Just arrived in The Cave, Dieter Roth - Collected Interviews (Edition Hansjörg Mayer), 615 pages including photographs - phew! Well worth the wait - and what a weight - one and a half kilos, actually, which is heavy on my skinny chest as I lie in bed, I can tell you. The heaviness seems appropriate, although I've no idea how much Dieter weighed...he looks weighty in his later years...his work has such weight too in both range and subject matter or, I should say, potential for philosophical meaning pertaining to The Meaning Of Art should you wish to view it that way and I do, sometimes. Occasionally I come over all queer and ponder the significance of a body of work that defies easy categorisation; that's messy, refined, smelly, chaotic, beautiful, ugly, studied and slapped down, constructed, deconstructed, written, squiggled, printed, bound and on - Roth's world knows no bounds, which is why he was so great.
Just 14 pages in he discusses the meaning of 'good' in art. To take things as they are and do what has to be done is as good a credo as any for an artist. Perfectionism can go to hell. Yes and of course it's true that a person's very nature, or whatever lies at the core of their being, tends to dictate their approach...the 'natural' perfectionist is hard to shake off, to throw away in favour of embracing imperfection. I know. Or I imagine, at least, not being that way myself.
Well, I wonder, does the perfectionist live in a neat, orderly household? One where everything is in its right place amid spotless (dustless) fittings? My art here in The Cave is quite well-ordered...stacked...but some stacks are ragged...and the works aren't categorised...and cut out pages or collages figures intermingle with finished works and mysterious blank pages (intended for what?). Should anyone request to see a piece I may never be able to find it.
Anyway, this book's essential if you like Dieter Roth.
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