In honor of the 85th birthday of the late artist Dieter Roth, Christina Freeman invited Kiran Chandra, Ivaylo Gueorgiev, and Cristina Ochoa to collaborate on making a gift for the deceased artist.
Based on Dieter Roth’s project Flat Waste, Christina proposed that each artist collect one found item of trash per day for one year, ending with a birthday party on April 21, 2015. The resulting projects reflect each artist’s creative interpretation of the assignment.
Thursday Wrapper from a gift of chocolate given to me by Lynda Klich for helping with technology issues at work.
It is surprising to me that I did not come across Dieter Roth’s work sooner. It must have been there all along and I just didn’t take notice.
During the last few years I have had a preoccupation with how something could be simultaneously nothing (ness) and something (ness). What value is there (if any) in looking at those things that are so often invisible? What will we find in that forgotten space? How does accumulation result in creation?
Sifting and bringing something buried to the forefront. What is it about the obsessive personality that is drawn to collect and archive? What part of us does it fulfill to find use for something otherwise useless? Do we see ourselves there in that transformative process? To make new, to give value. Rebirth. This is true creation.
365 Days for Dieter Blog
Dieter Roth Retrospective at MoMA PS1
The Telegraph Review of Dieter Roth’s Diaries