Is art ever completely detached from one's personal life?

Is the artist ever creating the work without letting it be influenced by the events from his past? Arguably, never. But Roth's exhibition goes one step further and we are faced with the concept of the artist's life as one big piece of art. Here life doesn't imitate art as Oscar Wilde once said, but simply is art. This of course isnt an isolate case in the art history, it may be something that Kurt Schwitters questioned when he was transforming his living spaces into a piece of art he called Merzbau (1923-1937), incorporating rooms he lived in into the sculpture. In 1962 Fluxus art movements founder George Maciunas said art

is life, is nature, is true realityit is one and all, therefore excluding the distinction between the everyday and art. This interchangeability of art
and life is the central theme in the installation Solo Szenen (Solo Scenes), made in 1998, the final year of his life, where he chose to put himself under surveillance by setting up cameras throughout his house and studios in germany, Switzerland and Iceland, capturing his everyday activities, from the most banal domestic chores to the more contemplative ones where he is shown working on his future projects or just sitting at his desk thinking. The setting of 128 screens feels like an ominous version of the Orwellian future and we are transported into voyeuristic characters, feeling a slight sense of shame because of the possible enjoyment witnessing every moment of someone elses private space. or on the other hand, given the time we live in, we remain utterly disinterested being used to see other peoples videos and photos of their daily lives. Prophetic or not, The claustrophobic feel and the static camera reminiscent of Hanekes bleak films leave an impression. The waste is another theme roth worked on all his life. Whether it be very literal, like actual feces documented as photographs or his work of collecting the unwanted material from hid studio and then putting it on display on shelves for (old food packaging, reepits, tickets, labels, letters), Flacher abfall

For him the waste is never discarded as it usually is, it is carefully documented and archived in detail, elevating it to higher status and giving the material a special creative force. If it is just a farce or a new look on object we usually dont attribute many aesthetic purposes to, its up to us to decide. enormous gallery space in hangarbiccoca gives the wooden installation conceived on a spectacularly grand scale enough space to , like the recreation of his studio or the wooden floor taken from his home and transported upside down in the exhibition space. even though they are such an everyday object on which we walk everyday their presence is monumental, and they actually turn the process around, making us feel us we were walked upon. they are reminiscent of richard serras steel sculptures, the modern interpretation of the romantic sublime object, hardly to grasp in its entirety and making the viewers look negligible in front of them. then there are artworks that feelway more subtler and ephemeral, with much less weight surrounding them