Martin Roth

Untitled (Persian Rug)

November 12, 2016 – December 24, 2016

CAPITAL is pleased to announce a solo exhibition with New York based Austrian artist Martin Roth.

In Martin Roth’s constructed landscapes, animals and plant-life take center stage. For this exhibition, Roth presents Untitled (Persian Rug), which examines how the introduction of an organic element can redefine a surface, an object, or its relation to the surrounding space. Roth impregnates a single Persian rug with wheatgrass seed, allowing grass to slowly grow through and takeover the material—augmenting, and eventually ruining it.

In a culture of ever-present media, where most social spaces are saturated with screens, Roth makes a point of creating something real, something temporary: something that lives. The work’s ephemeral nature and limited lifespan is matched by its inherently experiential qualities. The sensual and time-based aspects of the work, such as the damp smell in the gallery, the spreading of the lush composition, and the irregular patches in which the green comes to life, are difficult to appreciate through documentation.

The rug becomes a landscape of change. Roth has said, “The grass grows from the dust of history.” Roth creates this work based on the perennial urge by Western countries to impose their culture and values on other—largely Islamic—countries, in an attempt to ‘improve’ them. When the grass invades the Persian carpet, it initially creates something new and beautiful. In the end the grass destroys a valuable and historic object. To grow, the work needs constant care and attention. During this process Roth is not only an artist but also a gardener and storyteller, cultivating a contemporary narrative created from traces of the past.