Literaturwurst

“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.

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.

"[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.

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.