

Caption and courtesy information:

SURTSEY
1973/1974
18 prints in cassette; collotype printing (1-8 colours) on white paper on cardboard
50 x 65 cm / 19 5/8 x 25 5/8 in

SURTSEY – Dinner
1973-1993/2003
Portfolio of 18 unique prints; collotype printing and screen printing (3-11 colours) on white paper
50 x 65 cm / 19 5/8 x 25 5/8 in

Hut (Hat)
1966
Screenprint (4 colours) on colored paper, hand painting and spray paint
65 x 90 cm / 25 5/8 x 35 3/8 in
Photo: Chicago Albumen Works

Hut (Hat)
1966
Screenprint (4 colours) on colored paper, hand painting and spray paint
65 x 90 cm / 25 5/8 x 35 3/8 in

Giant Double-Piccadilly
1969–1973
Chocolate, acrylic paint and/on photographic colour print on canvas (double-sided)
160 x 220 cm / 63 x 86 5/8 in
Private Collection
Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer

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