The works of Dieter Roth defy the boundaries of medium. His oeuvre includes experimental books and prints, as well as painting, collage, sculpture and works that combine all of these in large scale multimedia assemblages. In these, Roth explored the messy processes of art making and integrated into his work the unpredictable element of change and decay. He employed ephemeral materials that were subject to decomposition, and created large scale installations that were moulded and changed over time. Dieter Roth and his son Björn Roth worked closely together for some twenty years and after his father's death in 1998, Björn continued their artistic project, in accordance with Dieter's wishes. The installation at Hauser & Wirth Coppermill is the embodiment of this long partnership. One example of their collaborative projects is the work Grosse Tischruine (Large Table Ruin), which has remained a dynamic and changing installation since its beginning in the early 1970s, modified and extended at each subsequent exhibition. By presenting the site and tools of artistic creation as a work in its own right, Grosse Tischruine raises questions as to the criteria of art and the nature of artistic expression.
Kippenberger’s career was prolific and varied. He produced paintings, objects, sculptures and installations, books, posters and music. Embracing numerous roles with compulsive energy, Kippenberger constantly reinvented his art and his artistic persona, drawing on popular culture, politics, history, literature and autobiography. He countered high art with anecdote and satirical one liners, employing anachronistic references and strategic malapropism. His working practices systematically challenged issues of authenticity and originality through appropriation, collaboration and delegation. His paintings, sculptures and performances present a cacophany of styles and allusions that compete for attention.
For the second installment of our Martin Kippenberger display, we are showing two videos that reflect the exuberance and excitement of the early punk era. Kippenberger was deeply involved in the German punk music and club scene. Moving to Berlin in 1978, he founded one of the city's most influential punk clubs, S.O.36, played in a band called Luxus, and started 'Kippenberger's Office', his own loose version of Andy Warhol's factory.
Dieter Roth (born Hannover 1930) trained initially as a graphic artist, though he began to make experimental works in various media in 1954. He lived in Copenhagen between 1955 and 1957, before moving to Reykjavik, Iceland, where he had his first solo exhibition in 1958. In 1960, Roth received a William and Noma Copley Foundation Award. He lived in the USA from 1964-67, teaching at Yale. In 1968-71, he held a Professorship at the Staatliche Kunstakademie, Dusseldorf. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s his reputation grew, with exhibitions internationally, including in Dusseldorf in 1973; Barcelona in 1977; and Chicago in 1984. He began to make a systematic inventory of his works on filing cards. In 1986, Roth won the Charles Nypels Prize, in 1989 the Lichtwark Prize of the City of Hamburg, and in 1991 the Prix Caran d’Ache Beaux-Arts, Geneva. In 1990, he established the Dieter Roth Foundation in Hamburg. He was working to consolidate its archives when he died in Basle in 1998. Roth was the subject of a major posthumous retrospective at Schaulager Basel, the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, the Museum of Modern Art and PS1, New York in 2004.
Martin Kippenberger (born Dortmund 1953) studied at the Hamburg Art Academy from 1972, quitting after 16 semesters. He began painting whilst in Florence in 1976, producing an ambitious though incomplete series of paintings. He spent the following years in a number of cities, including Hamburg, Berlin and Paris. His first large scale museum exhibition was held at the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, in 1986. This was followed quickly by exhibitions in Cologne, Vienna and New York. During the 1990s, Kippenberger taught at the University of Kassel, and also at Yale University, in Nice and Amsterdam. Shortly after the opening of his retrospective exhibition at the Musée d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva, Kippenberger died in Vienna on 7 March 1997. The recent retrospective at Tate Modern is the first major museum retrospective of Kippenberger’s work in Britain.
