[spectre] dieter roth visits maastricht

[Florian Schneider]

DIETER ROTH VISITS MAASTRICHT

At the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the first Charles Nypels
Prize: A symposium on books, design and art

Monday, October 31, 2011 
10:00 - 17:00 
Jan van Eyck Academie Maastricht

On October 31, 1986 the artist Dieter Roth visited Maastricht and the
Jan van Eyck Academie where he had an exhibition of his work. Roth was
to be the first receiver of the Charles Nypels Prize, a new bi-annual
award of 25.000 Guilders for innovation "in any area of design from a
typographical and conceptual perspective".

The symposium DIETER ROTH VISITS MAASTRICHT sets out to research and
reconstruct a constellation that lead to the rather unorthodox decision
to give the inaugural prize to the internationally renowned artist.

Established in honor of the dutch typographer Charles Nypels (1895 –
1952) the prize aimed to give recognition to Roth for his "epoch-making
book objects". Nevertheless it created quite a scandal across the dutch
design scene.

Exactly 25 years later, to the very day, the design department at the
Jan van Eyck Academie has decided to revisit that peculiar moment.

DIETER ROTH VISITS MAASTRICHT will discuss certain aspects in the work
of Dieter Roth that might shed light to a specific understanding of the
very notion of "design". It refuses to be reduced to an industry, it is
rather characterized by a deep disappointment with the options available
within a discipline and the irresistible attempt to blur the boundaries
between performance and sculpture, theater and visual art, high culture
and low.

The symposium will discuss the potential of revisiting Roths work from a
today's perspective: Decay and deterioration are by no means exclusive
properties of a seemingly past analog aera, industrial production or the
welfare state; just as ephemerality, fugitive materials and precarity do
not belong solely to the realm of the digital.

The work of Dieter Roth may be well situated on the passage from analog
to digital, from concrete to evasive, from experiment to obsession, and
vice versa. Here one might encounter the unexpected perspective of a
materialism of the precarious state of things and minds, an anticynical,
open source approach to reverse engineer reality, the emancipatory power
of pessimism.

The symposium DIETER ROTH VISITS MAASTRICHT will feature contributions
by Corinne Diserens, Olaf Nicolai and Jan Voss. It is organized by the
advising researchers David Bennewith, John Palmesino and Florian
Schneider.

Corinne Diserens is a curator based in Paris, and Berlin. She is the
former director of Musées de Marseille, Musée des beaux arts de Nantes,
and Museion, Bozen/Bolzano. Currently she serves as president of the
jury of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart. Since September 2011
Corinne Diserens is the new director of the Ecole de recherche graphique
(ERG), Brussels. In Marseille she has curated one of the last
exhibitions of Dieter Roth before he died on June 5th, 1998.

Olaf Nicolai is an artist based in Berlin. His work has been shown at
museums and galleries worldwide, including documenta X in 1997 and the
49th and 51st Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2005. Currently he is teaching
as professor for sculpture and the basic principles of three-dimensional
design at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.

Jan Voss is one of the founders and owners of the Boekie Woekie bookshop
established as an artist-run initiative in 1986 in Amsterdam. He was a
close friend and collaborator of Dieter Roth. Jan Voss accompanied him
on his trip from Basel to Maastricht at the end of October 1986. Jan
Voss is one of the initiators of the Dieter Roth Academy.

Attendance is free but RVSP is kindly requested.

Jan van Eyck Academie 
Academieplein 1 
6211 KM Maastricht 
The Netherlands
http://www.janvaneyck.nl