Kurt Schwitters

Performed by Kurt Schwitters

Schwitters war kein bescheidener Mensch (“denn nur die Lumpen sind bescheiden”). Hemmungslos propagierte er den Wert seiner eigenen Werke, verkaufte Collagen, wo er stand und ging, und doch begnügte er sich mit den einfachsten und nötigsten Dingen…

Anna Blume

With Arp, he attended the Kongress der Konstructivisten in Weimar in 1922. There Schwitters met Theo van Doesburg, whose De Stijl [more] principles influenced his work. Schwitters’s Dada [more] activities included his Merz-Matineen and Merz-Abende at which he presented his poetry…

Kurt Schwitters himself described the Merzbau (Merz Building) as his life’s work. The enormous significance which Schwitters attached to this work is evidenced by the fact that, from 1923 onwards, he devoted himself to it assiduously and, despite all untoward circumstances, began it three times: first in Hannover, then in Norway in 1937, and finally in exile in England in 1947…