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Artworks:

Dieter Roth

P.O.TH.A.A.VFB (Portrait of the artist as Vogelfutterbüste), 1968
cast figurine made of chocolate mixed with birdseed on a wooden plinth
23.0 x 25.0 x 23.0 cm
P.O.TH.A.A.VFB (Portrait of the Artist as Vogelfutterbüste) is a chocolate-based bust that represents the artist as an old man, while also referencing James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) – a book which Dieter Roth had called very kitsch, and which inspired the title of the 1968 work he produced in an edition of thirty multiples.

Cast in a mixture of cocoa and birdseed, the sculpture was initially intended to be placed outside so that it would gradually be pecked. This was a way for the artist to celebrate the inevitable transformation of the body, recalling his persistent taste for works of a temporary nature.

From the mid-1960s, Dieter Roth made recurrent use of chocolate, being particularly fond of its smell and manipulability. However, by means of this innovative practice, he transcended this substance’s traditional positive connotations through paradoxical effects, symbolizing human excrement for example.
Dieter Roth, P.O.TH.A.A.VFB (Portrait of the artist as Vogelfutterbüste), 1968