96 aftermath writing several postcards to Schlemmer, whose work he obviously valued highly. However, there was no closer collaboration. But because <strong>Schwitters</strong> maintained close relations with the Bauhaus in Weimar, he was to encounter Schlemmer there again. The school published portfolios of graphic works and Bauhaus books. The third portfolio to appear had the title, German Artists. The ten participants included also <strong>Schwitters</strong>. However, with regard to the planned <strong>Merz</strong> book in the Bauhaus books series, this never got beyond an announcement. After <strong>Schwitters</strong> had held his first soiree in 1921, he used every opportunity for public appearances. Therefore he was to be heard also at the Bauhaus in 1925 and 1926. He adapted a well-known saying from choral societies to the Bauhaus: “For where there is a Bauhaus, there is where you can settle; evil people do not know anything about squares!” Already in 1929, the founder of the Weimar School, Walter Gropius, commissioned him to graphically design all the printed material for the Dammerstock Settlement in Karlsruhe. Friendships were formed during this period as a matter of course. Among these, however, one needs to be particularly underscored, namely, the friendship with Dr Walter Dexel who was active in Jena as the director of the Kunstverein. Not only letters and postcards were exchanged with him and his family, but personal visits were also arranged. Dexel was, properly speaking, an academic art historian, but switched to curating exhibitions, setting up a noteworthy program in Jena over the years. Apart from that, he was active as an artist. His hallmark was geometrically formed glass panels. <strong>Schwitters</strong> obviously felt a great affinity to Dexel’s efforts which is clearly expressed in the extant correspondence. Viewed from today, the avant-garde scene at the time was relatively compact so that everybody could know everybody else if they wanted to. Apart from that, the Bauhaus represented a platform on which the international avant-garde could meet and exchange views. Such an opportunity was provided, for instance, by the Dada Meeting in Weimar in 1922 where an impressive number of artists got together. A special feature of <strong>Schwitters</strong>’ public appearances, apart from official appearances with readings, performances, recitations of the Ursonate, etc, consisted in his spontaneous, puzzling character that broke through all conventions. One day in May 1926, <strong>Schwitters</strong> came upon Leon Trotsky, his wife and secretary in a restaurant on the banks of the Havel River. He went up to his table, recited the scherzo of the Ursonate, and declared that his poetry was the Permanent Revolution. Thereupon something unheard of happened, for Trotsky, somewhat hesitantly at first, recited the scherzo together with <strong>Schwitters</strong>. It was a sign of an immediate mutual understanding. Before <strong>Schwitters</strong> finally went into exile in Norway on 2 January 1937, it was the Netherlands and Switzerland that he visited repeatedly and to where his contacts of friendships led. After the ‘Dada campaign’, <strong>Schwitters</strong> travelled almost every year to the Netherlands. There were many different reasons for this. On one hand, he gave talks; on the other, in 1925 he took part in exhibitions in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. One year later he spent holidays with Helma and his son, Ernst, on the Dutch coast in Kijkduin. Articles by <strong>Schwitters</strong> often appeared in Dutch avant-garde publications. Up until 1936 when he travelled through the country for the last time, he had left behind traces as an artist, poet and writer. His friendship with the mathematician, Hans Freudenthal, and his wife, Susanne, in Amsterdam kept its significance alongside the professional connections with the art world. <strong>Schwitters</strong> had got to know the couple in Norway in 1934. This was followed by several visits to the Freudenthals in Amsterdam. Hans wrote several important mathematical books, but he was particularly interested in the didactics of science, that is, in the question as to how mathematics lessons were ‘realistically’ to be designed. It can only be surmised what he and <strong>Schwitters</strong> talked about. But did not <strong>Schwitters</strong>’ public engagement have traits of a bizarre, didactic effort to win over the public to the avant-garde and educate it?
97 <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>: A genius in friendship · by Siegfried Gohr <strong>Kurt</strong> <strong>Schwitters</strong>, <strong>Merz</strong> 7. <strong>Merz</strong> ist Form. Formen heißt entformeln, <strong>Merz</strong>verlang, Hanover 1924
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Sonata and after the Dadaists perio
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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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Hausmann, and Hannah Höch, all of
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several weeks later becomes dictato
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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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