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The work of Dieter Roth, one of the leading universal artists of the 20th century, brings in such diverse elements as literature, drawing, sculpture, graphic prints, book art and new media with consummate skill. Between 1974 and 1997 five woven carpets were created in cooperation with the Austrian artist Ingrid Wiener - and initially also with Valie Export. Until now this exceptional cooperation has neither been exhibited on its own nor has it been prized as it deserves to be.
The Kirchner Museum Davos has now brought the carpets together for the first time and is also presenting the widely ranging materials that belong inseparably to this extraordinary and fruitful project which continued for almost 25 years: Polaroid photos, drawings of objects, places and patterns; the so called "flat waste" such as receipts and packing materials; faxes; videos; letters and finally the file books in which the artist documented all of these materials.
Many artists from Eva Hesse to Rosemarie Trockel, from Gadha Amer to Cosima von Bonin, from Maria Hahnenkamp to Petra Maitz have been stitching and weaving their pictures over the past few decades, thus recognising these forms and textures as equivalent to paintings as entities with their own unique expressive value. Well aware of this aspect the Neue Galerie Graz has devoted group or individual exhibitions to the artists of this group or has purchased work from them for its collection. The emancipation and the equal status of female cultural techniques has always been a major concern of the Neue Galerie Graz. This is the reason behind its presentation in 2006, of the dream drawings by Ingrid Wiener and of the great interest it shows in the cooperation work with Dieter Roth, whose attraction to the so-called female cultural techniques is demonstrated not only by his openness to all kinds of media but also in his sensibility and passion for oppressed and marginalised cultural practices. The 20th century has seen a succession of pair-work between male artists, e.g. Rainer-Roth, and between male and female artists, e.g. Export-Weibel. Such male-female cooperation opens up a new field in art that questions the classical concepts of creativity, sexual identity and originality. It is against this background that the Neue Galerie Graz is delighted to be able to show, together with the Kirchner Museum Davos, one of the most interesting collaborations in contemporary art.
