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POMERANZ COLLECTION

DIETER ROTH

Trophy
1978
Pencil drawing
48 cm x 63,7 cm
Inv. Nr. 30

Born in 1930 in Hannover, Germany
Died in 1998 in Basel, Switzerland

Dieter Roth is an influential artist, part of a generation of post-war artists who interrogated the boundaries between art and life, and introduced unorthodox techniques and materials into art making. His founding encounter with Daniel Spoerri in 1954 and later with Jean Tinguely in 1961 both enhanced his fascination for transformation and destructive processes that he applied to his work by using edible and rotting materials such as cheese, chocolate and fruit. Roth is also well known for his prints, his hundreds of artist’s books and his drawings that capture his wild energy and his Dadaist attitude. Trophy is a self-portrait of the artist who was obsessed with his own image and often depicted himself with decaying substances, as if to mimic his own aging. The “trophy” above his bald head resembles a female naked body. References to playful sexuality are present all through his work, as if to undermine in a provocative way the formal language of art.