Literaturwurst (Literature Sausage) is an Artist's book, [1] made by the Swiss-German artist Dieter Roth between 1961 and 1974. Each book was made using traditional sausage recipes, but replacing the sausage meat with a book or magazine. The cover of the edition was then pasted onto the skin of the sausage and signed and dated.
'When I was young I wanted to become a real artist. Then I started doing something I felt wasn't real art, and it was through this that I became a well-known artist.' Dieter Roth [2]
Roth made the first Literature Sausage from a copy of the Daily Mirror , whilst living in Iceland, [3] and gave it to his friend and colleague Daniel Spoerri in 1961. This makes it contemporaneous with his book Daily Mirror that Roth constructed this year, and was part of a series of books that used found printed matter, such as comics and off-set run up sheets, and rebound them to disrupt their visual authority.
“From time to time I take books I can’t stand or from authors I want to annoy and make: sausages c. 40 cm long, 8 cm thick, should end up as an edition of 50, titled on the outside, signed, numbered, DM100.” [4]
In 1963, after realizing the sausage had “ironic value” [5] he offered the book to George Maciunas to be published as a Fluxus Edition via mutual friend Arthur Kopke. Maciunas turned down the idea, although Roth still participated in a number of early Fluxus events. He returned to the idea in 1966, producing 24 over the next few years, using books such as Tin Drum by Günter Grass, To Seek a Newer World by Robert F. Kennedy and The Redhead by Alfred Andersch. Uniquely, Halbzeit (Half-time by Martin Walser), was cut into unequal halves and hung in a deeply recessed picture frame.
In 1970 the series was expanded to include magazines; Quick, Bunte , Der Spiegel and Stern . These last 25 were manufactured by Editions Rene Block, Berlin, and stuffed into plastic skins rather than intestine.
"If you follow these instructions carefully i shall give you these two sausages to sell and soil and slice and save and save and do whatever else you wish without restriction! so; (don't be or get angry now) get a recipe from a butcher a recipe for sausages and follow this recipe (exactly), so that everything in the recipe that is not MEAT, in the doug or the mass (whatever that's called) included- spices, water, gelatine, onions, garlic etc etc; PUT IT ALL IN, and then in place of meat use the pages of the book!" [6]
The book was to become the first of a large series of pieces by Roth that used foodstuffs, occasionally preserved, more usually rotting, such as Porträt Carl Laszlo 1963, in which a portrait of a collector is covered in cheese and chocolate, and P.O.TH.A.A.VFB, a self-portrait multiple made of chocolate and birdseed, at least one of which was left out on a bird-table, to be eaten by birds.
The most notorious was the Staple Cheese (A Chase) exhibition at the Eugenia Butler Gallery, Los Angeles, 1970. This consisted of a series of suitcases filled with cheese, as well as wall mounted cheese intended to drip over a horizontal line below. A different case was opened each day to reveal different states of decay. In less than three weeks, the gallery was 'practically impossible to enter' [7] with prospective viewers having to contend with flies, larvae and maggots as well as the smell. The suitcases remained unsold, and were finally thrown away in the desert by the dealer's husband.
The series culminated in 1974 with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Werke in 20 Bänden (Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Work in 20 Volumes), made by the collector Hanns Sohm according to Roth’s instructions. The 20 sausages are hung on two rows on a wooden frame, ‘as in a slaughterhouse.’ [8]
Roth would also publish some of the sausage’s recipes, listing the ingredients used, in Gesammelte Werke, (Collected Works) Vol 16.
English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but also shares much with wider British cuisine, partly through the importation of ingredients and ideas from the Americas, China, and India during the time of the British Empire and as a result of post-war immigration.
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus is known for experimental contributions to different artistic media and disciplines and for generating new art forms. These art forms include intermedia, a term coined by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins; conceptual art, first developed by Henry Flynt, an artist contentiously associated with Fluxus; and video art, first pioneered by Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell. Dutch gallerist and art critic Harry Ruhé describes Fluxus as "the most radical and experimental art movement of the sixties".
Artists' books are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects.
Mashed potato or mashed potatoes, colloquially known as mash, is a dish made by mashing boiled or steamed potatoes, usually with added milk, butter, salt and pepper. It is generally served as a side dish to meat or vegetables. Roughly mashed potatoes are sometimes called smashed potatoes. Dehydrated instant mashed potatoes and frozen mashed potatoes are available. Mashed potatoes are an ingredient in other dishes, such as dumplings and gnocchi.
Dutch cuisine is formed from the cooking traditions and practices of the Netherlands. The country's cuisine is shaped by its location in the fertile North Sea river delta of the European Plain, giving rise to fishing, farming, and trading over sea, its former colonial empire and the spice trade.
Ken Friedman is a design researcher. He was a member of Fluxus, an international laboratory for experimental art, architecture, design, and music. Friedman joined Fluxus in 1966 as the youngest member of the classic Fluxus group. He has worked closely with other Fluxus artists and composers such as George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, and Nam June Paik, as well as collaborating with John Cage and Joseph Beuys. He was the general manager of Dick Higgins's Something Else Press in the early 1970s. In the 1990s, Friedman's work as a management consultant and designer led him to an academic career, first as Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design at the Norwegian School of Management in Oslo, then as Dean of the Faculty of Design at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. Friedman is currently University Distinguished Professor at Swinburne and Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies at Tongji University.
George Maciunas was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers, and designers, he is most famous for organising and performing early happenings and for assembling a series of highly influential artists' multiples.
Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been mainly influenced by Turkish and a series of European cuisines in particular from the Balkans, or Hungarian cuisine as well as culinary elements stemming from the cuisines of Central Europe.
George Brecht, born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil. He was a key member of, and influence on, Fluxus, the international group of avant-garde artists centred on George Maciunas, having been involved with the group from the first performances in Wiesbaden 1962 until Maciunas' death in 1978.
Serbian cuisine is a Balkan cuisine that consists of the culinary methods and traditions of Serbia. Its roots lie in Serbian history, including centuries of cultural contact and influence with the Greeks and Byzantines, the Ottomans, the defunct state of Yugoslavia, and Serbia's Balkan neighbours. Historically, Serbian food was characterised by strong influence from Byzantine (Greek) and Mediterranean cuisines, but also by Eastern European, and to a lesser extent Central European cuisine.
Dieter Roth was a Swiss artist best known for his artist's books, editioned prints, sculptures, and works made of found materials, including rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot and Diter Rot.
Tomas Schmit was an artist and author associated with the Fluxus movement of the early 1960s. During the subsequent 40 years, he created drawings, texts, books and artists' books. From the late 1960s until his death, he continuously exhibited in international galleries. With his series of drawings, he is represented in renowned museums and collections: among them Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Collection of Harald Falckenberg in Hamburg. Schmit's works are represented by the galleries Michael Werner in Cologne / New York, Marlene Frei in Zurich, Rudolf Springer and Barbara Wien in Berlin and the Edition Armin Hundertmark in Gran Canaria, Spain.
Grapefruit is an artist's book written by Yoko Ono, originally published in 1964. It has become famous as an early example of conceptual art, containing a series of "event scores" that replace the physical work of art – the traditional stock-in-trade of artists – with instructions that an individual may, or may not, wish to enact.
Grapefruit is one of the monuments of conceptual art of the early 1960s. She has a lyrical, poetic dimension that sets her apart from the other conceptual artists. Her approach to art was only made acceptable when [people] like Kosuth and Weiner came in and did virtually the same thing as Yoko, but made them respectable and collectible.
Water Yam is an artist's book by the American artist George Brecht. Originally published in Germany, June 1963 in a box designed by George Maciunas and typeset by Tomas Schmit, it has been re-published in various countries several times since. It is now considered one of the most influential artworks released by Fluxus, the internationalist avant-garde art movement active predominantly in the 1960s and '70s. The box, sometimes referred to as a Fluxbox or Fluxkit, contains a large number of small printed cards, containing instructions known as event-scores, or fluxscores. Typically open-ended, these scores, whether performed in public, private or left to the imagination, leave a lot of space for chance and indeterminancy, forcing a large degree of interpretation upon the performers and audience.
In some cases [event-scores] would arise out of the creation of the object, while in others the object was discovered and Brecht subsequently wrote a score for it, thus highlighting the relationship between language and perception. Or, in the words of the artist, "ensuring that the details of everyday life, the random constellations of objects that surround us, stop going unnoticed." The event-score was as much a critique of conventional artistic representation as it was a gesture of firm resistance against individual alienation.
Spice Chess is an artist's multiple by the Japanese artist Takako Saito, while she was resident in the United States. Originally manufactured winter 1964–65, and offered for sale March 1965, the work is one of a famous series of disrupted chess sets referred to as Fluxchess or Flux Chess, made for George Maciunas' Fluxshop at his Canal Street loft, SoHo, New York City and later through his Fluxus Mail-Order Warehouse.
"Takako Saito engaged with Duchamp's practice but also with masculinist cold war metaphors by taking up chess as a subject of [her] art. Saito's fluxchess works... question the primacy of vision to chess, along with notions of perception and in aesthetic experience more generally.... Her "Smell Chess," "Sound Chess" and "Weight Chess" reworked the game of chess so that players would be forced to hone non-visual perception, such as the olfactory sense, tactility, and aurality, in order to follow chess rules." Claudia Mesch
Takako Saito is a Japanese artist closely associated with Fluxus, the international collective of avant-garde artists that was active primarily in the 1960s and 1970s. Saito contributed a number of performances and artworks to the movement, which continue to be exhibited in Fluxus exhibitions to the present day. She was also deeply involved in the production of Fluxus edition works during the height of their production. She is best known for her special chess sets, which include Spice Chess, but her larger body of work focus on crafting a variety of objects to be used in open-ended situations to create unexpected social relations. She currently lives in Düsseldorf in Germany.
Knud Pedersen was a Danish artist and resistance leader. His career as a public figure started in 1942, when he, together with seven other young Danes, founded the resistance group Churchill Klubben. After the war, he worked briefly as a newspaper reporter, attended law school, and worked for a film company before devoting his life to art.
Thomas Kellein is a German art historian; gallery director; author; and curator. He was the Director at Kunsthalle Basel between 1988 and 1995, and the Director of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld between 1996 and 2010. He was the Director of the Chinati Foundation between 2011 and 2012.
The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook is a vegan cookbook by Louise Hagler, first published in 1975. It was influential in introducing Americans to tofu, included recipes for making and using tempeh and other soy foods, and became a staple in vegetarian kitchens.
Food art is a type of art that depicts food, drink or edible objects as the medium or subject matter of an artistic work to create an attractive visual display or provide social critique. It can be presented in two-dimensional or three-dimensional format, like painting or sculpture. Food art can also incorporate food as a medium.