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Secrets of the Gem TradeDieter Roth’s Rings
through 5 Oct. 2008 at MUDAC
The Swiss creator Dieter Roth (1930–1998) worked on innumerable fronts, trying out multiple materials and techniques. He was a remarkable dabbler in many things: at one and the same time painter, graphic artist, designer, sculptor, creator of installations, poet, musician, filmmaker and organiser of his own exhibitions. The scope of his interests and his artistic research was such that Dieter Roth is unique and, indeed, unclassifiable. His work often leaped from one discipline to another, while some of his works decomposed naturally because they were made from chocolate, cheese or meat. The proliferation and originality of his interventions and his works have left a lasting mark on the most recent generations of artists.
In 1957, Dieter Roth decided to settle with his wife in Iceland, which very quickly became his adopted homeland. Following the birth of their three children, in order to meet his family’s needs, the artist went on to experiment in very diverse fields: he built furniture, designed a shelving system for a pharmacist, developed new pieces for chess (a very highly regarded game in Iceland), designed posters and produced work in ceramics and glass. In parallel he became interested in making jewellery, which he thought he could sell easily. These creations were totally innovative and burst the norms of traditional jewellery. Thus his bracelets were based on salvaged aluminium plates on to which he poured chemical products; he would wait two or three weeks until a form of oxidisation was produced and then cut out strips of metal. His early days as a jeweller were very laborious. Icelanders did not recognise the originality of his experimental work, which broke down the barriers between different areas of skills. The meeting in 1958 with his fellow countryman, the goldsmith Hans Langenbacher, marked a turning point in his production. A long, fruitful collaboration grew out of this friendship, which would last until the artist’s death, as the abundant correspondence presented at the mudac this summer will testify.
Hans Langenbacher was instantly fascinated by the freedom of expression of the jewellery designed by Dieter Roth, the audacity of the materials employed and their ingenious system of assemblage. The artist used to try out various combinations of bolts, nuts and screws, propose new components to add, cover or remove. This incredible series of sculptures for fingers, or ring-sculptures, was based on rather ordinary materials such as gilt brass, iron and coloured plexiglass. Dieter Roth even went further, including the eventual wearers of his jewellery in the creation of their own ring. They could modify the ring as they pleased by combining or replacing certain components, thereby creating a unique object. The dialogue of the artist with the person who would wear the object is a central theme in Dieter Roth’s work. The series of rings produced by Dieter Roth includes some very special models such as the “Ring with rotating components” (1971), permitting the wearer to play with 15 different settings, the four “Lion rings” (1971) inspired by the Lion Monument in Lucerne, and the “Zoo ring” (1971) made up of toys in the form of interchangeable animal heads.
The exhibition presents six ring-sculpture models with multiple combinations permitting 40 different rings to be made, as well as 70 original documents prefiguring these projects. Drawings, sketches, letters and postcards sent by Dieter Roth to Hans Langenbacher allow one to follow, step by step, the collaboration between artist and goldsmith. All the objects come from the private collection of Hans Langenbacher (Lucerne).
Parallel to this project, Edizioni Periferia (Lucerne) is publishing in German and English the book Dieter Roth, Ringe 1959–1973, which includes photographs by Harry Burst of the various ring projects, with previously unpublished texts by Jean-Christophe Ammann, Hans Langenbacher and Flurina Paravicini, Adalsteinn Ingolfsson and Peter Noever. As the goldsmith Hans Langenbacher placed his archives at the publisher’s disposal, all the original documents relating to this collaboration have been reproduced in facsimile and gathered together in a loose-leaf file in a limited edition of 750. There is also a leader edition (15 numbered copies) incorporating an example of the “Lucerne lion ring” in silver.
