120 THE ELOQUENCE OF WASTE· by Karin Orchard KARIN ORCHARD (2000) THE ELOQUENCE OF WASTE KURT SCHWITTERS’ WORK AND ITS RECEPTION IN AMERICA
“I think I could do well in the USA.” (Letter from <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong> to Helma <strong>Schwitters</strong>, 11 June 1941) Last year in the May issue of the American art journal Artnews, when the journal’s editors together with critics and curators listed “the century’s 25 most influential artists” <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong> was not amongst those chosen. Instead the list named artists such as Max Ernst, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko and Marcel Duchamp. Despite this “relative absence of <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>” 1 in the late 20th century, in the 1950s and 60s he had been hailed along with Marcel Duchamp as a hero of Modernism and as a role model for avantgarde artists in the post-war period. In order to analyse the response amongst artists in the USA to <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>’ work, and its influence on the next generation, it is necessary to establish what artists, critics and curators living there could have known of his work. We have to ask which works from which periods of his career could be seen in the original, which of his theoretical and literary texts were available in English translations, how was he presented in publications and exhibition catalogues, in which contexts, in what kind of galleries, museums and exhibitions was he present? Since <strong>Schwitters</strong>, to his regret, never visited the United States, he did not have the opportunity to promote his work there personally nor to captivate audiences there with his skills as a speaker and performer. If he had been able to fulfil his plans to go the United States or even to emigrate there, his impact would no doubt have been that much greater, for he generally made a memorable impression with his pleasing, humorous yet eccentric personality. <strong>Schwitters</strong>’ contacts with the USA went back to 1920, the year after he had started to work on his so-called ‘<strong>Merz</strong>’ collage technique. The initiative came from the American collector Katherine S. Dreier, who was looking for new artists and ideas for the Société Anonyme, which she had founded with Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray in New York. In her search she travelled through Europe, assiduously making new contacts. 2 It was in Herwarth Walden’s Sturm gallery in Berlin, that she first encountered the nailed and glued pictures by <strong>Schwitters</strong> that were causing a scandal at the time. Convinced of their quality, from then on she showed <strong>Schwitters</strong>’ work almost every year in the exhibitions of the Société Anonyme which also used to tour throughout the United States. The most important of these exhibitions was certainly the International Exhibition of Modern Art in the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 1926. 3 Since the legendary Armory Show in New York in 1913, there had been no comparable major exhibition of international contemporary art in the United States. Katherine S. Dreier had asked <strong>Schwitters</strong> and his wife Helma to assist in the selection process, particularly for the Constructivist section. They both enthusiastically threw themselves into this task and acted as European agents for the Société Anonyme. In 1931 <strong>Schwitters</strong> was even appointed an Honorary President of the society. In the Brooklyn exhibition there was a total of eleven works by <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong> on show. Over the years Katherine S. Dreier purchased a large number of works by <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong> from all the different stages in his career, both for her private collection and for the collection of the Société Anonyme. This 1 Rudi Fuchs, Conflicts with Modernism or the Absence of <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>/Konflikte mit dem Modernismus oder die Abwesenheit von <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, Bern and Berlin 1991. 2 See Gwendolen Webster, ‘<strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong> and Katherine Dreier’, in: German Life and Letters, vol. 52, no. 4, 1999, pp. 443–456. 3 See Ruth L. Bohan, The Société Anonyme’s Brooklyn Exhibition. Katherine Dreier and Modernism in Amerika, Ann Arbor 1982, pp. 47f., 55. 121
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KURT SCHWIT TERS EXIBITION DESIGN B
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KURT SCHWIT TERS galerie gmurzynska
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“In part spurred by Rauschenberg
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SUMMARY 10 MERZ (Extract from “AR
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One could make up a catechism of me
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Merz House was my first piece of Me
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17 Kurt Schwitters. Anna Blume. Dic
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Almost all the pioneers of modern a
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‘constructivist’ period, which,
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Sonata and after the Dadaists perio
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Ernst Schwitters, Photograph of Kur
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As the world changed, as the way of
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Collage/Collages from Cubism to New
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1, 3, and 4. Ed. Perdita Lottner. E
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The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Ka
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