Daniel Roth

The Donald Young Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by young German artist Daniel Roth. For his first solo-exhibition in Chicago Roth presents a two-room installation combining graphite wall drawings, photography and sculpture. In recent years Roth has gained critical acclaim for his multi-media installations where the objects and images within serve as documentary evidence to a fantastic event or phenomenon that has been uncovered. Through his keen observations the artist, part detective, part archeologist, finds connections to seemingly unrelated events and places, therefore revealing hidden relationships. With this exhibition Roth documents the Cabrini Green Forest, which grows in a secret underground tunnel connecting the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Facility in Chicago's Loop with the Cabrini Green Housing projects north of downtown. Drawn directly on the walls, the bare branches of the forest's trees encompass the gallery while across the room a futuristic rendering of the prison tower projects the forested tunnels from its lower level. Framed drawings include architectural diagrams of the correctional facility which detail the location of the tunnel's access point in the basement. In further drawings the vegetation seems to tear its way into the building. Sculptural elements include a basin of mysterious brown water which also serves as portal to the tunnel and an instrument through which one is able to communicate directly with the tunnel.

Born in 1969 in Schramberg, in Germany's Black Forest, Roth attended the State Academy of Visual Arts in Karlsruhe. His work has been exhibited widely in Europe including solo exhibitions at the Kunsthaus Glarus, Artist Space in New York and the Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig as the 2003 recipient of the Leipzig Prize. Roth was also included in the Antipodes series of exhibitions curated by Louise Neri at White Cube in London. Essays on his work have been published in Tema Celeste and Frieze. The artist currently lives and works in Karlsruhe, Germany.

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Daniel Roth