Merz: Kurt Schwitters

Born in Hanover in 1887, Kurt Schwitters is one of the major and most individual figures in modern art. In this film we are guided through his career by his son Ernst Schwitters. Thought of from the first as an eccentric celebrity in his home town, he was naturally drawn to the Dada movement through his anarchic attitudes and creations. 'I am Kurt Schwitters and I nail my paintings together!' he exclaimed of his collages and constructions of everyday detritus. His poems were similarly disjointed, often full of furious, meaningless sounds. Being too much of an individualist to be contained within Dada, Schwitters went on to offer his own 'movement,' which he called Merz, to the world. It was intended to embrace dance, theater, visual art, poetry and performance.

Escaping from the Nazis in Germany, Schwitters traveled to Norway, and to Holland, where he collaborated with Theo van Doesburg to promote the notions of modern art. All the while Schwitters was 'recharging the batteries' of his creativity by painting more conventional portraits and landscapes, but like the architect van Doesburg and other artists such as Mondrian, he aspired to create art that would be an all-encompassing, total environment. To this end he constructed a Merz-bau, a modern art house, in which the occupant might 'inhabit' an interior entirely constructed of dynamic shapes created by the artist. The film ends with the tragic destruction by bombing of the Hanover Merz-bau and later, by fire, of a second one Schwitters created in Norway. The artist, we are told, went into wartime exile in England, where he died. But as we see in 563A, Schwitters continued to work in England on Merz works and on his more traditional paintings, and before his death he began a third Merz-bau at Ambleside near his Lake District lodgings.

In Norwegian with English subtitles