View of “Dieter Roth and Björn Roth,” 2013–14. Foreground: Björn Roth, Oddur Roth, and Einar Roth with Davíd Por Jonsson, The Relatively New Sculpture, 2013. Background: Dieter Roth, Solo Scenes, 1997–98.
Dieter Roth and Björn Roth
Pirelli HangarBicocca
“Islands,” which comprises one hundred works in 48,000 square feet of demanding postindustrial space and marks Vicente Todolí’s trial run as HangarBicocca’s artistic adviser, is a massive show, big enough to encompass Dieter Roth’s total lifetime undertaking of smashing and annihilating boundaries, whether temporal, spatial, or conceptual. Making radical contributions to performance, sculpture, painting, poetry, graphic design, publishing, filmmaking, and music, Roth seemed to aim more than any other artist at an ensured permanency or—better yet—immortality. Supporting that legacy, Roth’s son and collaborator Björn acts as heir, successor, and curator of his father’s oeuvre. In Milan, he has transformed the former AnsaldoBreda rail-engineering plant into a vast laboratory, both a new home for his father’s production methods and a steady and continuous work-in-progress
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