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Containers 1972 (published 1973)
Portfolio of 33 signed and numbered prints: nine etchings (eight with various collage additions), four offset lithographs, one etching, one transfer print, one double-sided screenprint, two sets of ten offset lithographs on gummed and perforated paper, and three engravings; plus the relief-printed title pages and offset program
Portfolio measures 25 x 20 in. / 63.5 x 52 cm. (prints are various sizes with largest sheet measuring 22.75 x 18 in. / 58 x 46 cm)
Edition 85: this copy 3/85. Published by Petersburg Press, London
Containers is perhaps Roth’s most important portfolio: in a series of more than thirty prints, he summarized all of the printing techniques he had developed since the 1960s, and he designed a portfolio and cardboard cover in which the prints could be mailed. Since the early 1960s Roth often housed his work in boxes or vitrines with handles, the idea of the artwork as readily moveable aligned to the idea of the artwork as time bound, fleeting, transforming. Containers was a kind of encyclopedia of work to date, from delicate etchings and enigmatic texts to perforated postage stamps to pressings and squashings of chocolate and other sweets. He also introduced the image of a trolley, or cart, on which he imagined all the containers might be kept, serving as a virtual, mobile repository for this set of prints, the culmination of fifteen years of experimentation.
The container is a common concept in Roth’s work, offering both a means of enclosing chaos and a measure of portability for an artist who was always on the go. In 1971 Roth published Collected Works: Volume 20, a single-volume compilation comprising his entire output of books and graphics to that point—the self-determined close of a chapter. It also served as the catalogue for a major traveling exhibition of Roth’s books and graphics, which toured European cities for three years, bringing the artist a sense of accomplishment and acknowledgment.
Catalogue reference: Dobke 276
Condition: As published, in original cardboard box for shipment. Trolley prints with some age-related stiffening of the ink
(Text via MoMa)
