Abstract
The “Schimmelmuseum” by the German-Swiss artist Dieter Roth (1930-1998) united food as art material in architecture and art objects as an entire installation. The performative act of the work’s creation in the artist’s kitchen, studio and museum is just as much a component as the multi-sensually perceptible objects and their decay. Olfactory, visual, tactile, or even acoustic sensory stimuli take the place of active ingestion processes, which characterized the reception experience in varying intensity in Roth’s “Schimmelmuseum”. Chocolates were cooked, cheese and spices were processed, and sugar was liquefied and multifacetedly colored. The material-specific process implies an essential level. Food objects such as the “Lion Self Tower” (1969-1993), which consists of chocolate busts, are continuously exposed to aging and decay through material transformation, insect damage, and external influences such as temperature fluctuations. In this respect, the sensual experience in the reception also changes and is amended up to the present. Even after the demolition of the “Schimmelmuseum” in 2004, such developmental processes influence the objects transferred from the Remise (2004) to the Dieter Roth Museum (today) and thus the current exhibition and reception practice. My paper combines a retrospective perspective on the “Schimmelmuseum” and its presentation and reception practices with today’s museum- and material-specific requirements, conditions, and practices.
Presenters
Jessen InaLecturer / Researcher, Art History Department, University of Hamburg / Dieter Roth Museum, Hamburg, Germany
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2022 Special Focus—Imagining the Edible: Food, Creativity, and the Arts
KEYWORDS
Food, Art Material, Mold, Transformation, Process, Fluidity, Fusion, Demolition, Decay
