The multidisciplinary creative practice of Dieter Roth consists of poetry, design, painting, drawings, sculpture, assemblages, film and video, the most famous prints, books and multiples. His experiments include the use of different tools, furniture elements, monitors, and above all organic materials, which contributed to creating unusual works such as the multiples of plastic toys covered with chocolate or sugar, the variations on printed postcards, as well as the series of artists’ books culminated in Literaturwurst (Literature Sausage), a book filled with paper in place of meat.

This show will present Roth’s original studio, The Studio of Dieter and Björn Roth, rebuilt exactly as it was with all the objects that made it: lights, ashtrays, paint cans, brushes…; the Economy bar, a real café that will be open to all visitors, changing according to its exploitation during the show; the well-known Selbstturm (Self tower), 5-meter towers with shelves full of myriads of self portrait sculptures made of chocolate (4.000 kg of dark chocolate); and the memorable Solo Scenes, a film created in the final years of the artist’s life, of himself going about his daily activities, more than 100 monitors recording every single moment of his dailiness.

After representing Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 1982, and reaching numerous international contemporary art temples worldwide – his works were displayed at some editions of Documenta Kassel, at the MACBA Barcelona, the Ludwig Museum, the Schaulager in Basel and MoMA in New York –, at last Dieter Roth’s art gets to Milan and, no matter what, Islands is worth a visit!


Articulated between the “Giardini” and the “Arsenale” this exhibition is a sort of Cabinet de Curiosités, which combines the work of different past and present artists – 150 from 37 countries -, whose interest was/is related to the role of images in sharing and structuring the knowledge. From the displayed pieces we chose the striking video devoted to robotic surgery entitled Da Vinci by Yuri Ancarani (b. 1972, Ravenna, Italy), the room split between the masters Bruce Nauman and Dieter Roth, and the one celebrating the Golden Lionesses Maria Lassnig and Marisa Merz, the works by the new generation of young bigs such as Ed Atkins (b. 1982, Oxford, UK), Neïl Beloufa (b. 1985, Paris, france), Camille Henrot (1978, Paris, France) – Silver Lion for the best promising artist 2013 -, the shocking videos about the teen-aged neurosis by Ryan Trecartin (b. 1981, Webster, texas), the timeless sculptures by the Japanese Shinichi Sawada and the ones by the Swiss duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss, the impressive reconstruction of a Vietnamese church by Danh Vo (b.1975, Vietnam), and the showcase containing the delicate and poetic work by Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (b. 1923, Zéprégueé), even if the list is undoubtedly lacking numerous of the other names that would deserve to be mentioned.


Mixing painting, photography, installation, sculpture and video along with writing, architecture, psychology, magic and spirituality, Mr. Gioni, who never misses a shot, in a clever and proficient way, put together a show that looks at the history of image all-round, from a collective and individual perspective. So, among the guests of his ‘palace’, even the unconscious and the occultism find their place with the Red Book by C. G. Jung and the tarots by Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris.

The 55th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia will run until 24th November 2013.

While everyone is finishing their ‘best’ and ‘worst’ of 2012 lists and while we are slowly becoming more aware of the fact that yet another year has past, we thought that the best way to fight melancholia and resentment in not meeting our 2012 goals is setting a new list of those for the upcoming year. Well, here is a short list of exhibitions that shouldn’t be missed in the new 2013 year.

Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things
The end of January welcomes the first of our beautiful 2013 shows. With quite a geeky design title “Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things” this exhibition at Design Museum in London aims at unveiling the key designs that have shaped the modern world, tracing the history and processes of contemporary design. This exhibition should run for two years offering a comprehensive view on design and includes furniture, product, fashion, transport and architecture alongside a selection of prototypes, models and films.

Wait, Later This Will Be Nothing: Editions by Dieter Roth

This February will see the opening of a retrospective of Dieter Roth’s particularly dense print work at our beloved MoMA in New York. One of the fathers of the contemporary artist’s books ‘genre’, Roth has through the years (and this show is particularly focused on the period between 1960 and 1975) created numerous works that played with the idea of books as objects. From book-sausages filled with paper instead of meat (Literaturwurst) to pieces dipped in melted chocolate or a series of postcards, this exhibition tries to gather all of his major book-works among which a particular relevance is given to the book Snow. This is the show many of the contemporary publishers trying to delve in the artist’s books world should really look up to!

David Bowie Is
As the year marches further, even the shows get spicier! Hence, this March, precisely March the 23rd, will see another grand opening: the already much talked about David Bowie retrospective. The V&A has been granted the exclusive access to David Bowie Archive in organizing a truly amazing show that will explore “the creative processes of Bowie as a musical innovator and cultural icon, tracing his shifting style and sustained reinvention across five decades”. More than 300 objects, including handwritten lyrics, original costumes, fashion, photography, film, music videos, set designs, Bowie’s own instruments and album artwork are bound to reveal almost everything about this amazing artist and on of the greatest icons of the 20th century.

If these shows don’t amaze you and are not worthy of your 2013 list of goals, please make sure you anyhow manage to squeeze some art and design in it, it should make your life a bit better!