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

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we live in the age of dada. We experience in the age of dáda, nothing is as characteristic of our
time as dáda. For our culture is dáda.” This means that our time has dully collapsed, expresses
itself only in snorting laughter, and lacks style. Our time lacks vision and attitude. “Dadá is the
commitment to lack of style. Dadá is the style of our time.” Dadá seems to pick up on this time,
to say the same thing, only with a different emphasis. Dadá loosens up the game, rouses, looks
at the things the way they are with verve, intervenes and subsequently opens new dimensions
and adds dynamics into rigid structures. Dadá is the invitation to adopt a Dadá attitude in the
face of the anchorless Dadá time. This is also the conclusion Schwitters reaches, by revisiting
the fear of the critic and explaining why Dadá is dangerous: “dadá is the face of our time, dadá
is the movement that aims at healing the time by providing the diagnosis. This is why dada is a
not to be underestimated danger.” 53
MERZGESAMTKUNSTWERK
It seems as if Schwitters, after he had hit the audience’s nerve of time, also saw the
opportunity to seize this nerve and change the dumb masses. Schwitters believes himself able
to shape the times he lived in with Merz, with the objective of bringing back style. Merz is the
expression of his love for style. Having in mind the dumb civilized man, he affirms that Merz
doesn’t care if there are some who disagree. For Merz and only Merz can transform the world
in its entirety into a giant work of art in a future yet to come. 54
Schwitters has the Merzgesamtkunstwerk constantly on the tip of his tongue: it only needs
to be articulated and leveraged in the right way and at the right moment. But, as it is often the
case with things that we have on the very tip of our tongue, we need to carefully approach them
and encircle them in order for them to take shape.
The Merzbilder (Merz pictures), the art Schwitters makes, are preliminary studies relating
to this transformation and design of the world, as well as to the general style. The Merzbilder
and the means available to him serve as a preparation for his endeavor of remodeling the world
into a work of art. They are futurological research and visionary tests for a time in which style
once again informs our environment. 55
Despite the visionary dimensions of his work, Schwitters remains humble. He links the
Merz theory directly to his actions and suggests that Merz finds its expression not only in
paintings and drawings — in Fine Arts — but also in the other artistic genres such as music,
poetry, dance or theater. With Merz, however, this classification in artistic genres becomes
obsolete, leading Schwitters to conclude that there are no such things as individual arts. They
have been artificially separated from each other, in order for specializations and specialists to
53
Ibid., p. 66
54
MERZ 1: Holland Dada, no. 1 (1923), Hannover, p. 8
55
“dada complet”, in MERZ 1: Holland Dada, no. 1 (1923), Hannover, p. 9