created, $=dv.current().file.ctime & modified, =this.modified
tags: Art
Thought
Schwitter’s Merz project was related to how the artist’s (or anyone’s) activity merges with their life. If you read books Book Structures surround you, and if you consume peanuts inordinately their shells will be present around you. Look around you. What surrounds you?
Schwitters made these collages in the wake of the First World War as hopeful portraits of how destruction can feed creation: how bits of advertising, scraps of newspaper, wood, garbage, and urban debris could all be collaged together into something new and beautiful.
He made merz - a nonsense word that became his brand. His studio and family home was Merzbau.
Over the years, this Merzbau developed into a kind of abstract walk-in collage composed of grottoes and columns and found objects, ever-shifting and ever-expanding. It was more than just a studio; it was itself a work of art.
It was destroyed in an allied bombing raid while he was escaping the threat of Nazi Germany.
We have photographs which represent instants.
But Merzbau was not just a static painting or a sculpture, but a whole environment, and one that was in constant flux. One day the Merzbau could have a new column of debris stacked in the corner, the next day a new grotto dedicated to an artist friend. Photographs can’t quite capture the Merzbau‘s expanding and shifting nature.
In written word, pieced through letters in the archives - you can get an idea of how it developed and grew, the methods of expansion, even what the rooms smelled like.