Visiting a part of the world such as Iceland, you often stumble across something quite unique and inspiring. Reykjavik Iceland Dieter Roth
The National Museum of Iceland has always lived up to expectations and our recent visit did not disappoint.
Working through the traditional and conceptual, almost as an after-thought, we stumbled across an exhibition of the little known artist and jeweller Dieter Roth.
Roth became a world-renowned jeweller following an early career as a commercial artist.
He was born in Hannover Germany to German and Swiss parents and spent his early years as a Swiss-German, in Zurich Switzerland to avoid the ravages of WWII. He re-joined his by then, destitute family in Bern in 1947 after his training as an artist and poet.
It was his discovery of the artist Paul Klee that inspired him to move away from traditional art and embrace international modernism.
In 1957 Roth married the Icelander Sigríður Björnsdóttir and moved to Reykjavik. It was then that he moved into what became influential art book publishing, far away from the European and USA mainstream of art.
In the 1960s Roth made a key breakthrough in his attitude to art whilst witnessing the performance of the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely’s Homage to Modern Art in Basel, 1961. The work profoundly impressed Roth, leading to a decisive break with constructivism into post-modern avant-garde practices associated with the Nouveaux Réalistes such as Tinguely and Arman, and the group of artists that were about to become known as Fluxus, including Joseph Beuys. Source – Wikipedia.
However, his work with jewellery is much less known and appreciated and it was a privilege to visit the Reykjavik National Gallery of Iceland to enjoy their exhibition of Roth’s unique and fascinating jewellery.
It is not often that a visit to a gallery remains in one’s mind sometime after the event. This one certainly has.
Reykjavik Iceland Dieter Roth
Reykjavik Iceland Dieter Roth