Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters’ Art of Redemption

David Galenson, Contributor

Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

04/17/2013 04:33 PM ET|Updated Dec 06, 2017

 

 

Kurt Schwitters was one of the most engaging mavericks of the art of the 20th century. His art is invariably grouped with Dada, although personal clashes prevented him from being admitted formally to membership, and by nature he would never be fully committed to any collective movement, even one of protest: his lack of interest in politics set him apart from the main group of German Dadas, as did his residence in Hanover rather than Berlin. Yet paradoxically Schwitters was intrinsically a Dada: the Dada poet Tristan Tzara wrote that Schwitters was “one of those personalities whose inner structure was always Dada by nature. He would still have been Dada even if the Dada call had not been sounded.” By 1918, at the age of 31, he had discovered that he was not at heart a painter, but that for him the essence of art lay in the combination of existing materials. In 1919 he named his personal form of collage “Merz,” to signal that his pictures were distinct from Cubism, Expressionism, or even Dada, and over time he extended the name to all his activities, including poetry and performance.

 

Kurt Schwitters, En Morn (1947). Image courtesy of the Tate Britain.

Schwitters was a thoroughly conceptual artist: his goals were synthetic, and specifically intended to violate disciplinary boundaries. Thus he wrote in 1921:

To busy myself with various branches of art was for me an artistic need…It was my desire not to be a specialist in one branch of art, but an artist. My aim is the Merz composite art work that embraces all branches of art in an artistic unity.

Merz stands for freedom from all fetters, for the sake of artistic creation.

 

Schwitters left Germany in 1937, after his work as condemned by the Nazi government as “degenerate.” He spent three years in Norway, then left for England when the Germans invaded Norway. After being interned for a year as an “enemy alien,” he lived in London for the next four years, then moved to the English Lake District, where he lived until his death in 1948.

 

Kurt Schwitters, Merz Picture 46 A. The Skittle Picture(1921). Image courtesy of the Tate Britain.

When Schwitters died, he was poor and largely forgotten by the art world. But the rise of assemblage and neo-Dada in the 1950s and ‘60s brought a renewed interest in earlier forms of radical conceptual innovation, including a new appreciation for Schwitters and Merz. So for example in the catalogue for the Museum of Modern Art’s 1968 exhibition, Dada, Surrealism, and Their Heritage, William Rubin described Schwitters’ three-dimensional Merzbau as a prototype for environmental sculpture, and Schwitters as a prophet who anticipated Robert Rauschenberg’s goal of working in the gap between art and life.

 

Kurt Schwitters, C21 John Bull (1946/47). Image courtesy of the Tate Britain.

Schwitters’ difficult last years are the subject of Tate Britain’s current exhibition, Schwitters in Britain. Although he spent these years in poverty, struggling against illness, he continued to make art, redeeming his time as much as the discarded scraps that provided the material for his work. One untitled work of 1942 included a small piece of cardboard with the text, “National Salvage Campaign. Your country needs paper. Save your empty cartons with your other waste paper.” The campaign could hardly have hoped for Schwitters. Used London bus tickets appear time and again in his collages, transformed into works of art that would become worth far more than their weight in gold.

Kurt Schwitters, Anything With a Stone (1941/44). Image courtesy of the Tate Britain.

Schwitters’ art was highly personal, in content as well as form. His works reflect his environment and activities: not only the ubiquitous bus tickets, but laundry receipts, newspaper clippings, envelopes from correspondence with friends, and food labels from care packages sent by an American friend. British Made (1940-45) contains a label with that phrase, next to – of course – London bus tickets, and fragment of a German shipping timetable, to make a chronicle of his travels. A 1947 collage includes a newspaper title, “Mr. Churchill is 71.” Schwitters used his art to enact his motto: “Create connections, if possible, between everything in the world.”

 

Kurt Schwitters, Untitled (This is to Certify That) (1942). Image courtesy of the Tate Britain.

Ironically, Schwitters in Britain is a celebration of Kurt Schwitters’ art by an institution that conspicuously failed to support that art during his lifetime. And the exhibition’s narrative is a sad one, of a difficult time. Yet the experience of seeing the show is not sad, but inspiring, for its demonstration of Schwitters’ complete commitment to his idealistic and unconventional art. After Schwitters’ death, a friend, the sculptor Naum Gabo, recalled that Schwitters would stop suddenly in the midst of conversation, looking intently at the ground:

Then he would pick up something which would turn out to be an old scrap of paper…He would carefully and lovingly clean it up and then triumphantly show it to you. Only then would one realize what an exquisite piece of color was contained in the ragged scrap. It needs a poet like Schwitters to show us that unobserved elements of beauty are strewn and spread all around us and we can find them everywhere…if only we care to look, to choose and to fit them into a comely order.

 

Kurt Schwitters, Relief in Relief (ca. 1942/45). Image courtesy of the Tate Britain.

 

 

***** Translate Indonesia *****

Kurt Schwitters’ Art of Redemption

Kurt Schwitters adalah salah satu maverick yang paling memikat seni abad ke-20. Keseniannya selalu dikelompokkan dengan Dada, meskipun bentrokan pribadi mencegahnya diterima secara formal menjadi anggota, dan secara alami ia tidak akan pernah sepenuhnya berkomitmen pada gerakan kolektif apa pun, bahkan satu protes: kurangnya minat dalam politik membuatnya berbeda dari yang lain. kelompok utama German Dadas, begitu pula kediamannya di Hanover daripada Berlin. Namun secara paradoks, Schwitters pada dasarnya adalah seorang Dada: penyair Dada Tristan Tzara menulis bahwa Schwitters adalah “salah satu dari orang-orang yang struktur batinnya selalu Dada oleh alam. Dia masih akan menjadi Dada bahkan jika panggilan Dada belum dibunyikan. ”Pada 1918, pada usia 31 tahun, dia telah menemukan bahwa dia bukanlah seorang pelukis, tapi itu baginya esensi seni terletak pada kombinasi bahan yang ada. Pada tahun 1919 ia menamai bentuk pribadi kolase “Merz,” untuk memberi isyarat bahwa gambarnya berbeda dari Kubisme, Ekspresionisme, atau bahkan Dada, dan seiring waktu ia memperluas nama ke semua kegiatannya, termasuk puisi dan pertunjukan.

 

Schwitters adalah seniman konseptual yang benar-benar: Tujuannya adalah sintetis, dan secara khusus dimaksudkan untuk melanggar batas-batas disiplin. Dengan demikian dia menulis pada tahun 1921:

Menyibukkan diri dengan berbagai cabang seni adalah kebutuhan artistik bagi saya … Adalah keinginan saya untuk tidak menjadi spesialis dalam satu cabang seni, tetapi seorang seniman. Tujuan saya adalah karya seni komposit Merz yang merangkul semua cabang seni dalam kesatuan artistik.

Merz berarti kebebasan dari semua belenggu, demi penciptaan artistik.

 

Schwitters meninggalkan Jerman pada tahun 1937, setelah karyanya disusun oleh pemerintah Nazi sebagai “Degenerate.” Dia menghabiskan tiga tahun di Norwegia, lalu pergi ke Inggris saat orang Jerman menyerbu Norwegia. Setelah diantar ulang selama setahun sebagai “orang asing,” dia tinggal di London selama empat tahun ke depan, lalu pindah ke Distrik Lake Inggris, di mana dia tinggal sampai kematiannya pada tahun 1948.

Ketika Schwitters meninggal, dia miskin dan sebagian besar dilupakan oleh dunia seni. Namun, bangkitnya perakitan dan Neo-Dada pada tahun 1950an dan tahun 60an membawa minat baru dalam bentuk inovasi konseptual radikal sebelumnya, termasuk apresiasi baru bagi Schwitters dan Merz. Jadi misalnya di katalog untuk museum senior tahun 1986, pameran, dada, surealisme, dan warisan mereka, William Rubin menggambarkan Schwitters ‘tiga dimensi Merzbau sebagai prototip untuk pahatan lingkungan, dan Schwitters sebagai nabi yang mengantisipasi tujuan Robert Rauschenberg bekerja di gap antara seni dan kehidupan.

Seni Schwitters sangat pribadi, dalam konten dan bentuknya. Karya-karyanya mencerminkan lingkungan dan aktivitasnya: tidak hanya tiket bus di mana-mana, namun tanda terima binatu, kliping surat kabar, amplop dari korespondensi dengan teman, dan label makanan dari paket perawatan yang dikirim oleh seorang teman Amerika. British Made (1940-45) berisi label dengan ungkapan itu, di sebelah – tentu saja – tiket bus London, dan fragmen jadwal pengiriman Jerman, untuk membuat kronik perjalanannya. Sebuah kolase 1947 termasuk judul surat kabar, “Mr Churchill adalah 71.” Schwitters menggunakan artnya untuk memberlakukan moto-nya: “Buat koneksi, jika mungkin, antara segalanya di dunia.”

 

Ironisnya, Schwitters di Inggris adalah perayaan seni Kurt Schwitters oleh lembaga yang secara mencolok gagal mendukung seni itu selama masa hidupnya. Dan narasi pameran itu adalah kisah yang menyedihkan, dari masa yang sulit. Namun pengalaman melihat pertunjukan itu tidak menyedihkan, tetapi mengilhami, karena demonstrasi komitmen lengkap Schwitters terhadap seninya yang idealis dan tidak konvensional. Setelah kematian Schwitters, seorang teman, pematung Naum Gabo, ingat bahwa Schwitters akan berhenti tiba-tiba di tengah-tengah percakapan, menatap dengan penuh perhatian ke tanah:

Lalu dia akan mengambil sesuatu yang akan berubah menjadi secarik kertas tua … Dia akan membersihkannya dengan hati-hati dan penuh kasih sayang lalu dengan bangga menunjukkannya padamu. Hanya dengan begitu orang akan menyadari betapa indahnya potongan warna yang terkandung dalam potongan yang kasar. Dibutuhkan seorang penyair seperti Schwitters untuk menunjukkan kepada kita bahwa unsur-unsur keindahan yang tidak teramati bertaburan dan tersebar di sekitar kita dan kita dapat menemukannya di mana-mana … jika saja kita peduli untuk melihat, untuk memilih dan menyesuaikannya dengan suatu tatanan yang indah.

 

 

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