DIETER ROTH
Hannover, (Germany) 1930 – Basilea, (Swiss) 1998 

He studied design and graphic arts in Bern, in a climate strongly influenced by the training system of the Bauhaus and the concrete art of Theo van Doesburg, whose aesthetics enlivened the spirit of the magazine Spirale, which he founded in 1951, at a point when he was establishing close relationships with, among others, Daniel Spoerri, Peter Meir and Walter Vögeli, with whom he opened Galerie 33 in Bern. His interest in movement and optical effects led him to produce a series of kinetic sculptures. In the latter part of the decade the became a complement to his object-books and artist´s books, which formed the central focus for his creative efforts. After a period of travelling in Denmark, Iceland and the United States (he taught at Yale, returning in 1964), in the early sixties, influenced by the work of Tinguely, he embarked on a more organicist, deconstructive phase. Apart from his experimentation with concrete poetry, this focus was reflected in his first works made with perishable organic materials (bread, cocoa, bananas, meat and spices, exploring their process of decomposition with concepts of mutation, change or self-destruction), the use of the technique of collage for his books, and, above all, the range of iconography that he created in one of his most significant books, “Munduculum” (1961-66), bringing him a visual vocabulary of biomorphic symbols that he transferred to the rest of his work during the remainder of the decade and a good part of the seventies. After a new period of teaching in London and Düsseldorf, in the early seventies he intensified his graphic output, complementing it with the manipulation and transformation of photographs of natural landscapes and urban scenes by means of superimposed drawings and the use of organic materials, and an extensive series of drawings with very rapid strokes and symmetrical compositions¬---- Speedy Drawings. Influenced by the Fluxus movement, in the latter part of the seventies he entered the field of experimental theatre and music, working with Arnulf Rainer, Oswald Wiener and Richard Hamilton, among others. During the eighties, when he began the systematic publication of his complete works, he incorporated new technologies into his works, using video, photocopies, Polaroid photographs and especially computers. In this activity he was assisted by his son Karl during his last years.