This show filled me with radiating excitement. Beginning in 1960, Roth (whose real name, in German, is “Rot”) began creating pictorial books. Some are just arrangements of random dots. Some are pages of newspapers cut out, all to the same size — maybe 150 pages (in German, of course), bound like a paperback.
Just before the exit door are two memorable volumes. One is opened to two melted light bulbs. How did Roth melt lightbulbs? He’s a German; he has superhuman technological powers. These flattened bulbs resemble fried eggs — still a little shiny, and liquid. The second book has, on its cover, a croissant, painted blue — which looks remarkably like a dried turd.
Some of these “editions” are not books at all, but boxes. I stared at one with tiny plastic animals glued to its floor. That box had a lid, which one might close. Is a box a book? Is a book a box? The American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition, believes that “book” ultimately derives from “bece,” the Old English word for “beech,” while “box” comes from the Greek “puxos,” meaning “box tree.” So “box” and “book” are unrelated words, emerging from two types of trees.
Roth developed a technique for chopping a book into tiny pieces, mixing it with lard and spices, and transforming it into sausage. Several of these sausage-books are displayed, looking old and leathery. In English, they’re called “Literature Sausages,” but the original word is much better: “literaturwurst.”
Walking out of the show, I dreamed of turning everything into a book: salads, neckties, the sky itself!