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

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“In part spurred by Rauschenberg’s enthusiasm, [Jasper] Johns made a point of studying Schwitters’s work in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. In many ways, Johns suggested, Schwitters was the first Dada figure to have significant impact on his thinking, preceding even Duchamp.” Leah Dickerman, the MoMA Marlene Hess Curator of Painting and Sculpture, („Schwitters Fec.,” in Isabel Schulz (ed.), Kurt Schwitters. Color and Collage, The Menil Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2010, p. 88. We can safely assume that no artist living today was not, one way or another, influenced by Kurt Schwitters. Galerie Gmurzynska’s continued fascination with Schwitters dates back 45 years, when in 1971 Antonina Gmurzynska organized her first in depth survey of the German Avant-Garde, featuring an impressive selection of Schwitters’ works. Over the years the relationship with Kurt Schwitters’ son, Ernst Schwitters, became a close friendship and large-scale one-man exhibitions of Kurt Schwitters’ oeuvre would follow throughout the history of the gallery up to this date. A particular highlight was the 1980 solo-show of Kurt Schwitters’ work in Paris at the FIAC, which was the first time that a substantial retrospective by the artist had been shown in France. With Kurt Schwitters MERZ we sought to expand this history and transport it to the 21 st century. This major retrospective exhibition brings together a unique selection of seventy works across all media; including key works of each period, many of which have been especially loaned from significant collections. Presented in a fully transformed gallery space designed by the late Pritzker Price winning architect Zaha Hadid, this collaboration resulted from the idea of an architectural homage by Zaha Hadid to the famous ‘Merzbau’ of Kurt Schwitters. With Galerie Gmurzynska’s unique Zurich location in the same building complex where 100 years ago the first DADA exhibition took place, celebrating this centennial, the retrospective is realized in curatorial collaboration with the Cabaret Voltaire, where the DADA movement originated in 1916. An exhibition of this scale owes its existence to many individuals and institutions. We are most fortunate for all the support we have received working on this once in a lifetime retrospective.
The project was only made possible by an extraordinary partnership with late Zaha Hadid and Zaha Hadid Architects, who have allowed us to reimagine the legendary ‘Merzbau’ Gesamtkunstwerk as part of this retrospective timely presented for the Dada centennial in Zurich. We are therefore deeply thankful to Patrik Schumacher, the visionary torch bearer of Zaha Hadid Architects, Maha Kutay, Woody Yao, Melodie Leung and Filipa Gomes to name but a few. Our utmost gratitude must go to all authors for this important book, many of whom created texts exclusively for this publication, acting as true collaborators in delineating new approaches to see Schwitters’ multifaceted oeuvre and revealing his great importance spanning an inexhaustible array of genres and media. We extend special thanks to Norman Rosenthal, Flavin Judd, Adrian Notz of Cabaret Voltaire, Prof. Dr. Sigfried Gohr, Dr. Jonathan Fineberg and Dr. Karin Orchard. We are extremely grateful to Damien Hirst for his exclusively insightful interview underlining the absolute importance of Kurt Schwitters as a game changer of 20 th century art and his enduring influence on all contemporary art today. For her relentless help and all the supportive information about the connections of Malevich and Schwitters we are very grateful to Jewgenija Petrova, Deputy Director of the State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg. We extend our particular gratitude to Dr. Karin Orchard and Dr. Isabel Schulz, Sprengel Museum Hannover, for their continuous help with all the comprehensive and extremely important research facilitating the overarching number of image requests. In their essential assistance for the catalog providing saliently scarce documents and images our greatest debt must be to Kurt und Ernst Schwitters Stiftung, Hanover; Bauhaus-Archiv Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin; Graphische Sammlung der ETH Zürich; Tate, London; Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven; RKD – Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, Den Haag; Historic England Archive, Swinden; National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and the Menil Foundation, Houston. We are also extremely grateful to all the private and institutional lenders, without their support this exhibition would not have been possible. Krystyna Gmurzynska & Mathias Rastorfer
Page 1 and 2: KURT SCHWIT TERS EXIBITION DESIGN B
Page 3: KURT SCHWIT TERS galerie gmurzynska
Page 9 and 10: SUMMARY 10 MERZ (Extract from “AR
Page 11 and 12: One could make up a catechism of me
Page 13 and 14: Merz House was my first piece of Me
Page 15 and 16: 15 Kurt Schwitters (ed.), Merz 2. N
Page 17 and 18: 17 Kurt Schwitters. Anna Blume. Dic
Page 19 and 20: t Page from Schwitters’ family al
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Page 33 and 34: Almost all the pioneers of modern a
Page 35 and 36: ‘constructivist’ period, which,
Page 37 and 38: Sonata and after the Dadaists perio
Page 39 and 40: Ernst Schwitters, Photograph of Kur
Page 41 and 42: All this changed at a stroke with t
Page 43 and 44: As the world changed, as the way of
Page 45 and 46: 45! was exactly what he had done, i
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Page 49 and 50: 49 t Kurt Schwitters, Hanover 1927
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Page 53 and 54: 53 look down upon the apparent nons
Page 55 and 56: 55 t Ernst Schwitters, Kurt Schwitt
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t 57 t The beginning of Merz theory
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59 t t Blume and wants to love and
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t The consequence of DADA: MERZ ·
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t 63 t A radical act, whose radical
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tt65 The consequence of DADA: MERZ
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67 tt (core Dada and Huelsendada).
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t 69 t Modern Age), succeeding the
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t 71 t BATTLE CRY WITH VERVE Merz 7
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t 73 t develop. There is only art.
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t 75 t to inspire the Merzgesamtkun
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l In the political and social chaos
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l Like Kandinsky’s abstractions o
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l 81 SCHWITTERS: Tending the Enchan
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l 19 Kurt Schwitters, “Merzbühne
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l by the times themselves.” 31 Bu
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l Kurt Schwitters, Pollfoss, 1947 O
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Kurt Schwitters, who knew a lot of
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you liked my sonata. May I introduc
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93 Photograph of Helma Schwitters,
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Postcard Kurt and Helma Schwitters
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97 Kurt Schwitters: A genius in fri
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the Merzbau in Waldhausenstraße 5
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111 journal Der Sturm (Monatsschrif
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115 artists. In the wake of this co
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p. 117-119 cover and two pages by K
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“I think I could do well in the U
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Letter from Kurt Schwitters to Kath
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together with Alfred Barr and the c
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exhibition in the Pinacotheca Galle
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and gallerist Peggy Guggenheim, who
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collectors and leading institutions
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he also designed the catalogue: a p
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141 All art of any significance com
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143 The extraordinary American coll
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145 What Schwitters describes in th
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147 It is perhaps pertinently stran
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NR: Tell me, Damien, when did you f
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as important as Marcel Duchamp. DH:
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NR: So what happened to the house?
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“Imitation remains imitation. Imi
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Kurt Schwitters, Auwiese, 1920, new
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Hausmann, and Hannah Höch, all of
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In November, Schwitters publishes M
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several weeks later becomes dictato
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exhibition catalogue. In November 1
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Original Recordings by Kurt Schwitt
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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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WWW.GMURZYNSKA.COM
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Kurt Schwitters: Merz (2016) – Norman Rosenthal interviews Damien Hirst

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