80 l power. “They started to put me back together. First with a delicate jolt my eyes were reinserted in their sockets,” 13 Baeselstiel tells us. It is a parable for political reversal but also for the reorganization of the self (as D. W. Winnicott uses the term) 14 in the artistic project of <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>. It was Herwarth Walden’s Der Sturm magazine that published <strong>Schwitters</strong>’ Dada poem An Anna Blume 15 in August 1919, making <strong>Schwitters</strong> famous overnight. The poem employs multiple perspectives, fragments of found text, and absurd images to evoke the disarray of the narrator’s emotional state but also his detachment in the throes of love. Like the objects in his <strong>Merz</strong>bild compositions, <strong>Schwitters</strong> explained that: “In poetry, words and sentences are nothing but parts… torn from their former context, dissociated and brought into a new artistic context, they become formal parts of the poem, nothing more.” 16 For this, he may have found precedent in Symbolist depaysment, the Futurist manifestos, and zaum, the transrational language of the Russian avant-garde. Juxtaposing word clusters as formal elements, <strong>Schwitters</strong> writes, in Die Zwiebel, for example: “Anna Blume bathed in lilac blue roses shoots barbs blank abed in a Posturpedic mattress. (Ripe for plucking, inwardly composed.) Partial explanation misses the point. Then the butcher took a mighty leap backwards.” 17 The disjunctive scattering of images, actions, and associations creates a sense of detached remove. He also 13 <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, “The Onion (<strong>Merz</strong>poem 8)”, translated by Peter Wortsman, Cambridge Literary Review I/3, Easter, Cambridge 2010, pp. 113. 14 See, for example, D. W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality, Routledge, London 1971. 15 <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, “An Anna Blume,” 1919, in <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, Das literarische Werk, ed. Friedhelm Lach, volume 1, DuMont, Cologne 1973, pp. 58-63. 16 <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, “Holland Dada,” 1923, 11; in <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, Das literarische Werk, ed. Friedhelm Lach, volume 5, DuMont, Cologne 1981, p. 134; cited in John Elderfield, <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, The Museum of Modern Art & Thames and Hudson, New York 1985, p. 43. See also: <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, “Konsequente Dichtung (Consistent Poetry),” 1924, p. 46; in <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, Das literarische Werk, ed. Friedhelm Lach, volume 5, DuMont, Cologne 1981, p. 191; cited in John Elderfield, <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, The Museum of Modern Art & Thames and Hudson, New York 1985, p. 130. 17 <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, “Die Zwiebel,” 1919, in <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, Das literarische Werk, ed. Friedhelm Lach, volume 2, DuMont, Cologne 1974, pp. 26-7; <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, “The Onion (<strong>Merz</strong>poem 8)”, translated by Peter Wortsman, Cambridge Literary Review I/3, Easter, Cambridge 2010, pp. 114. 18 <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, “Katalog,” 1927, pp. 99-100; in <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, Das literarische Werk, ed. Friedhelm Lach, volume 5, DuMont, Cologne 1981, pp. 252-3; cited in John Elderfield, <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, The Museum of Modern Art & Thames and Hudson, New York 1985, pp. 12-13. achieves this in drawings with rubber stamps of words like “Drucksache” (printed matter), “Die Redaktion” (the editorial offices), and “Abteilung: Inserate” (Department: small ads), evoking the world of business transactions and bureaucratic offices, as does the word “<strong>Merz</strong>,” from Kommerz und Privatbank. 18 <strong>Schwitters</strong> made collages from found typography, as well, to create his effect. He constructed one example from 1920, from some forty-five fragments of cut and torn paper, juxtaposing three styles of calligraphy, each with distinct associations – Gothic Germanic Frakturschrift; modern sans-serif lettering, and the artist’s own illegible handwriting. The appropriated words and phrases – such as “Entlastungs” (exoneration), “Reichsgerichts- Prozesse gegen den Staat” (legal proceedings against the state), “Die Liste der Beschuldigungen findet” (the list of accusations is found), and “Kriegsschauplatz” (theater of war) – even seem to suggest a political theme, but he deliberately avoided a statement or a coherent point of view. Instead, these words record arbitrarily layered impressions, spontaneous associations around a starting point. <strong>Schwitters</strong> composed abstract stage compositions (<strong>Merz</strong>bühne) modeled on this structural principle too. “In contrast to drama or opera, all parts of the <strong>Merz</strong>bühne
l 81 SCHWITTERS: Tending the Enchanted Garden · by Jonathan Fineberg <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, Abteilung: Inserate, 1919 Stamp ink, collage, pencil und color pencil on paper, 31.5 x 24.5 cm Kunsthaus Zug, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm
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KURT SCHWIT TERS EXIBITION DESIGN B
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“In part spurred by Rauschenberg
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collectors and leading institutions
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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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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