IMBUING MATTER WITH SPIRIT

In 1957, a young, Swiss graphic-designer-turned-artist, Dieter Roth (1930-1998), reached Icelandic shores. Like many men before and since, he was following an Icelandic woman. He had met and fallen in love with her in Denmark a year earlier. Roth would become a household name in Iceland and a celebrated figure in 20th-century modernist art and beyond, rubbing shoulders with members of the Fluxus movement and showcasing his works in notable galleries around the world. In 1957, however, he was relatively unknown: a young artist trying to make sense of a changing world in the wake of the Second World War.

Often described as an artist’s artist, Dieter Roth proved to be an influential and galvanising figure in Iceland in the postwar years. Along with other like-minded artists, he helped found one of the country’s first art galleries. He was quick to start collaborating with many of the scene’s die-hard modernists, sometimes even managing to outdo them in their modernist ways. A passionate man, he reportedly once caused a minor controversy when asked to do the layout for the magazine Birtingur by refusing to use capital letters and insisting on only using the Helvetica typeface. It proved to be his only layout for the magazine.

Roth was a polymath, working in many different mediums. His obituary mentions works including poetry, music, sculptures, film, photography, diaries, paintings, and books. Today Roth is perhaps most known for his paintings and biodegradable sculptures, where he used organic materials to create living works of art that evolved as they decomposed. However, a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Iceland, running from early June through January 2023, highlights a lesser-known part of his oeuvre – his jewellery.

THE JEWELLERY

When Roth first settled in Iceland, he had already transitioned from graphic design to painting. But fatefully, his wife at the time, painter and art therapist Sigríður Björnsdóttir, had brought home a jewellery-making kit from Denmark. For a while, both worked on their respective creations in their small apartment rented by Sigríður’s parents. Eventually, Sigríður became pregnant with their first child and, as she describes in a video shown at the National Gallery’s exhibition, lost interest in jewellery-making. Dieter, however, never entirely abandoned the craft. The exhibition collects objects made by Roth over a long period, starting in 1957. Rings take centre stage, but there are also necklaces and other types of artefacts in glass display cases strewn over a large wooden table in the centre of the showroom. The sounds of Roth’s forays into music-making emanate from a speaker in the corner.

“HISTORICALLY, THERE HAS BEEN TOO

MUCH EMPHASIS PLACED ON WHICH MATERIALS THE ARTIST USED IN THEIR ART AND NOT NEARLY ENOUGH

ATTENTION PAID TO THE

IDEAS AND FEELING BEHIND IT.”

The encircling walls are lined with sketches made by the artist, explaining the function and build of the many pieces on display. Like everything at the show, the sketches are approached with an artistic flair. Roth uses different-coloured magic markers, the instructions scribbled haphazardly on paper, which, judging by the markings, was borrowed from Hótel Holt in downtown Reykjavík. Despite the haphazardness of these sketches, written instructions meld with crude illustrations of forms to create impressive works of art, sometimes calling to mind the graffiti of Basquiat or perhaps a lost Radiohead album cover. The jewellery pieces on the table are notably diverse. Like many artists of his time, Roth would eventually tire of the rigid confines of minimalist modernism and break free into more elaborate modes of expression. The early rings of 1957 are inventive but stark. Bare wire is bent into circular shapes; one set looks like it was made from metal pipes meant for plumbing. In contrast, some of the jewellery from 1971 is striking in its elegance and inventiveness. His collection of hat rings is a postmodern showstopper. Six rings, made from iron, copper, brass, silver, and gold, protrude from a simple green box, their crowns the shape of various hats. It’s pop art so perfectly executed that it feels at once modern, timeless, and inevitable.

Notable features of Roth’s jewellery are their modular aspect and their recycling and recontextualising of materials.

Self-portrait

One of the displays houses an elongated box; inside it a ring and multiple acrylic shapes that can be screwed on top of the ring as the user sees fit. In typical Roth fashion, the box is a modified rain gutter. Another ring is fashioned out of old clock parts that can be unlocked and unfolded into a hanging mobile.

In the early days, Roth would forgo sketches and instead work intuitively, bending wires and shaping metal into his creations. But as the exhibition clearly shows, Roth would change styles regularly and refine his approach, eventually collaborating with his friend and countryman, goldsmith Hans Langenbacher. Roth would mail Langenbacher his diagrams (also on display) showing increasingly elegant designs that Langenbacher would then produce. The exhibition at the National Gallery of Iceland paints a picture of a fiercely creative man. But what was Dieter Roth like in his personal life? By all accounts, Roth could indeed turn anything into art and was endlessly curious. He would devour Icelandic literature and inspire people with his openness, hospitality and charm. But, like so many artists, he was complicated. A perennial nomad, he would cause strain on his family with his wanderlust. He was sensitive and sometimes easily offended. And despite being a teetotaller and a “very correct man” in his early years (as one person describes him), he eventually became a heavy drinker, letting loose as a member of Basel’s infamous art and party scene. Drinking notwithstanding, Roth would hold positions at respected art schools around the world and make an indelible mark on Icelandic artists, an influence still felt today.

TO MODERNISM AND BEYOND

Guðmundur Oddur Magnússon, better known as Goddur, is an artist and research professor of Visual Communication at the Iceland University of the Arts. He studied under Roth in the late seventies at The Icelandic College of Art and Crafts (which later merged with IUA) and eventually became a family friend. In fact, when I call Goddur for an interview, he’s staying at the Roth family’s summer house in Snæfellsnes, preparing for an exhibition of his own.

Goddur had a helping hand in putting the jewellery exhibition together and knows Dieter Roth’s story and art better than anyone. He’s also a consummate storyteller with a professorial disposition. With minimal prodding, he launches into an almost uninterrupted, forty-minute soliloquy about the magic of Dieter’s art, early modernism in Iceland, and everything in between. He answers all of my questions, often without me having to go through the formality of asking them.

“Whether Roth was making music, paintings, or jewellery, his approach was always the same,” Goddur says. “He was always recycling, using materials that weren’t common in the jewellerymaking world, using found objects.” Historically, mid-20th century modernism was often preoccupied with repurposing and drawing attention to

Guðmundur Oddur Magnússon, better known as Goddur, with Pippa

materials and processes used. Using forms that already existed but putting them in a new context. Was Roth a typical modernist for his time, then?

“Everyone is partly a product of their time and the cultural landscape they reside within. No one is as original as they think they are. The great artists have their radar switched on and pick up on the zeitgeist. That was Roth’s great gift. He was so switched on that he effortlessly channelled the ideas of his time,” Goddur enthuses. “Dieter Roth was an almost pedantic modernist up until 1960 when he turned against its minimalist leanings because he felt modernism had become an empty form of fashion. One of Roth’s defining features was that he felt very strongly he had to be true to himself no matter what. He never wanted his art to devolve into superficial manufacturing of objects without any thought or feeling behind them. This was one of the reasons he started gravitating to materials most people would consider junk. In fact, he always referred to his materials as ‘the junk and stuff’ (draslið og dótið).”

CULTIVATING SPIRIT

Roth would go to extreme lengths in his quest to use unconventional materials. His Portrait of the Artist as Vogelfutterbüste (e. birdseed bust) was a self-portrait sculpted out of chocolate and birdseed. Over time, the chocolate would oxidise and decay, deforming the artist’s visage. His Staple Cheese (A Race) involved multiple suitcases filled with cheese that were opened, displayed, and closed over the course of an exhibition. These works perplexed many as they rendered the possibility of buying them and proudly showcasing them in one’s home impossible. But according to Goddur, this was all part of Roth’s ability to create art that had a sense of vitality.

“What is important in art, beyond anything else, is that you can feel the spirit in the matter,” Goddur says gravely, “not just the matter itself. Historically, there has been too much emphasis placed on which materials the artist used in their art and not nearly enough attention paid to the ideas and feeling behind it. One of the reasons many people had such a hard time accepting contemporary art was that they couldn’t accept when artists moved into using materials that weren’t precious. Dieter Roth was vital for his preservation of spirit above all else.”

“It doesn’t matter what your particular mode of expression is as long as you’re expressing yourself honestly,” Goddur adds. “If you do so, it really doesn’t matter if you’re making paintings, sculptures, or jewellery. What I find personally interesting about Dieter Roth’s art is that many artists have used similar methods in their work, but it feels lifeless, like some perfunctory set dressing and not art. Some people are just plugged in and create magic, while others do the exact same thing, but it just doesn’t work. Some people, like Roth, have such great taste and make art in a way that just feels so right somehow that they inspire anyone who witnesses it.”

THE TEACHER

As previously mentioned, Goddur was an early student of Roth. So, what was he like? “He had a contrarian streak,” Goddur explains. “He wanted to turn everything on its head. At the Icelandic College of Art, he prefaced his teachings by saying that he wasn’t going to teach

“THE GREAT ARTISTS HAVE THEIR RADAR SWITCHED ON AND PICK

UP ON THE ZEITGEIST. THAT

WAS ROTH’S GREAT GIFT. HE WAS SO SWITCHED ON THAT HE EFFORTLESSLY

CHANNELLED THE IDEAS OF HIS TIME.”

us anything. He once asked us to make a music recording, with the condition that we would not try to play harmoniously but rather in stark contrast with each other. He also insisted that we practise telling the truth. He felt there was too much lying in the world. He once started us off with a score of ten, and when anyone was caught being untruthful, he’d subtract one point. By the end of the week, we all had a score of zero.” “He asked to turn the classroom into a bar,” Goddur continues. “The first week of our semester, we just got drunk with him until we were eventually thrown out, and then he relocated the party to his workspace in Mosfellssveit, outside the city. I think he did all these things because he was so adamant about bringing out people’s truth about themselves. Not some grand, overarching truth, but the personal one. He didn’t like people wearing masks, trying to be something they weren’t. If you’d quote someone to him, he’d always shoot back with: ‘But what do you think?’ He was much more interested in that than any culturally prescribed notion we could regurgitate. He continually tried to nourish truthfulness in his students.”

THE NOMAD

Dieter Roth would never stay put in any one location for long. He had multiple workspaces all over Iceland, at Hellnar, Seyðisfjörður, Loðmundarfjörður, and Mosfellssveit. “He equipped them all in the same way,” Goddur explains.

“AT THE ICELANDIC COLLEGE OF ART, HE PREFACED HIS TEACHINGS BY SAYING THAT HE WASN’T GOING TO TEACH US ANYTHING.”

“The same pots and pans, the same arrangement of the working area. He did this so he could constantly be on the move yet always at home. And never did he buy expensive property; it was always something like a derelict army Nissen hut left over from the war or an old cabin that he would then transform.” “Dieter always took the shortcut in his work,” Goddur says. “In the early days, for example, he used to screw coat hangers on the back of his chairs for easy storage of his jackets. He also used to create makeshift shelves above his workspace for instant access to his pens and things. In fact, he approached all his interior decorating and furniture-making in this spirit. The more stylish, the worse he felt about it. He wanted to dispense with style as much as possible and go for minimalist functionality instead. That is until he felt that was over and, like many others, turned against the conventions of the time.”

Dieter Roth and Sigríður Björnsdóttir would eventually divorce in 1963. Soon after, Roth would go on to accept teaching positions in America at places like Philadelphia Museum College of Art, Yale School of Architecture and Rhode Island School of Design, never settling in one place for too long. Despite his divorce and growing reputation within the art scenes of Europe and New York, Roth regularly returned to Iceland until his death in 1998, often collaborating with his son, artist Björn Roth.

THE PIONEER

In early June of 2022, a week-long sustainable design festival was held in Gufunes called RUSL (e. TRASH), focusing on circular thinking and its application within art, design, and culture. The festival’s exploration of recycling, biodegradability, and repurposing is a pressing modern concern. But as Goddur points out, it also feels like a continuation of work pioneered by people like Dieter Roth.

“He’s such a trailblazer when it comes to recycling in art; nobody can touch him in that regard. He was a true original and instigator. In that way, his work speaks directly to our modern times.”

“He was a true alchemist in the way he could turn what was worthless into gold. Again, matter has no intrinsic worth until you load it with an idea, imbue it with the joy of creation, and then everyone goes ‘Wow!’ because suddenly the spirit within the matter is unmistakable.”