Comments on: Kurt Schwitters: Citizen of the World

By: gwendolenwebster

gwendolenwebster — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:05:52 +0000

Dear Mark,
Tale your point about the Merz journals – very little has been translated. There is probably more on Schiwtters in English than in German though. I did a PhD on the Merzbau in 2007, but it is, as these things are supposed to be, very dry stuff – not for the faint-hearted, and not really for art lovers. Very lengthy and an inordinate number of footnotes. Now writing a new book on Schwitters with a co-author – it should come out next year in English and German, but the publishers haven't given us much space, unfortunately, so there will only be the briefest summary of much of KS's work – such as the content of the Merz journals. Still, it'll provide a fairly comprehensive survey for newcomers, we hope.
Anyway, always happy to discuss Schwitters! and thanks for the feedback,
Gwendolen

By: gwendolenwebster

gwendolenwebster — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 06:05:52 +0000

By: markkerstetter

markkerstetter — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:02:04 +0000

Gwendolen, I have read your essay with great interest. It is indeed impossible to ignore the fact that Steinitz is writing from a subjective point of view, and years after the fact. Yet she does claim to be an eyewitness to the development of the merzbau over time. But I had not been aware of Hannah Höch's observation that the grottos also served as receptacles to store Schwitters' stuff. I think your sense that a finished work was a desire as well as a capability of the artist is right on. (The picture of Schwitters as some kind of mad Dr. Frankenstein never entered my mind.) It's also important to know about the uncertain status of the Dorner statement.

Please dig! Art lovers like myself depend on the hard work of scholars. The material on Scwhitters that is readily available in English is limited and fragmentary. I would be thankful just to see translations of the issues of Merz, as close to the originals as possible.

By: gwendolenwebster

gwendolenwebster — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:08:54 +0000

HI Mark, and thanks for your repsonse. Always rewarding to have a conversation about Schwitters! Sophie Küppers and Lissitzky visited Schwitters' studio in 1923, when there was only a sort of weird column, as far as I can establish – the word Merzbau doesn't occur till 1933, so to talk about the Merzbau before this time is really a bit misleading – Sophie is of course writing long after the event, with the benefit of hindsight – as was everyone else, practically.
Schwitters coins the term Merzbau in early 1933 for the sort of scuptural environment you see on the 1933 photos, and it was this idea that he caried on in Merzbau II and III. Eldefield is a bit wrong on Hannover, as the municipal authorities in Hannover were resolutely anti-Modernist even in the 1920s, and the Nazis soon took control of the Kestner Society after 1934. There is a huge and excellent tome on the subject by Ines Katenhusen but it's all in German and extremely weighty, so I don't recommend it.
Whether it was too dangerous for Schwitters to stay in Germany after 1937 I don't know. He'd hung on till then fairly successfully and lots of other artists like Otto Dix and Hannah Höch stuck it out till the end. I have no idea why he emigrated, unless he was associated with the Socialist Resistance in Hannover, which had been uncovered a few months previously. Unfortunately all the Gestapo records relating to him were destroyed, though one of these days I am going to dig around in some archives and see if there isn't something left somewhere….
Warm regards,
Gwendolen

Yes, Blue Bird is a forgery, discovered at the opening of the MoMA exhibition of 1985, embarrassingly, and there are plenty about (the Sprengel Museum get at least one a week). It even appeared on the cover of the Tate Exhibition catalogue of 1985 and all copies had to be withdrawn and replaced by new ones.

By: markkerstetter

markkerstetter — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:22:14 +0000

Thank you Gwendolen. You're right about the ceiling detail; p 156 of Elderfield explains this. And I misspoke about Lissitzky. Elderfield (p 162) quotes Lissitzky's future wife, Sophie Küppers as saying the two of them “gazed in astonishment” at the merzbau, and she was “unable to draw the line between sanity and madness.” The detail about being branded a degenerate is less clear. According to Elderfield, the earliest “Degenerate Art” exhibitions occurred in 1933, but outside Hannover, where “the art administration remained intransigently pro-modern” (p197). It wasn't until 1937 that things became too dangerous for Schwitters to stay. Perhaps you will agree that the Nazis had something to do with the bombing of the merzbau? And if Blue Bird is a forgery, it's a very good one. It's gratifying to know someone is paying attention!

By: markkerstetter

markkerstetter — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:13:16 +0000

Thank you, Gretta. I think I would have liked him too.

By: Gretta Barclay

Gretta Barclay — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:18:39 +0000

I really loved learning about Kurt Schwitters and his art. I also liked his way of thinking and perspective on the world. I think I would have liked knowing him.

By: Gwendolen Webster

Gwendolen Webster — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:45:58 +0000

Dear Mark – thanks for this heartening essay on Schwitters, which I very much appreciated. Just a few points – Schwitters was branded a degenerate artist by the Nazis in early 1933, so had to live with this status for four years before fleeing to Norway. The Merzbau never penetrated any ceilings – for more on this, including Dorner's comment, see my essay on The Reception of the Merzbau under
http://www.sprengel-museum.de/kurt_schwitters_a...
Lissitsky actually contributed a grotto to the Merzbau (as Schwitters contributed to Lissitsky's Kabinett der Abstrakten) – I have never read anything about Lissitsky saying that the Merzbau was 'insane', but would be glad of further information if you have it.
Lastly, it wasn't the Nazis who finished the Merzbau off, but the British, in an air raid over Hannover on 8 October 1943. I have the Air Force documents to prove it. Oh yes, and the collage Blue Bird is unfortunately a forgery.
Sorry about this nitpicking – as I say, I really enjoyed your article, so thanks from me for doing justice to one of the greats of the 20th century.
Warm regards,
Gwendolen Webster

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:14:51 +0000

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