Page 34 - Studio International - February 1972

Dieter Rot in smudge themselves out, decompose and fade parts, leaving out unprofitable areas like a
away as if an anguished career on the walls had selective lover, and then either shakes the
1972: feeling been plotted for them. There is a species of whole thing up like mad, or drops it—empty and
calculated irresolution about the paintings understood. At the same time there is a
the bones which appears, on the surface, to be sharply question-begging envelope of social comment.
contrasted with the graphic images which for Some of the prostrate cities, and many of the
Alexander Weatherson the most part are frank and decisive. It is landscapes, are covered by a disgraced and
certain that Dieter Rot has frequent second dubious light which points up fragments of
thoughts about paintings in the physical sense, houses and people swimming on a surface of
about their size and scale and seriousness. luminous minestrone.
Sometimes the boundary between painting and He is a Big Spender in every sense. The size
graphics is itself left unclear. Many of the prints of his exhibition, the prodigious invention and
have a complementary dribble of chocolate comprehension, mark him out from tidier souls.
either to perk-up, or more often to blot-out, He finds it necessary not to flirt with parts of
the machine-made outline, and there is an the scene, but to take all of it over at once. He
autograph flavour about even the most thinks it necessary for the artist to make sure
impersonal of them, an itching to alter them. that it is his game, his rules, he takes part and
However overwhelming the number of works he wins. He belongs to a very un-neurotic
may be it is sobering to realize that this is only stratum of creativity, that operates on its own,
a side production. Graphics are a throw-away outside the scene for the most part. It is not
Since he more or less left Düsseldorf, some two extension of ideas that mostly find their form just that he cultivates a feeling of detachment,
or three years ago, Dieter Rot short circuits in other ways, in writing and in poetry. he simply is detached. He has no hooks, no
between Iceland, London, Germany and An accomplished sadism that seems to probe commitments and no entanglements. He shares
Switzerland, and the resulting graphics and out through the surface of everything he writes with Richard Hamilton an independence from
books at The Hague is, in its way, as ironic a about finds a parallel even in the idea of maîtrisme: both in their time were remarkably
manifestation of enlightened geography as ever printmaking. His painstaking run-down of the Professor-resistant teachers, qualities which are
a stateless person could achieve. This is an process of making these graphics puts an ironic equally obvious in their work.
enormous exhibition, bending the nature of finger on all the squashing and pressing that he His collaboration with Richard Hamilton
graphics to include squashed chocolate, has evolved. There is a relish for flattening that is one of the high spots of the exhibition. They
regurgitated candlewax, mouldy mayonnaise makes hostile patches of pigment or bread or clearly have many things in common, and yet
and cheese grandiflora—as well as the more usual cheese, erupting over townscapes and rotting it is not at all easy to identify what they are. Is
ink. The sizes, the scales, and the scope of the away silently under glass. A setting sun of it subject matter ? Not quite. Is it finesse ?
imagery are simply calculated to wring out the squashed sausage establishes a stateless Perhaps, but the handling differs greatly.
last drop of approval. This is as it should be, as independence for him, and then he goes on to Hamilton also leaves nothing to chance, but in
Dieter Rot has set himself some marathon tasks— Piccadilly Circus and elsewhere. To reduce, take a different way. His interest in typographic
and not only in graphics, since there is a central over, and change all the ingredients in a mood accidents is an intellectual delectation, a careful
core of his work quite alien to the idea of of wonder and gluttony is just part of a much and raffiné unravelling by someone who is in
permanence— which involve him as much in larger programme, perhaps. Writings, prints, control all the time. There is no smudge or stain
philosophy as in writing, as much in publishing drawings, paintings,—all are shy, erotic, sadistic or blur that is not there except because it is
as in making the right responses to the art and ultimately cannibalistic. His writing, for essential. There are differences of temperament
world. The catalogue is appropriately a bumper instance, which is the protected focus, is too, and the collaboration reflects them.
number too, and contains almost the entire Rot vulnerable. There is a response to literature Whereas the work with Stefan Wewerka was a
oeuvre in graphics, with only very minor which is certainly antagonistic to paper as well sort of bucolic partnership, the hand of one
exclusions. It is in full colour, nearly two inches as print. He has an unfocused pleasure in drawing alongside the hand of the other, the
thick, and forms volume 20 of the complete tearing-up, slicing, fragmenting and shredding work with Richard Hamilton is divided in
edition—the collected works—the whole life so newsprint; reassembling it in an idiomatic separate plates. In Seminar (1971), for instance,
far—of Dieter Rot, and which will continue order of his own where the original meaning is there are four plates by Richard Hamilton and
volume by volume until his death. artfully disposed so as to end up with its tail five by Rot. There is a litho press distance
A shelf-full of information, ideas, in its mouth. In that his materials are—or were — between the two. There is an exchange of ideas,
illustrations, comment, clues, texts, and edible, he makes tasty / tasteless picture-making and an exchange of forms, a kind of measured
explanations—none of which really give any one of his themes. They are produced with pact between them, but they come together
final inkling of what Dieter Rot is about. This loving care. An amused sensuality feels its way round a table and the results are cool and
is at it should be. To be pinned down is round the fringes of often quite unsuspecting cerebral. They share, I should say, more than
certainly not one of his aims. Even the idea of a parts, touching-up the contours and frittering these prints are prepared to say. What they
one-man print is abandoned; a section of work away the edges. There is a sort of low-key share is beyond these particular terms of
is the result of collaboration between himself sexuality which consumes and explores the reference, a sense of balance, an insight into
and Richard Hamilton, a piquant alliance in softer areas of some of the prints, leaving the the physical components of image making, a
many ways, and between himself and Stefan whole thing looking like the skin and bones of feeling of insecurity tempered by know-how,
Wewerka: a special nuance of creativity which the animal after the snake has coughed them an ease understood only by very complete
has seldom evolved before. up—but pretty enough for all that. His treatment individuals. q
There seems to be a yawning gulf between of Piccadilly Circus —an unlikely theme in the
the paintings that Dieter Rot has shown in the first place—is especially loving. By the time he
past and this extensive range of prints and has gone over all the parts in erotic detail there [A Dieter Rot exhibition, 'Books and Graphics',
books. Each of the paintings, for instance, and is really nothing left. His exploration round is at The Gemeentemuseum, The Hague,
only some of the prints, seems to incorporate a Eros, round the hoardings, along the streets, January 8 to March 12, 1972
built-in attack on itself—they seem to crawl picking out the buses, pin-pointing the lamp (and is due to be shown at the Hayward Gallery
away at the edges, to slide gently out of focus, posts is a kind of artful grope; he shapes up the in the spring of 1973).]
6o