Hauser & Wirth will present an exhibition offering rare insights into the central role that books played in the remarkably diverse artistic practice of legendary German-born Swiss artist Dieter Roth (1930 – 1998).

Fueled by artistic restlessness, Roth’s wildly experimental approach to drawing, printing, and book making eventually found its way into ambitious large-scale sculptural installations, many conceived and executed in collaboration with his son Björn Roth. The exhibition at Hauser & Wirth presents ‘The Studio of Dieter and Björn Roth, Ackermannshof, Basel’ (1995 – 2008), an installation of the actual studio in Basel, Switzerland, shared by the father and son artmaking team, that includes furniture, books, and an array of personal items reflecting not just the Roths’ practice but a defining philosophy in which art and daily life are indivisible.

In seeking to pulverize traditional boundaries, Dieter Roth elevated the processes by which things happen, embracing accidents, mutations, and accretions of detail over time. Hence the second major installation project ‘Flacher Abfall (Flat Waste)’ (1975 – 1976/1992) comprises commercial packaging, printed paper material and other daily studio detritus that highlights the banality of the everyday, filed in plastic sleeves in over 600 binders.

‘Books. Dieter Roth. Björn Roth. Studio’, curated by Björn Roth, will be on view at Hauser & Wirth’s 22nd Street space through 29 July 2017.