Dieter Roth

The artist Dieter Roth combined art and life in a unique way. He painted, drew, printed, wrote, made films and played music. He created his own universe, where everything, no matter how banal or transitory, became art. Conceived as an inward and outward journey, the film explores the link between art and life. Roth's works are the starting point, including videos and films in which the artist himself appears. Interviews with Roth's son Björn, who worked with him for the last 20 years of his life, as well as with friends and companions complete a fascinating cinematic portrait of a great artist.

Family name and first name?
ROTH, KARL-DIETRICH.

An alias maybe?
DIETER ROTH

Place, date, time of birth?
HANNOVER 1930.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS.

How did you get to be an artist?
I DON'T KNOW IF OR HOW.

Relationship to music?
IT SOUNDS LIKE IT.

Relationship to the past?
GREAT TENDENCY TO FORGETFULNESS.

How would you like to come back to the world?
HEALTHY + HAPPY.

Marital status?
TRAVELLER.

Children?
4

Do you think there are any eternal values in art?
I DON'T SEE ANY.

«This film touchingly brings to life the genius, the humour and themelancholy of a great artist of this century.»
Tages-Anzeiger

«The wild genius Dieter Roth becomes the material for a deeplyhuman film.»
Der Bund

«A film for Roth enthusiasts, Roth experts, Roth sceptics and thosewho have never heard of him.»
St. Galler Tagblatt

Dieter Roth

Dieter Roth, who died in June 1998, was one of this century's most important and influential artists. Painter, sculptor, collagist, diarist, collector, this German-born Swiss artist considered everything as a possible medium for making art—cheese, chocolate, rabbit droppings, and cast-offs of every kind. He was the ultimate cataloguer, not just an accumulator, but a composer with an eye for magically transforming detritus into powerful and original works of art. Often heaped in installations, his quotidian objects, Super-8 film journals, obsessive collections, and categorization of every aspect of his life—in addition to hundreds of unique artist's books and graphic works—make up a monumental gesamtkunstwerk.

Roth began as a graphic designer and printmaker when he was quite young. He was a pioneer in the making of artist's books and a prolific draftsman (as well as a visiting artist at Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts, in 1964). His virtuoso drawings—some executed with both hands at once—embody pranksterish humor, obsessive energy, and a dark undertone. Goldie Paley Gallery, USA.