Kurt Schwitters: Merz (2016) – Norman Rosenthal interviews Damien Hirst

134
THE ELOQUENCE OF WASTE· by Karin Orchard
about him”. 33 He even bought some late
collages by Schwitters, as did Jasper Johns
and Cy Twombly.
On closer examination, the influence
of the Merz artist appears to be selfevident,
particularly when one compares
Rauschenberg’s early work from the 1950s,
his Red Paintings and his Combine Paintings
with Schwitters’ late works. Of course their
aims and solutions are different, for despite
their comparable use of waste and debris,
Rauschenberg has quite different artistic
intentions. His aim is to show that found objects
retain their everyday identity, even if they
become part of a work of art. Rauschenberg
operates in the realm between art and life, while
Schwitters wants to bridge the gap between art
and life. 34 All materials, even waste, seem to
the Dadaist to be suitable components in a
work of art. This transformation is the main
preoccupation of Merz.
“The waste of the world becomes my
art” – this quote from Schwitters served as
the motto for the first comprehensive book
on collage that was published by Harriet Janis
(the wife of Sidney Janis) and Rudi Blesh in
1962. This publication marked the highpoint
of Schwitters reception in the 1950s and
60s in the United States, for it is enhanced
with numerous illustrations of his work, his
writings are quoted to explain his theories
and his name is on practically every page. The
authors draw their critical investigation of
collage to a close with the following statement:
“Schwitters moved from dada to a prophecy
of this generation’s leap from anti-art’s social
and esthetic protest to the calm acceptance
of our harvest of junk as material for a truly
contemporary art – and let the chips of
meaning fall where they may. They use junk
as an act of moral and esthetic integrity, as
the only realistic course. Their intellectual
god is Marcel Duchamp who preceded dada,
then transcended its negative limitations;
their guide is Schwitters who heard the
mute eloquence of our waste.” 35 Due respect
is paid to the inventors of modern collage –
Picasso, Braque and Arp, but Schwitters takes
precedence as the true master of collage using
found objects.
In the critical assessment in the 1950s
and 1960s of the precursors and the progress
of post-war art, Schwitters was seen as the
equal of Marcel Duchamp. Often the two were
named in the same breath when it came to
identifying the most important influences
on art until well into the 1960s and 70s –
not to mention literature, sound poetry and
music. American artists and critics recognised
Schwitters’ achievements even if his unwieldy,
scarcely narrative abstraction meant that he
never attained the wide public acclaim of a
Picasso or Paul Klee. He is often described as
an ‘artist’s artist’, whose real impact came when
artists pursuing new directions – in Abstract
Expressionism, Neo-Dada and Pop Art – were
searching for role-models and inspiration, and
found a rich seam in Schwitters’ late work.
Unaltered reprint from the exhibition catalogue
“Aller Anfang ist Merz - Von Kurt Schwitters bis heute”,
Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2000
p. 135-137 Letter from Katherine S. Dreier
to Kurt Schwitters, 16 July 1925.
Katherine S. Dreier Papers / Société Anonyme
archive. Yale Collection of American Literature,
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
33
Robert Rauschenberg in conversation with Barbara Rose, in: Robert
Rauschenberg et al., Kunst heute, no. 3, Cologne 1989, p. 59.
34
See Joachim Jäger, Das zivilisierte Bild. Robert Rauschenberg und
seine Combine Paintings der Jahre 1960 bis 1962, Klagenfurt and
Vienna 1999, pp. 52–63.
35
Harriet Janis and Rudi Blesh, Collage. Personalities, Concepts,
Techniques, Philadelphia and New York 1962, p. 255.