Literaturwurst

Literaturwurst (Literature Sausage) is an Artist's book, 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

Roth made the first Literature Sausage from a copy of the Daily Mirror, whilst living in Iceland, 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.”

In 1963, after realizing the sausage had “ironic value” 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 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.

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