Myself and My Aims: Writings on Art and Criticism 9780226678276
Kurt Schwitters was a major protagonist in the histories of modern art and literature, whose response to the contradicti
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MYSELF AND MY AIMS
MYSELF AND MY AIMS WRITINGS ON ART AND CRITICISM KURT SCHWITTERS EDITED BY MEGAN R. LUKE TRANSLATIONS BY TIMOTHY GRUNDY
The U n i v e r s i t y o f C h i c a g o P r e s s Chi c a g o a n d L o n d o n
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London Texts © by Kurt und Ernst Schwitters Stiftung and DuMont Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG Translations © 2021 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637. Published 2021 Printed in the United States of America 30
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ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 12939- 6 (cloth) ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 67827- 6 (e- book) DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226678276.001.0001 Pages xii and xxviii: Details from Kurt Schwitters’s handwritten notebooks. Images courtesy bpk Bildagentur / Sprengel Museum, Hannover / Art Resource, NY Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Schwitters, Kurt, 1887–1948, author. | Luke, Megan R., 1977– editor. | Grundy, Timothy, translator. Title: Myself and my aims : writings on art and criticism / Kurt Schwitters ; edited by Megan R. Luke ; translations by Timothy Grundy. Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020013177 | ISBN 9780226129396 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226678276 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Art. | Art, Modern. | Art criticism. Classification: LCC N6888.S42 A35 2021 | DDC 700–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013177 ♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
CONTENTS List of Illustrations [ix] An Introduction to Merz-Thought [xiii] A Note to the Reader [xxvii] 1
The Problem of Abstract Art. First Attempt
17
Hannover (June 1920) [49]
(June– August 1910) [1]
18
Extension (June 1920) [50]
2
Problem of Pure Painting. 2nd Attempt. 1.
19
Tran Number 11. German Popular Criticism,
3
Beginning (before December 1910) [14]
the Criticism of Reconstruction (August
Materials for My Work on the Problem
1920) [53]
of Pure Painting. 3rd Attempt (November
20
Tran No. 12. Criticism as Artwork
21
Tran Number 13. The Private Scouring Cloth:
1910) [15] 4
2nd Beginning to the Problem of Pure
(September 1920) [56]
Painting. 2nd Attempt (December 1910–
Contribution to a Phenomenology of Critical
January 1911) [ 17] 5
Abstract Painting. 1918. A. (February 1918)
6
Merz-Painting (July/November 1919) [ 24]
7
A Solid Article: A Wienerization in Sturm
Enjoyment (October 1920) [58] 22
Tran No. 14. Dr. Frog Starves the Intellect
23
Tran Number 16. Life on Blind Feet
(August 1919) [ 25]
24
Kurt Schwitters (1920) [65]
The Merz-Theater / To All the Theaters of
25
Tran Number 17. The Fettered Paul Madsack
(October 1920) [61]
[ 23]
8
(December 1920) [63]
the World (1919) [ 27] 9
Artists’ Right to Self-Determination (1919)
(December 1920) [68] 26
MERZ (Written for the Ararat, 19 December
27
Tran No. 15. The Average Phenomenon
1920) (January 1921) [69]
[ 31] 10
Thou Me, I Thee, We Mine (and Sun Infinity Thin Out the Stars) (December 1919) [ 33]
11
12
13
Nothing Kills Quicker Than Ridicule
with Clear Eyes (January 1921) [77] 28
Why I Am Dissatisfied with Oil Painting
(February 1920) [ 36]
(January 1921) [80]
Berliner Börsenkukukunst (February 1920)
Translated from Hungarian by John Batki
[ 38]
29
Tran 18 (February 1921) [81]
Tran Number 7. General Amnesty for
30
Evening Reading (ca. February 1921) [83]
My Hannoverian Critics in the Style of Merz
31
My Views on the Value of Criticism
32
Cleanliness (for People Who Don’t Know It Yet)
(April 1920) [ 40]
(for the Ararat) (May 1921) [84]
14
What Art Is: A Guide for Great Critics
15
Statement (April 1920) [46]
33
Tran 19 (August 1921) [87]
16
[I divide my poetry into three types . . .]
34
Castle and Cathedral with Courtyard Fountain
(April 1920) [ 44]
(April 1920) [47]
(May 1921) [86]
(1922) [91]
35
Tran 21. Speech at the Grave of Leo Rein
64
National Feeling (August 1924) [199]
(in the Berliner Börsenzeitung 547 on 27
65
The Westheim Threat, Again (December
November 1921) (January 1922) [93]
1924) [201]
Tragedy. Tran No. 22, against Dr. Weygandt,
66
National Art (1925) [202]
PhD and MD (May 1922) [95]
67
[What Is Madness?] (ca. mid-1920s) [203]
37
i (A Manifesto) (May 1922) [122]
68
Theses on Typography (1925) [204]
38
Tran No. 26 (1922) [123]
69
[The Standard Merz Stage] (1925) [206]
39
Tran 23 (September 1922) [124]
70
STANDARD MERZ STAGE (July 1925) [207]
40
Introduction to Tran No. 30: Auguste Bolte
71
Religion or Socialism (July 1925) [209]
(1923) [127]
72
STANDARD MERZ STAGE (Some Practical
36
41
Suggestions.) (July 1925) [211]
The Self-Overcoming of Dada (January 1923) [128]
73
42
The ABC of the Standard Merz Stage (July 1925) [214]
Translated from Dutch by Michael White [Introduction to Merz 1. Holland Dada]
74
Language (November 1925) [215]
(January 1923) [131]
75
Standard Stage by Kurt Schwitters (December
43
Dadaism in Holland (January 1923) [132]
44
[Editorial note to Vilmos Huszár, Mechanische
76
1925) [218] Gut Garkau (ca. late 1925/early 1926) [224]
Dansfiguur] (January 1923) [139]
77
FANTASTIC THOUGHTS (ca. 1926) [226]
45
Style (ca. January– April 1923) [140]
78
Art and the Times (March 1926) [228]
46
i (April 1923) [141]
79
The New Architecture in Germany (March
47
WAR (April 1923) [152]
48
War (April 1923) [153]
80
Life’s Path (May 1926) [235]
49
Manifesto Proletarian Art (April 1923) [154]
81
Facts from My Life (June 1926) [236]
50
From the World: “MERZ” (April– June
82
Rhythm in the Work of Art (October
1926) [232]
1923) [156]
1926) [238]
51
Banalities (3) (July 1923) [167]
83
Merz-Book (October 1926) [239]
52
dada complet. 1 (July 1923) [169]
84
Standard Stage (October 1926) [241]
53
Banalities (4) / [Tristan Tzara] (July
85
My Merz and My Monster Merz: Model
1923) [170]
Marketplace at Sturm (October 1926) [243]
54
DADA NEWS (July 1923) [172]
86
Call It Coincidence (ca. mid-1920s) [245]
55
WATCH YOUR STEP! (October 1923) [173]
87
The Artist and His Titles (1926) [247]
56
Merz (1924) [177]
88
Merz 20. Kurt Schwitters Catalogue
57
i (January 1924) [178]
58
DADA COMPLET No. 2. / TRAN 50 (January
89
[Ella Bergmann-Michel] (March 1927) [257]
1924) [180]
90
[Letter to Wassily Kandinsky] (April
59
Dadaists (January 1924) [183]
60
[Advertisement for Merz 8/9. Nasci] (January
(1927) [248]
1927) [259] 91
1924) [186] 61
Elementary Knowledge in Painting (ca. 1927) [263]
Tran 35. Dada Is a Hypothesis (March
92
Style or Form-Creation (1927) [269]
1924) [188]
93
typography and orthography: lowercase (ca.
62
Rigorous Poetry (June 1924) [192]
63
Dadaism (1924) [196]
Translated from Polish by Kamila Kuc
1927) [271] 94
Sensation (July 1927) [272]
Front against Fronta: Afterword to
118
the ring neue werbegestalter (1930) [344]
the Foreword of Fronta (July– August
119
Advertising Design (1930) [345]
1927) [274]
120
Form-Creation in Typography (February and
September 1927) [276]
121
Painting (ca. late 1920s/early 1930s) [396]
97
Sense of Duty (September 1927) [285]
122
On the Uniform Design of Print Materials
98
Stuttgart, The Home— Werkbund Exhibition
95
96
April 1930) [380]
Proposals for a Systematic Typeface (August–
(1930) [399]
(October 1927) [286]
123
Kurt Schwitters (1930) [406]
My Sonata in Ur-Sounds (November
124
[The Big E is finished . . .] (ca. 1930– 33) [413]
1927) [293]
125
Myself and My Aims (1931) [414]
100
Kitsch and Dilettantism (December
126
[We know the Doesburg of “Stijl” . . .] (June
101
Good or Bad Fortune (December 1927) [298]
127
merz-paintings (1932) [424]
102
On Greek Temples (April 1928) [299]
103
Appearance (ca. spring 1928) [ 303]
128
[Statement about the Merzbau] (1933) [ 426]
104
Third Prague Letter (May 1928) [ 305]
105
The New Architecture in Celle: The Architect
129
[Excerpts from letters to Susanna
Otto Haesler (August 1928) [307]
Freudenthal-Lutter about the Merzbau]
106
Form-Creating Typography (September
(February and March 1935) [428]
107
Modern Advertising (October 1928) [315]
108
Werkbund Congress in Munich, 1928
99
1927) [297]
1928) [311]
109
1931/January 1932) [422]
Translated from French by Eva Morawietz Translated from French by Eva Morawietz
130
1935) [432]
(November 1928) [318]
131
The Work of Art (ca. 1937– 40) [433]
Stories That Have Run Their Course
132
Impressionism/Expressionism (ca. 1937–
Revue by Three Reviewed (December
133
The Tin Palm Tree (July 1937) [435]
1928) [325]
134
[I once saw a famous singer in a film . . .]
(November 1928) [323] 110
111
113
40) [434]
(December 1937) [437]
[Review of Hans Hildebrandt, Woman as Artist] (December 1928) [328]
112
[Excerpt from a letter to Susanna FreudenthalLutter about landscape painting] (July
135
[Anyone who wants to write about people . . .]
(April 1929) [330]
136
Sheet 1. For My New Studio (April 1938) [439]
About Me by Myself (May 1929) [332]
137
Sheet 2 (April 1938) [440]
Originally published in English, translator unknown
138
Merz (April 1938) [442]
139
[I first saw the light of the world in the year
(December 1937) [438]
Hannover and the Abstract Room by Lissitzky
114
A Layman’s Judgment of New Architecture
115
The Style of the Age and the Dammerstock
(June 1929) [335]
1887 . . .] (June 1938) [445] 140
[Once we realize that, basically, everything is
Housing Estate (September 1929) [337]
141
Truth (ca. 1930s) [450]
116
Facts from My Life (December 1929) [340]
142
Art (January 1940) [451]
117
[The art of today is a strange thing . . .] (March
143
Mixing of Artistic Genres (ca. 1940) [453]
1930) [343]
144
Theory in Painting (January 1940) [455]
Translated from French by Eva Morawietz
145
Painting (Pure Painting) (October 1940) [456]
futile . . .] (after 16 December 1939) [449]
146 147
[The Portrait] (October 1940) [458] European Art of the 20th Century (between 17 July 1940 and 22 November 1941) [461]
148
[Statement declining membership in the Freier Deutscher Kulturbund] (after November 1941) [466]
149
Abstract Art (after November 1941) [468]
Original in English 150
Material and Aims (after November 1941) [469]
Original in English 151
[Kurt Schwitters] (after November 1941) [470]
Original in English 152 153
The Origin of Merz (after November 1941) [471] [Kurt Schwitters] (after November 1941) [474]
Original in English 154 155
[Renaissance] (after 30 October 1945) [475] [Answers to a questionnaire for La savoir vivre] (1946) [476]
Translated from French by Eva Morawietz 156
Key for Reading Sound Poems (September 1946) [477]
Original in English 157
My Art and My Life (ca. 1946– 47) [479]
Original in English Acknowledgments [481] Notes [483] Index [533]
ILLUSTRATIONS 1
2
Katharine Schäffner, Die Hymne (Hymn),
16
ca. 1908 [18]
translation of themes from Beethoven’s
Kurt Schwitters, Schloß und Kathedrale mit
Fifth Symphony into graphic points and line, 1926 [260]
Hofbrunnen (Castle and Cathedral with Courtyard Well), 1920/1922; Carl Krayl, Glashaus
17
von oben (Glass house from above), n.d. [90] 3
Vilmos Huszár, Mechanische Dansfiguur Kurt Schwitters, i-Bild [1] (i-Picture [1]) and Merz 6 / Arp 1 (October 1923): 56, 64 [174]
6
Kurt Schwitters, Untitled (Merz Column in the Studio), ca. 1920 [194]
7
El Lissitzky, and Ella Bergmann-Michel [281] 22
10
13
works by Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky, and Piet Mondrian [383] 24
Kurt Schwitters, Untitled (Standard Stage
Cabinet), left-side wall, ca. 1930 [383] 25
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing works by Vilmos Huszár; Gerrit Rietveld and Truus
dard Stage Merz), 10 December 1925 [221]
Schröder-Schräder; J. J. P. Oud; and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe [384]
Kurt Schwitters, Normalbühne (Standard 26
Genja Jonas, portrait of Kurt Schwitters,
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing works by Karl Schneider, Otto Haesler, and Hugo
Cover for Merz 20. Kurt Schwitters
Häring [385]
Katalog (1927) [249] 15
El Lissitzky, Kabinett der Abstrakten (Abstract
Floor plan of the Normalbühne Merz (Stan-
Stage), 1926 [242] 14
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing
Kurt Schwitters, Normalbühne Merz
Merz or Spatial Stage), 1925 [219] 12
and Kurt Schwitters [382] 23
1925 [213] (Standard Stage Merz), 1925 [213] 11
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing works by Naum Gabo, László Moholy-Nagy,
Sketch for rotating components of the Normalbühne Merz (Standard Stage Merz),
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing works by Carl Buchheister, Wassily Kandinsky,
(Standard Stage Merz), 1924 [212] 9
Kurt Schwitters, posters in “Systemschrift,” 1927 [283–84]
21
Kurt Schwitters, Normalbühne Merz (StanKurt Schwitters, Normalbühne Merz
Table 3, Neue plastische Systemschrift (New plastic systematic typeface), 1927 [282]
20
dard Stage Merz), 1924 [206] 8
Table 2, Neue plastische Systemschrift (New plastic systematic typeface), 1927 [280]
19
i-Bild [2] (i-Picture [2]), 1923 [145] 5
Table 1, Neue plastische Systemschrift (New plastic systematic typeface), 1927 [278]
18
(Mechanical Dancing Figure), 1920 [138] 4
Wassily Kandinsky, diagrams depicting the
27
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing
ca. 1926 / Kurt Schwitters, advertising
works by Hans Arp, Cesar Domela, and Piet
designs for Handarbeitsgeschäft Buchheister,
Zwart [386]
1925, and I. C. Herhold, 1926 [256]
28
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing works by Jan Tschichold, Walter Dexel, Max Buchartz, and Hans Leistikow [387]
29
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing works by Robert Michel, Georg Trump, and Ludwig Hilberseimer [388]
30
Glass slides, ca. 1928– 29, reproducing works by Kurt Schwitters [389]
31
Glass slides, ca. 1929, reproducing works by Kurt Schwitters [390]
32
From Papier-Zeitung 55, no. 48 (1930): 1436 [398]
33
From Papier-Zeitung 55, no. 48 (1930): 1438 [402]
34
From Papier-Zeitung 55, no. 48 (1930): 1440 [404]
35
Kurt Schwitters, Merzwerbe-Verkehrsreklame envelope, 1928 or earlier [408]
36
Kurt Schwitters, brochure cover, “Vollautomatische Asphaltplatten-Pressen,” after 1927/28 [409]
37
Kurt Schwitters, advertising flyer, “Rheinhütte Säurepumpen,” ca. 1927 [410]
38
Kurt Schwitters, letterhead, Dammerstock Siedlung, Karlsruhe, 1929 [411]
39
Kurt Schwitters, folded flyer, Dammerstock Siedlung, Karlsruhe, 1929 [412]
40
Kurt Schwitters, Der erste Tag (The First Day), 1922 [415]
41
Kurt Schwitters, details of the Große Gruppe (Great Group) and the Goldgrotte and Grotte mit Puppenkopf (Gold Grotto and Grotto with Doll’s Head) in the Hannover Merzbau, 1933 [427]
42
Kurt Schwitters, sketch of the Merzbau with
43
Kurt Schwitters, drawing of the reflection in the
the library in the K d e E, 1935 [429] mirror in the library in the K d e E, 1935 [430]
AN INTRODUCTION TO MERZ-THOUGHT Megan R. Luke
Kurt Schwitters (1887– 1948) is a major protagonist in histories of modern art and literature, and his pioneering work in collage and assemblage, sculptural installation and performance, and sound and concrete poetry remain a vital legacy for contemporary creativity. Working in Germany in the turbulent aftermath of the First World War, he began to incorporate the refuse of mass culture into his paintings and drawings and to appropriate commonplace speech and ordinary sound for his poems and prose. As he opened his art to unorthodox materials, he pursued a rigorously abstract approach to composition, yet he never abandoned his abiding commitment to traditional genres, such as landscape painting and portraiture, fairy tales and fables. Schwitters refused to relinquish any part of his past or reject any tool or technique out of hand. “I do not want to lose the connection to my earlier stages of development,” he reflected in 1927, in one of his most important autobiographical statements. “For I think it is of paramount importance that, in the end, one’s entire life, in all it has striven for, stands there complete, that nothing is lost, even if it was once wrong or lackluster” (text 88).1 His unprejudiced affection for discarded and degraded material, his irreverence toward the boundaries that divide aesthetic experience into discrete arts and hierarchies of value, and the performative and collaborative spirit that drove his production have cemented his enduring significance for generations working in his wake. Myself and My Aims: Writings on Art and Criticism by Kurt Schwitters presents a comprehensive English edition of the criticism and theoretical texts of this influential artist. Schwitters once characterized himself as a “bourgeois and idiot” (Bürger und Idiot). He refined this paradoxical persona in notorious public performances where he recited his experimental poetry and fictional prose.2 At these events, audiences were presented a bewildering mixture of high-minded seriousness and absurdist outbursts, relentless banality and inventive aural play. This book shifts focus from Schwitters the poet or storyteller— literary identities that are already established in English translation— to present a rather different writer.3 The aim is to introduce new readers to a distinctive critic of painting and architecture, an incisive cultural observer, and a sophisticated theorist of art, language, and perception. The texts assembled here contain Schwitters’s extensive reflections on the art of his time, with particular emphasis on expressionism, Dada, De Stijl, and Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity). They offer his assessxiii
ments of modern movements in architecture, theater, and graphic design, and his analyses of the rapid changes in visual and literary culture during a period of profound political and economic upheaval. Above all, this collection emphasizes Schwitters’s involvement with an international art world and his investments in contemporary debates about social life and modernity, complicating the conceit that he was an eccentric “one-man movement” or a “genius in a frock coat” bound to an untenable and outmoded romanticism.4 Schwitters was both radically singular and irredeemably conventional, a central operator for numerous avant-gardes who nevertheless remains an alienated master in established narratives about literary and artistic modernism. From his home in the provincial capital of Hannover, Schwitters cultivated and promoted a network of artists, architects, photographers, and graphic designers active across continental Europe, Russia, the United States, and Japan. He forged these connections not only through travel and private correspondence, but as a frequent contributor to the wealth of periodicals essential for the development of modernism in central Europe during the first half of the century. From 1919 to 1928, the primary outlet for his critical writing was the influential journal Der Sturm, edited by the leading impresario of literary and artistic expressionism in Berlin, Herwarth Walden (1878– 1941).5 Over the course of the 1920s and early 1930s, Schwitters published programmatic statements in journals such as De Stijl (the Netherlands), MA (Hungary), Blok (Poland), The Little Review (United States), Het Overzicht (Belgium), and abstraction, création, art non-figuratif (France). As the imperative for rational construction superseded the primacy of subjective expression in this milieu, his texts could also be found in the pages of the visionary publication Frühlicht, the urbanism review Das neue Frankfurt, the influential organs for international constructivism G and i 10, and, most importantly, his own self-published journal Merz. Following the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the total consolidation of power by the National Socialists, government officials swiftly appropriated Schwitters’s works and words as prime examples of “degenerate art.” He was otherwise banned from publicly exhibiting his art in Germany, and when friends in his closest circle were arrested by the Gestapo, he and his son were forced into exile. In 1937, Schwitters departed for Norway, where he remained until the German invasion in 1940. Faced with increasing restrictions on his work, he rekindled his enthusiasm for landscape painting, and his manuscripts from these years stress his fascination with color perception and the intersection between nature and human consciousness that had long dominated his thought and art. Indeed, they offer a late reprise of his earliest attempts to write a theoretical treatise on pictorial abstraction and to grapple with the popularization of perceptual psychology during his years as a student of painting at the Royal Saxon Academy of Art in Dresden (texts 1– 4). Schwitters’s texts and correspondence from his time in Norway make clear that he did not pursue genre painting exclusively for
An Introduction to Merz-Thought
xiv
the tourist trade, but that it was vital for his practice at a time when he felt himself cut off from the artistic community that had once sustained him. The very day the Germans invaded Norway, 9 April 1940, Schwitters fled north with his son and daughter-in-law, narrowly avoiding arrest by the soldiers who arrived at their doorstep the following day. In a desperate escape from the advancing army, they eventually reached Allied headquarters on the Lofoten Islands in the Arctic. After two months on the run, they managed to gain passage on the very last ship permitted to leave for Great Britain, two days before the capitulation of the Norwegian forces. Schwitters had managed this desperate escape only to land in a series of internment camps for “enemy aliens,” where he was detained until the end of November 1941. He survived the war on the outskirts of London and spent the last years of his life in the rural Lake District. Whereas his creative identity had been shaped in cooperation with an international cohort of peers— be they like-minded artists, typographers, and poets, or legions of outraged critics— once he found himself living as a refugee, this vital exchange had to come from within. In the last decade of his life, he worked in relative critical obscurity, engaging with his past as if it were the work of another, distant subjectivity. While Schwitters wrote few theoretical texts outside of Germany, some of his most ambitious statements about the history of art and his own artistic development can be found among the lectures he delivered to fellow internees on the Isle of Man and in manuscripts he provided to organizations active in England that supported artists and intellectuals exiled from Nazi Germany (texts 139 and 147).
∙∙∙ Schwitters made his first collage at the end of 1918, in the heat of Germany’s November Revolution, the demise of the monarchy, and the proclamation of a republic. “You can also shout using garbage,” he later recalled, “and that’s what I did, by gluing and nailing it together. I called this Merz” (text 116). He took this name from a paper clipping glued onto an assemblage he had created the following year (fig. 5), and he quickly applied it to all areas of his creative practice, regardless of medium, and, ultimately, to himself. Read on its own, the word is meaningless— it is simply one syllable from the name of the financial institution, Commerz- und Privatbank (text 55). Yet, as Schwitters repeatedly alluded to in his replies to critics and in his early theoretical writing about Merz, this word fragment sounds exactly like the German word for the month of March (März) and also courts evocative associations with the word ausmerzen (to eradicate or eliminate). Fragmentation does not obliterate representation so much as signal its persistence, even inevitability. Abstraction does not evacuate material of significance but instead allows for possible meanings to proliferate and multiply. Merz facilitated the creation of a new order out of the destruction of an existing one, and as a result, the motivation of artistic creation and its autonomy became central topics for Schwitters’s critical writing.
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Schwitters publicly introduced Merz in print with a brief manifesto in the July 1919 issue of Der Sturm (text 6).6 There he employed two key terms to describe his working process, Wertung and Entformung. In this and nearly all his subsequent discussions about his approach to composition, Wertung refers to his considered judgment of the relationships among formal parts and his careful evaluation of their mutual effect on each other and the whole. Schwitters enlisted this word to link artistic composition to the act of assessing value (Wert), thereby encouraging the analogy between his practice and circuits of economic exchange. The notion that value is a relative, rather than essential, property of any given thing likewise guided his attitude toward his materials, which were often ephemeral, culled from the waste of a mass consumer culture, and in no way sanctioned for use by artistic convention. By describing the artist’s task of composition as Wertung (evaluation) or, alternately, with the verb werten (to assess), Schwitters implied that his chosen materials are not inherently less worthy than oil paint, bronze, or pastels. At the same time, these materials draw their value only from their configuration within a delimited space, not from their non-art origins or existing sensual properties— what he acerbically called their Eigengift, or their own “specific poison” (text 43). Once found material had entered the orbit of the Merz-picture (Merzbild ), it was released from its embeddedness in previous rituals of use (or abuse) and transformed into color, line, and plane. In short, for Schwitters, what any given material was before the artist seized upon it was utterly irrelevant, or gleichgültig— a composite word that, when broken into its constitutive parts can also mean, quite literally, “equally valid,” in an economic or legal sense. Read in the context of his reflections on a resurgent nationalism (texts 64 and 66) and, ultimately, his own exile (text 138), this disregard for the purity of origin assumes a political potency and grave urgency. In his early statements on Merz, Schwitters insisted that all parts of the image had to be equally present in space and time. Entformung and its derivatives, Entformeln and Entformelung, were crucial neologisms he devised to describe the procedure of releasing material from its prior history, rendering it pliant to his formative will. The German prefix ent- most closely corresponds to the English prefix de-. In Entformung, it modifies the noun Formung (formation), and in Entformeln and Entformelung, it modifies a word that merges the noun Formel (formula) with the verb formen (to form). To emphasize the artificial construction of these terms and to distinguish them from the common word deformieren (to deform), we translate them as de-formation and de-formulation. They articulate how Schwitters frequently applied his novel Merz technique to language, breaking apart words to assemble a new technical vocabulary out of found, thoroughly conventional parts that, in a self-reflexive turn, describes this very process. Schwitters expanded on these ideas in his major treatise “MERZ (Written for the Ararat, 19 December 1920),” where he couched his theoretical reflections on method in an extended intellectual autobiography (text 26). He narrated his turn
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away from the tedious reproduction of visual impressions that he had learned at the Dresden Academy to his embrace of abstraction, recounting his discovery of Merz and its complex relationship to competing Dada factions. In the course of this journey, he came to understand his art as a work of “expressive means” (Ausdrucksmittel ), rather than the result of procedures of “verification and coordination.” For Schwitters, expression could never be separate from experience. The artist does not confer expression on an image, nor does he force it to conform to a mental model, existing formula, or a priori idea.7 Rather, expression is engendered with and through form, which is less a stable and fixed structure—the finished product of a discrete and repeatable task— and rather more a dynamic configuration of provisional material relationships. “The work of art emerges from the artistic devaluation [Abwerten] of its elements,” he wrote. “All I know is how I make the work. All I know is my material, from which I make my selection. I do not know to what end.” In short, Schwitters argued for a unity of form and expression— and for both as the consequence of the creative partnership between his subjectivity and the world. Merz is not a novel artistic technique, style, or “ism,” but a “worldview”— one forged from his recognition and acceptance of a formative impulse whose source lies in process, not conception. Although Schwitters understood de-formation to be a crucial step that the artist must take before incorporating any and all material into a composition, his critical texts make clear that it is not solely a preparatory activity akin to mixing paints or stretching canvas. De-formation continues to take place within the finished work, as one part of an image changes in relation to another in the act of perception. In 1923, the year Schwitters joined Theo van Doesburg, Nelly van Doesburg, and Vilmos Huszár on a Dada performance tour of Holland, he introduced the term Gleichgewicht (balance, equilibrium; in Dutch, evenwicht) into his aesthetic theory (texts 41 and 43).8 Equilibrium acted as a check against de-formation— it was what allowed composition to hold together against entropy, to resist succumbing to utter arbitrariness, or, indeed, to cohere as an image at all. Schwitters even went so far as to claim that “art [itself] is solely the balance achieved through the evaluation of all parts” (text 55) and that “balance alone is the aim of the artwork, and art its purpose” (text 125). This principle was fundamental, not just for the creation of his Merz-pictures, but also for his ambitions for typography (texts 68 and 119), his proposals for a standardized theater design (text 75), and his initial ideas for a habitable sculptural space that prefigured his creation of the Merzbau (texts 43 and 44)— work that was all explicitly performative and that actively solicited the beholder’s participation and involvement. Schwitters considered every work of art— indeed, every human being (text 77)— to be a dynamic unity, a vibrant force field capable of sustaining competing vectors of energy and of being sustained by them in turn. Take, for example, a passage in a group statement he published in 1930 for an exhibition of work by the union of modernist graphic designers that he founded and organized,
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the ring neue werbegestalter: “unity is the equilibrium [Gleichgewicht] among the constitutive parts. imbalances between the parts cause tensions. every part is a weight, a force with a certain direction and a certain strength. the activity of evaluation weighs up the tension between the opposing forces so that they add or subtract to zero” (text 118). Taken together, these sentences provide as apt a description of the artistic collective itself as any one of its members’ individual works, and they may be read alongside his other reflections on collaborative art making (text 110). At the same time, it is crucial to stress that, in Schwitters’s critical thought, Gleichgewicht is never synonymous with stasis or homogenization— words that more accurately describe the work of the Kitscher or imitator, who lacks the “elementary force” that drives genuine creation (text 56). Instead, equilibrium is the constitution, through difference, of any entity that “constructs itself from its own parts” (text 41). The zero sum of opposing forces that Schwitters expressed in his statement for the ring neue werbegestalter harkens back to his earliest description of a “special form” of Merz, which he announced in Der Sturm in 1922. This form, which he called i, describes the act of cutting a single fragment from a preexisting whole and positing it as an autonomous work of art (text 37). Whereas Merz assembled a unified whole from an array of existing fragments, with i, the fragment was itself the whole. Ready-made in the artist’s recognition and delimitation of a specific “rhythm” in an excerpt of “nature,” the work of i “reduce[s] the path from the intuition to the visualization of the artistic idea as much as possible, thereby avoiding loss of heat from friction. i sets this path to = zero.” Schwitters’s longing for “expressive immediacy,” already voiced in his first Merz manifesto, is conceived here as an accelerated relay between perception and creation. Indeed, his subsequent description of the autogenesis of rhythmic form in the moment of recognition challenges us to reconsider the very nature of artistic creation (text 46). The artist does not wield sovereign control over his materials and is rather more a medium through which forces of difference— what Schwitters frequently calls the “tensions” or “oppositions” that permeate all life and creation— may cohere into form. As he developed Merz over the 1920s, he came to understand that the authority and autonomy of the artist’s own intention were equally subordinate to processes of formation. Both his theory of the Merz-theater (Merzbühne) and his construction of the Merzbau were developed with a radical awareness that he could not transcend his own creations or somehow stand outside their spatial and temporal order (texts 43, 50, 128, and 129). One way to approach Schwitters’s persistent description of the work of art as a rhythmic structure is to read it as a reflection of his lifelong interest in music as a compelling, yet vexed analogue for abstract painting and poetry. As such, it may be a residue of the late romantic ambition for a synthesis of the arts evident throughout his critical thinking, particularly in his early fascination with the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. He first tested the viability of a musical
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analogy for abstraction in his student notebooks and returned to it repeatedly, most thoroughly in his lengthy critical responses to the theoretical work that Wassily Kandinsky developed at the Bauhaus (texts 90 and 91) and in his elaboration of his monumental sound poem the Ursonate (text 99).9 Nevertheless, Schwitters’s enduring commitment to “rhythmic evaluation” (text 36) or a “rhythmically balanced” composition (text 88) is more than an allusion to the possible equivalences between music, painting, and poetry. Rhythm describes a temporality that cannot be logically divided into measured beats, and he regularly used scientific rhetoric to expose, with irony, the inadequacy of rational or mathematical systems to represent and encapsulate it. Schwitters understood rhythm in the broadest possible sense— namely, as the perpetual emergence and withdrawal of form in perception. Merz compositions must be made anew in the act of recognition, lest they fall apart into an arbitrary heap of worthless scraps (as indeed they so frequently did for his most hostile critics). The reciprocal forces that constitute the image— the magnetism or repulsion of part to part, the relationship between part and whole, and the contingent disclosure of inside and outside— are always tending to a state of inertia or dispersal, latency or disintegration. These polarities are the very limits of sensation. Form simultaneously coalesces from these extremes and resists succumbing to them.10 Schwitters was not alone in his efforts to articulate a dynamic conception of form. His thinking expresses the profound significance that the idea of Gestaltung came to assume for a whole generation of artists, architects, and graphic designers working in central Europe and the Netherlands in the 1920s and 1930s. This word only inadequately translates as “design,” even within the contexts of architecture and typography. In his influential theoretical teaching at the Bauhaus, Paul Klee stressed the distinction between Gestalt (form) and Gestaltung (formation). Whereas both words gave expression to an idea of form that was live (lebendig), for Klee, the ending to the word Gestaltung also conveyed “the paths to form [Gestalt],” and as a result, it expresses “the fundamental conditions of a certain mobility.”11 Through his own conception of form as rhythm, Schwitters perhaps comes closest to Klee’s insight than any other of their contemporaries— a proximity that was no doubt reinforced by his repeated visits to the Bauhaus and his sustained exchanges with many of its teachers, including László MoholyNagy, Josef Albers, Oskar Schlemmer, and Walter Gropius.12 Through his partnership with El Lissitzky, which followed their joint participation in the 1922 International Congress for Constructivists and Dadaists in Weimar, he arrived at a related understanding of art as natura naturans— as “nasci, i.e., becoming or emerging, everything that develops, forms, and moves itself out of itself through its own force.”13 (See also texts 63, 78, and 88.) Furthermore, his dialectical conception of a dynamic equilibrium evinces the intensity of his exchanges with van Doesburg and the seriousness with which he studied the paintings of Piet Mondrian in the early 1920s (texts 89, 90, and 120). By 1923, with the foundation of
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the journal G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung (G: Materials for Elemental Form-Creation), the term was firmly entrenched in an international modernist lexicon that acknowledged a universal drive to “form-creation” across all artistic activity, regardless of medium or intended function (text 92).14 Is a Merz work ever finished? One answer to this question may be found in Schwitters’s persistent recourse to the concept of Konsequenz throughout his critical writing. This common German word is notoriously difficult to translate into English, not least because it bears the traces of an entire history of dialectical thought, from Schelling and Goethe to Hegel and Marx. In some contexts, it can express logical relations of cause and effect— the “consequence” of a specific action, for instance. Reading this way, we might connect it to Schwitters’s preoccupation with industrial standardization in the mid-1920s. In his discussions of Normalisierung (adherence to the norm) and Typisierung (adherence to the type) in theater design, architecture, and typography, form is presented as a kind of self-regulating mechanism (texts 70, 75, 92, and 107). Yet, as we have stressed, Schwitters stubbornly resisted appeals to a fixed, transcendental order independent of the temporalities of making and beholding. “Like any unity,” he insisted, “the work of art is not a sum, but a state” (text 125). Implied in this statement is his sense that such a state will inevitably change and in unpredictable ways. As form actively mediates forces antithetical to it— emerging from the very limits of destruction or formlessness— it achieves an internal coherence, rigor, resolution, or consistency. Konsequenz therefore implies integrity, but never an ascent to perfection, ultimate synthesis, or completion. In sum, it describes the consolidation of an identity unified in the awareness that it could always be undone. The drive or will to form (Gestaltungswille) is a ceaseless, and potentially reversible, process of self-overcoming: “At every stage prior to its completion, the work exists for the artist merely as material for the next stage of its formation,” Schwitters insisted. “Merz never pursues a set goal independent of the internal coherence [Konsequenz] of the formative process itself” (text 56).
∙∙∙ Schwitters critically contended with his lingering faith in art as something boundless or infinite, even as he embraced the inherent and unpredictable temporality of form. He repeatedly expressed skepticism toward the possibility of a universal, eternally valid theory of art, yet he could also disparage the accidental, the ambiguous, and the arbitrary (texts 62, 78, and 85). Merz remains caught between the notion that art is an enduring, “primordial concept” (Urbegriff; text 26) and the fact that it always remains “bound to its material and to time” (text 45). This tension runs throughout Schwitters’s theoretical writings, and it is exacerbated by the fact that he deliberately frustrated his readers’ attempts to secure a voice they could identify as genuinely or exclusively “his.” From the outset of his alliance with Der Sturm, Schwitters undercut the
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genre of autobiography with irony. On particularly important occasions, he would accompany his first-person narratives about his career with quotations from supportive expressionist critics, such as Otto Nebel or Adolf Behne (texts 24 and 88). However, their mystifying jargon only superficially appears at odds with his straightforward exposition of the “facts” of his life and education. In a dramatic exposition of the Merz-theater, he even becomes a character in a play of his own creation and the audience is incorporated into the performance, thereby “liberating it from passive spectatorship” (text 50). Yet the audience to whom the “Merzer” delivers this lecture is easily manipulated, even predisposed to his control, and in the end we are left unsure about his confidence in collective creation in a text that purports to argue for it. We readily perceive the risk in taking Schwitters too much at his word when reading his review of Hans Hildebrandt’s Woman as Artist (text 111), in which the condescension he appears to share with the author belies his own serious and sustained engagement with art made by women (texts 4, 89, and 110). Indeed, in the promise to deliver insight into his motivations or judgments, “Schwitters” repeatedly slips from view. Such ironic detachment, combined with techniques of appropriation, mimicry, and even ventriloquism, allowed him to situate Merz within a broader discursive field— to identify it with and against what it is not.15 This negative definition of art primarily took shape in two arenas: in his response to his critics and in his deeply ambivalent relationship to Dada. From 1919 to 1924, Schwitters wrote a series of twenty-nine rebuttals to his critics.16 Collectively titled “Tran” (short for Lebertran, or cod-liver oil), these texts administer a bitter medicine to what he considered a philistine and conservative press. They make up a discrete genre within his critical writing, and as challenging as they are to read, they are essential for his self-definition as an artist. To compose these pieces, Schwitters would frequently seize upon a single disparaging word in a negative review, dismantle it into its components, and deliriously recombine and rework these fragments anew (text 33). He interjected his prose with random outbursts from advertising slogans, lyrics from hit songs and patriotic anthems, arcane art-world references, and lines of poetry by the likes of Goethe, Schiller, and Heine. In the process, he ruthlessly exposed banal speech as a symptom of atrophied thought and dulled perception. Time and again, he condemned the tendency of his critics and his public to fetishize material— to linger obsessively over what he used to make a picture in order to avoid having to contend with how he actually put it together (texts 13, 32, and 39). Because the critic willfully refuses to see, he dissimulates, espousing opinions he does not believe to deceive the public, whether by advancing false equivalences between modern art and schizophrenia or by deliberately confusing “similarity with identity” (text 36). Lacking all conviction, the critic is a “peat peddler” who “sells a product that doesn’t keep him warm” (text 23). Throughout these texts, Schwitters counters his critics’ attitudes toward his Merz materials by repeat-
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edly invoking their confusion between “imitation” and what is “real.” The wax museum, the fairground spectacle, ersatz luxury goods, and class masquerade are all metaphors that reveal the fraudulence of nativist ideologies about innate authenticity (texts 14, 94, 102, and 133). With the publication of “An Anna Blume” (To Anna Blume) in 1919, Schwitters was jettisoned into avant-garde notoriety, and the controversy it sparked paved the way for the reception of his collages by influential dealers, collectors, and critics.17 In this poem, he assaulted the rules of grammar and the conventions of love poetry to sing an ode to a woman who is “from the back as from the front,” who wears a hat on her feet and walks on her hands, and whose yellow hair is blue. Consuming all “twenty-seven senses” of her beloved, she “has a bird” (hat ein Vogel), which, when read figuratively, suggests she is “nuts,” and, when read literally, provokes a “prize question” that suddenly interrupts the poem to ask readers to guess the color of the bird. Schwitters returned to many of these motifs in his “Tran” texts, summoning the body of his feminine alter ego in his compulsion to read the names of his critics backward (texts 19, 35, and 61). In his early project of metacriticism, this poem became a primer for strategies of inversion and reversibility that he would rely on throughout his career. Schwitters triangulated the artist, the critic, and the beholder and even entertained the possibility that these roles and identities could be exchangeable (texts 20 and 31). The driving lesson of “Anna Blume” was that perception was conditioned by orientation. Identity could be forged only in an intensive and directed relationship to others. Like criticism, Dada functions as a kind of mirror to whatever it confronts. Schwitters consistently used this metaphor to describe the relationship Dada has to art and contemporary society— a relationship characterized by imitation and reversal (texts 41 and 63). Dada reflects the “stylelessness” of a world where “some lad wheels a cart full of dung below and the mail travels through the air above” (text 43), where the rhapsodies of Goethe’s poetry dissipate into currents of electricity driving subways and skyscrapers (text 62), and where everyone finds themselves “shut up in a sort of insane asylum, in which one passes the time reading classical poetry” (text 113). This world, in other words, is already Dada, but it does not know it, and it is up to Dada to show the world its true face. In the texts Schwitters wrote during and shortly after the Dada Tour of Holland, he asserted that a lack of style is the tendency to extremism rather than cohesion. Both Dada and Merz respond to this state of affairs, but their methods are antithetical: “Whereas Dadaism merely asserts oppositions, Merz balances out oppositions by evaluating them within the artwork” (text 51). Dada replicates the tensions and divisions released by modernity in its assault on art— on the integrity (that is, the Konsequenz) of part-to-whole relationships (text 52). As “a living Tran” rather than a “worldview,” Dada embodies a particular critical spirit, one that mimics the weaknesses of what it opposes, with the ambition to dismantle it with its own weapons (text 61). Dada performance becomes a kind of pedagogy, inso-
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far as it confronts the absurdity of social behavior with seriousness, provoking laughter that, for too long, had remained dormant. In this laughter, the present situation can at last be recognized for what it is and, in the process, transform. Late in life, during one of his lectures to his fellow inmates at the Hutchinson internment camp on the Isle of Man, Schwitters acknowledged the “artistic politics” of Dada, which had “served as a mediator for pure art” (text 147). Here he alluded to a conceit initially forged through his collaboration with van Doesburg— namely, that Dada strives to overcome the contradictions of the age and, in the process, Dada thereby overcomes and eradicates itself. Dada participates in an inexorable process of destruction and renewal manifested in the mutual confrontation of opposites. It is not enough to reflect the unsustainable contradictions of the times; the point is to reverse and, ultimately, equalize them. For Schwitters, this was the ultimate aim of art— at least in the early years of Merz. Dada is “not-art” (text 41) but paves the way for the regeneration of art after its “putrefaction” (text 58); it is an act of “cleaning out the dung” (text 61). A truly “political” art advances social and aesthetic revolution, not through the empty imitation of outmoded styles or slogans, but by the inversion and negation of entrenched structures of relation. As long as hierarchies of power and value remain in place, “there is no fundamental difference between a painting of the Red Army led by Trotsky and one of an imperial army led by Napoleon” (text 49). Throughout his career, Schwitters raised a forceful critique against prevailing norms regarding the fixity of identity, particularly when conceived in terms of national origin or gender. His experiments in collage and poetry stressed the power of sexuality, desire, and linguistic polysemy to frustrate the certainties of dogma and resist coercion in whatever guise it may assume. His politics were neither agitprop nor utopian, but they were, we might say, perverse— and this in the most affirmatively subversive sense possible. Schwitters manipulated language and typography to repeatedly insist on his readers’ awareness that all conventions and all mores could always be otherwise. As a performer, he could send his upright, middle-class audiences into paroxysms of rage and hilarity, and he applied this gift for situational inversion in his didactic lectures to avant-garde peers. Depending on the context, he could embody the libidinal spirit of Dada or adopt an inflated professorial posturing, always with the aim to destabilize his contemporaries’ convictions that such extremes were mutually exclusive.
∙∙∙ Schwitters was an accomplished poet, fabulist, playwright, essayist, and editor, who tirelessly corresponded with friends, artists, editors, patrons, government officials, and business concerns. Myself and My Aims focuses on just one area of this prodigious literary output. To date, only a handful of his programmatic statements about art, aesthetics, and design have been translated into English, which are dispersed across numerous publications, many of which are out of print.18
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Ultimately, Schwitters’s identity as a visual artist has guided the selection of texts presented here and their translation, for it is as such that he primarily exists for Anglophone audiences. At the same time, his attempts to articulate a theory of visual perception and pictorial composition rely on his penetrating analyses of language as both script and speech. As his critical writing amply demonstrates, Merz-poetry and Merz-theater are of a piece with his work in collage, painting, and sculpture. Myself and My Aims is therefore intended as a resource for a broader understanding of Schwitters as an astute and unorthodox theorist of art, performance, and language. However, our framing might seem to reinforce an artificial distinction between poetic and pictorial art that is untenable in any serious effort to understand the scope, significance, and flexibility of his practice. When is a text primarily an image, and when is it a vehicle for literary expression? For a writer who mined the mass press for material to create his collages and who worked for a decade as a professional graphic designer, such a question is impossible to answer unequivocally— if, indeed, it is even a coherent one to ask at all. In the attempt to survey Schwitters’s critical writing for English-language readers, Myself and My Aims follows the existing German edition of his literary work, which was compiled by Friedhelm Lach in close consultation with the artist’s son, Ernst Schwitters.19 It was published in five volumes from 1973 to 1981, the final volume devoted to Schwitters’s “manifestoes and critical prose,” whereas the previous installments were divided into poetry, fictional prose, and plays.20 However, readers of this book will quickly discover that, in Schwitters’s case, such genre distinctions are tenuous, even arbitrary. The boundary that would separate his fictional writing or fables from his commentaries on social behavior, politics, or contemporary artistic norms frequently breaks down, especially when we consider the narrative anecdotes that pepper his critical reception of modern architecture (texts 98 and 102). Schwitters included several of his critical texts in an important anthology of his poetry, Anna Blume: Dichtungen (1919; rev. ed. 1922), and he even wrote one of his major treatises outlining his ideas about the Merz-theater as a dramatic script (text 50). His replies to his critics merged prose, poetry, and, ultimately, typography to create thoroughly hybrid texts that vie for our recognition as his most genuine contribution to Dada literature (text 36). He pursued the experiments of these “Tran” texts to new extremes in his journal Merz, where the materiality of language competes with meaning for equal attention and significance. His major statement on i from Merz 2 (text 46), for example, enlisted different typefaces to interweave an abstract alphabet poem into a treatise that is itself a collage of found and composed poetry. Yet for all the problems raised by the taxonomy of Lach’s edition, it serves as a useful basis for the present book. Every major study of Schwitters’s visual art published in its wake has relied heavily on his selection, and by taking it as a foundation, readers should be able to cross-reference this translation with that
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secondary literature. Nevertheless, a wholesale translation of the final volume of the German edition is neither appropriate nor responsible. Some of the texts included there rely so heavily on the particular plasticity of the German language that transposing them into English would distort their significance beyond recognition.21 Furthermore, while the essays that Schwitters published in experimental art journals were well represented, his criticism for newspapers remained incomplete, his early notebooks were heavily abridged, and scant effort was made to indicate editorial interventions in the manuscripts that had not been published previously. Hence, as indispensable it has been for subsequent scholars, Lach’s edition should be treated as an artifact of an initial attempt to gain a workable and usable overview of Schwitters’s literary estate. When Ernst Schwitters died in 1996, his father’s original manuscripts and typescripts— many of which were never published in his lifetime— were transferred to the custody of the Schwitters Archive in Hannover.22 With the establishment of the Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation in 2001, a sustained program of research and study has brought to light numerous texts that were unknown to Lach when he was preparing his edition. We have therefore conceived this translation in close partnership with the archive, which began preparing a new, comprehensive edition of the artist’s entire literary and typographic work and prodigious correspondence with the Bergischen Universität in Wuppertal in 2010.23 All translations have been made from the original publications and Schwitters’s unpublished manuscripts and typescripts. Eight texts survive only in Hungarian, Dutch, Polish, French, or English translations published in his lifetime, and they have been translated (or transcribed) directly from these sources. Schwitters also frequently appropriated material in French and Dutch (or, less frequently, in English and Spanish), and to maintain the shifts in language in the body of a given text, we translate (or otherwise annotate) these interjections in footnotes. Wherever Schwitters quotes passages from his most famous poem, “An Anna Blume,” we choose from three existing translations as the particular context dictates. Living in England as a refugee, he resisted speaking and writing in German and committed himself to the language of his adopted home. He took care to devise keys to the proper pronunciation of his sound poetry for new audiences, and, in 1942, he composed the translation “Anna Blossom Has Wheels,” based on the first English rendition by Myrtle Klein, “Ann Blossom Has Wheels (Poem Merz Nr. 1),” published twenty years earlier.24 This poem was a talisman of his artistic nativity, and by recomposing it in English, he could be reborn in exile. Two alternate translations appeared posthumously in 1958: “Eve Blossom Has Wheels” by Stefan Themerson, a Polish writer and filmmaker who befriended Schwitters at a meeting of the PEN club in London, and “To Eve Blossom,” penned by Ernst Schwitters, together with Philip and Ursula Granville, for an LP recording issued in London in September that year.25 As Schwitters tested the possibility of a theory of art and reflected on the
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times in which he lived, his language remained that of a poet— dense and figurative, relishing the difference between words as they are read and spoken aloud. At times, it is entirely possible to imagine that he arrived at a certain conceptual point only in confrontation with a chance material configuration. The challenges this presents to the translator may be exemplified by a very small, fleeting moment in one of his earliest descriptions of the Merz-theater, which he published on three separate occasions (text 8). In this impossible theater, everything and everyone are absorbed as material into the work of art. As such, the audience and even the artist already embody what they perceive. This theoretical conceit unfolds through a rhythmic onslaught of sound, sweeping us up in its breathtaking momentum and broken syntax. As we read, we trip over a brief stutter: Netzen die Netze, which we translate as “net the nets.” One compromise between the literal meaning (“moisten the nets”) and the musicality of Schwitters’s prose might have been “wet the nets.” But in this instance, guided by his insights into rhythmic form-creation and his consistent articulation of difference in repetition, we give priority to the homophonic kinship of these words. To translate Schwitters requires that we constantly consider text as both sound and image and, in the process, negotiate imperatives for accuracy and legibility without insisting exclusively on either. We can only calibrate the ongoing formation of these texts into another language by following the path of Merz-thought.26
∙∙∙ Myself and My Aims is dedicated to the critical thought of an artist whose practice remains exemplary for its sensitivity to the intersubjective conditions for perception and creativity. Schwitters conflated competing ideas of selfhood with a keen awareness of how complicated the task of composition had become for artists who could no longer rely on entrenched conventions governing pictorial representation, the legitimate materials for art, and genre distinctions. The texts presented here enliven the fraught relationship between the history of abstraction and the visual culture of economic inflation and socialist revolution. They challenge us to recuperate the political contours of Schwitters’s practice and revise our interpretations of the avant-garde in interwar Europe. Few of his peers could claim to have pursued the consequences of abstract form-creation into poetry, painting, theater, and typography with equal tenacity. One hundred years after the advent of Merz, we still have ample cause to take inspiration from the power of this creative impulse to survive the defamation of fascist ideologues, the agony of exile, and the violence of war. “Everything was broken anyway,” Schwitters reminds us on more than one occasion in these pages, “so the task was to build something new from the shards. This is Merz” (texts 116 and 123).
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A NOTE TO THE READER Nearly all the unpublished manuscripts included in this book were written by Schwitters in Gabelsberger shorthand, a method of stenographic notation popular at the turn of the twentieth century. These manuscripts generally consist of rough and unedited notes that lack the finish of his published texts or unpublished typescripts. They have been translated from approved transcriptions supplied by the Kurt Schwitters Archive. Transcription is not a strictly mechanical process but an interpretive one. A question mark in square brackets [?] indicates where the transcription offers a best guess for an unclear word, and an ellipsis in square brackets [ . . . ] indicates where the transcription flags a completely illegible word (or words) in the shorthand. Where there exists evidence or precedent to support plausible suggestions for illegible words, we have set them in square brackets to aid reading. Where the visual presentation is inextricable from the language Schwitters uses for the meaning of a text, we reproduce his original design in full, with the English translation on the facing page (texts 36, 46, and 119). The following abbreviations refer to entry numbers in the catalogues raisonnés of Schwitters’s art and graphic design:
Karin Orchard and Isabel Schulz, eds., Kurt Schwitters: Catalogue Raisonné, 3 vols. (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2000– 2006). wvz Volker Rattemeyer, Dieter Helms, and Konrad Matschke, eds., Kurt Schwit ters: Typographie und Werbegestaltung, vol. 1, Typographie kann unter Umständen Kunst sein (Wiesbaden, Germany: Museum Wiesbaden, 1990). cr
Titles of works of art by Schwitters follow the English translations provided in the CR.
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(1) THE PROBLEM OF ABSTRACT ART. FIRST ATTEMPT Two unpublished notebooks in shorthand, “C. Das Problem der abstrakten Kunst. 1. Erster Versuch” (June– August 1910) with pages numbered 2– 18 and 24– [32] and “B. Das Problem der abstrakten Kunst. 2. Erster Versuch” (10 August 1910) with pages numbered 19– 23 and [38]– 43.
After Schwitters completed his first year as a student of painting at the Royal Saxon Academy of Art in Dresden, he began to draft a treatise on the relationship between color and music and the effect of both on the senses. Working between two notebooks, he began to assign consecutive page numbers once a structure for the text came into view; the translation follows this numbering. Where Schwitters inscribed the page number, it appears in square brackets; where it is implied, it appears in italics in brackets. Because he was ordering pages of a single study across various notebooks (see also texts 2– 4), he included question marks beside some of his later page numbers, suggesting his own uncertainty about where exactly they ultimately belonged in the sequence of his scattered notes and meditations. His annotations have been indicated as such in square brackets next to the text they modify. Throughout these notebooks, Schwitters provides extensive quotations from studies on painting and music theory; we have translated these quotations directly from the transcription of his manuscripts in consultation with the original sources, noting any significant discrepancies. On Schwitters’s idiosyncratic labeling of his student notebooks, see his prefatory statement (dated 1918) for text 5.
[2] introduction All art aims to please. To this end, it must use its own means without being too distracted by means alien to it. So what is more natural than for painting, which juxtaposes colored brushstrokes on a plane, to create an effect through the beautiful selection of colors and the beautiful distribution of these brushstrokes? But now let us look at paintings and ask ourselves if the best choice of colors and brushstrokes has been made in each instance. If we feel compelled to approve the choice of colors, then this is a mere coincidence, since painting did not pay any attention to this choice previously. It copied bodies more or less faithfully and by doing so tied itself down. This means that certain brushstrokes were not applied because they were
1
beautiful at a given spot but because the body in question needed them to be placed there. To avoid this unsatisfactory situation, painters stopped painting bodies. I call this abstract painting, because it is abstracted from physical bodies. I could also use the term pure painting or natural painting [Added in pencil: concentrated painting]. Speaking more generally, we could distinguish pure art from mixed art. Pure sculpture seeks the beauty of form alone, dispensing with the reproduction of bodies or the combination of objects (like commodities). Pure drawing seeks the beauty of lines, perhaps the distribution of color, but it dispenses with the reproduction of nature. Music is pure art when it is not mixed with poetry. [3] introduction [Marginal note: Aim: Incidentally, I do allow for a certain amount of impurity in the arts, just not in excess. However, every art will benefit from occupying itself with its own ideals every once in a while.] I do not want to discuss a special kind of art, but rather the nature of art in general, once we abstract everything that is alien to the nature of art. I will discuss painting in particular. Portrait and landscape painters especially, but also the great masters of composition, have all made concessions that pure art cannot condone. Above all, these concessions stem from the fact that these painters could not strictly execute their painterly idea because they were reproducing something that was superfluous, namely things. These things influence the person who is composing. Moreover, once the artist arbitrarily chooses a color when painting a head, he is forced to tune all the other color tones to it. This means that he is free only when choosing the first color tone. When choosing all the following ones, he must adhere to something distinct from the intrinsically artistic—he must adhere to the thing-concept [Dingbegriff ]. The same goes for drawing. What he expects is [4] a harmony of colors and color tones; but what he gets is a muddle of colors and things. [Marginal note: Study] I want to attempt to build a picture using elements other than things. Nature shall be my guide as well, but kept in check by my artistic sensibility. Instead of individual things, I will seek out individual artistic stimuli, and I will render the nature of these stimuli fully and completely, no more and no less. This is what I call a study. In the case of a composition, the available space also needs to be filled harmoniously. A study can follow nature, my sensation, a melody . . . [Marginal note: Composition] [Marginal note: The point is not to show how an artwork must be made, but rather how it can be constructed.] The aim here cannot be to define a specific style of art, for the number of artistic styles is infinite. [Added in pencil: Each artist has his style.] The objective here is simply to formulate rules that each art or a specific kind of art must follow if it is to create an effect solely through its manner of depiction. Rules that may suit a color harmony cannot be applied to a portrait.
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[5] [Marginal note: Examples] In nature, straight lines have a strong effect on us. In most cases they are vertical or horizontal. The trees in the forest are vertical. And strongly foreshortened, level surfaces are, for the most part, roughly horizontal. I have noticed that within this arrangement of lines, an oblique or even a broken line works well. [Marginal note: Quotation] “Art is nothing other than a product of nature. It is the product of spiritual life, and this itself is an appearance of nature, much like electricity, like light, indeed like life itself.” (Peschkau: Modern Problems, p. 8)1 [Marginal note: Quotation] “Music originated when our ancestors noticed that a certain succession of sounds produced pleasure and they attempted to create such a sequence artificially.” (Peschkau, 9) [Marginal note: Quotation] “The necessary condition for art is: the awakening of that singularly pleasurable feeling, that spiritual uplift that the true artwork calls forth.” (Peschkau, 11) [6] [Marginal note: Sections of the book] 1. Theories of Art in General. 2. Specific Observations = Examples for Abstract Problems. 3. On Abstract Art. The nature or the necessary condition of art consists of composition. All images that lack composition are technical works, regardless of whether they are well or poorly executed. [Marginal note: Quotation] “Art is not there to parrot reality. It is itself a world that we have created in order to free ourselves from the oppressive Other.” (Peschkau, 13) [Marginal note: Quotation] “The purpose of the work of art is rejuvenation, liberation, elevation, spiritual enjoyment.” (Peschkau, 13) [7] [Marginal note: For page 19— Quotation, Effect of Colors]2 “Transparency and whiteness have something noble and desirable in and of themselves.” (Goethe’s Color Theory, 9)3 I believe that these rules, deduced and detached as they are, can apply only to abstract works of art. [Marginal note: I do not want to deny the rights of any art that differs from abstract art. Introduction.] A great many things may contribute to the pleasurable feeling that a picture gives us: the interest in the object itself, memories evoked when we look at it, technical peculiarities, the spiritual content, and the purely artistic qualities. These last are what I want to address here. We can distinguish between two subcategories with regard to purely artistic qualities. [Marginal note: Compare to page 11] 1. With regard to the composition of a picture, 2. With regard to its details.
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In nature, it is always the details that please us, since we never see a closed totality; what we see is impossible to survey. [8] [Marginal note: Introduction] Compositionism [Kompositionismus] imitates a section from nature without taking into account the fact that when you paint within the limits of a picture, you encounter completely different rules than those found in nature. [Marginal note: Introduction, very important] “This being established, it follows necessarily that whatever else these arts may aim at must give way completely if incompatible with beauty, and, if compatible, must at least be secondary to it.” (Laokoon, page 15, II)4 [Marginal note: Introduction; specifically for the special subsection on abstract art.] Beauty alone does not define the nature of art; the nature of art lies in its ability to liberate. Art is particular, because the same thing does not liberate everyone. This is why you cannot set down universal rules. But with a degree of honesty you can set out rules that capture the nature of the kind of art that pleases you and other truly perceptive beings. [9] [Marginal note: Example] [Marginal note: a motif (a small accent)] One sunny day, I was walking along Brühl’s terrace, paying close attention to my surroundings.5 In quick succession, landscapes passed me by. They were always different, and they always seemed most beautiful when I focused on the section that included the large glass cupola of the cigarette factory where the sun produced a great, sparkling highlight. For a painter of this landscape, this highlight would have been the motif, and this highlight alone. [Marginal note: This would not be a motif, because this spot could not relate to any other. You would miss the 2nd spot. 12 August 1910.] This means that the motif would be a very small, bright spot in a hazy setting. [Marginal note: Example— Symmetry] In Tharandt I came across a large number of motifs by a pond.6 In my attempt to explain this striking event, it occurred to me that the eye takes pleasure in the symmetry produced by the reflection. My assumption was partly confirmed when the motifs did indeed disappear [10] when I covered the mirroring surface of the water with my hand. So the motif resulted from an impression that appeared twice in a slightly altered form. [Marginal note: Example] [Marginal note: The sense of beauty in repetition] The mind’s desire to regain an impression it had once perceived asserted itself still more strikingly in front of a florist’s shop window. There the decoration consisted exclusively of myrtle shrubs wrapped individually in paper frills. The effect was quite exquisite, on account of the repetition of the similar shapes. A second window, where flowers and colors of all possible kinds were on display, made an entirely inartistic impression overall.
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Because of the way people are organized, the familiar and uniform leaves hardly any impression, while the new and intriguing leaves a deep impression. [because progress and change is the nature of the entire world.] A person encountering art reacts the same way. What captures his interest most in a picture are the contrasts, the intriguing passages. [11] [Marginal note: Example] From this it follows that the most beautiful picture would be the one with the most and the greatest contrasts. However, we must also take into account the desire for harmony that results from the repetition of a given detail. To gain clarity on this matter, we must distinguish between two main categories with regard to painterly technique, [Marginal note: Compare to page 7] 1. as regards to the composition, 2. as regards to execution. Composition is the main thing. The composition must be harmonious. Where the composition is harmonious, the most beautiful image is the one with the most delicate execution. [Marginal note: Example] [Marginal note: a) general rules] A beautiful picture is always painted in a single color key, much like a piece of music is written in a single key. That is, every color contains some of the color that gives character to the entire picture. When a painter paints a red roof, a white wall, a blue sky, a green field, and a yellow flower in sunshine, he must infuse each color with some of the yellowish tone of the [12] sunlight to achieve the harmonious effect of nature and accuracy. This is valid only for light, however. In the shadows and for color tones not lit by sunlight, the artist must include the complementary color, in this case, purple. That is because the dominant color forces all the colors not in sunlight into a complementary coloration. [Marginal note: On color keys (major and minor)] I return to my claim that each picture must be written in a single color key, and I add that this key can— even must— alternate with the complementary color key in order to have an effect. It is also possible for many color keys to be intertwined with other complementary colors where there are many different sources of light, as in naturalistic painting. However, in that case, a single color key and its shadow color must prevail to achieve a unified expression. We encounter very similar circumstances in music. Both color and tone in music are based on vibrations. [13] Just as with musical tones, the difference between colors is due to the frequency of these vibrations. Hence, I assert that color and tone are related to each other. Colors span just one octave. This octave contains all nuances. Now if I add a hint of one specific color to all the individual colors— that is, if I make that the dominant color for all the colors— I have the same behavior [Added in pencil: ?] as for a key in music. Here, every note on the scale proceeds from the tonic note [Grundton]. I would even venture so far as to establish the difference between major and minor keys for painting; it is simply the difference between light and shadow, between color and complementary color. [Marginal note:
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(Major and Minor)] [Marginal note: (Pitch = Color)] This is because the suffering in the minor key emanates from the same tonic as the happiness that pervades the major key, and light always has a pleasing character in contrast to the somber melancholia of shadow. I am not placing great stock in such [14] distinctions; I am only asking that you permit me to speak of major and minor in order to have a terminology. With these new terms, I am able to express concisely the phrase from which my reflections initially proceeded: A picture must be painted in a dominant major key, which alternates with its matching minor key. It can switch to another major key in places, where, in turn, it alternates with its matching minor key. The same rules are valid for abstract painting as for concrete painting. As we discuss the relationships between music and painting, we must always consider that space in painting corresponds to time in music. If we take this into account, it is easy to understand that a chord in music is the same as a mixed tone in painting. A chord [15] consists of different notes struck at the same time, while a mixed color consists of different colors in the same spot. A short note is a small patch of color, while a long, extended note corresponds to a large patch of color. This is tempo. Melody depends on alternating pitch. Painterly impression depends on alternating colors. You can render a color light and dark, which corresponds to the difference between loud and quiet in music. The tonal volume corresponds to color intensity. When you shine a monochrome light through a translucent object, the light that emerges vibrates with the same frequency but with less strength (brightness). Hence, light and dark depend on the strength of the color. Loud and quiet depend on the strength of the tone. [16] What would be comparable to rhythm in music? Rhythm is symmetry. But painting does not require symmetry to the extent that music requires rhythm. In nature, reflection causes symmetry. Tempo depends on the size of the brushstrokes. A slow, measured tempo corresponds to brushstrokes that are quite large. Allegro corresponds to small brushstrokes. A picture with large, broad strokes gives the impression of [17] descending into a contemplative mood, just like a slow tempo. A quick tempo excites, confuses the senses just like a picture with many small strokes. [Marginal note: Introduction] In addition to the elements already mentioned, painting, insofar as it is concrete, also includes elements that are missing from music, such as perspective, form, and conceptual content. But these are precisely the elements that are completely absent in abstract painting. Abstract painting is effectively music for the eye; it also serves the purpose of creating sensations and it has the same rules.
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[Marginal note: Introduction, on concrete painting] I am not arguing against painting that depicts objects, for instance. I am merely against the kind of painting that cannot let go of objects and that places its main focus on depicting objects as faithfully as possible. This is handicraft, not art. That said, I will consider any painting that employs objects to be serious if it subordinates those objects [18] to composition. [Marginal note: Introduction] You can fortify the sensation of beauty produced by beautiful color combinations by using forms as a basis for colors. Of course, painting that uses objects to express something, that seeks to have a painterly or allegorical effect, is utterly reprehensible. Beauty must always be the highest law, and it is wrong to restrict beauty in favor of a thing-concept. [19] Contrasts necessary (Goethe’s quotation from page 7) Naumann, Colors, page 133: “A quiet, heavy red, deep and good.”7 “All around there is nothing but this red. Green flecks enter, but quietly, because otherwise the internal eye could not endure this red.”8 “This red seemed to me to be the primary color of my life, perhaps because the human interior is nearly completely red.”9 “The color blue is freer than the color red. It is not the color of man, it is only in our eyes.” “Blue is like a clear trumpet call.”10 Regarding blue: “It was as if someone were comforting us or singing to himself and we were listening in.”11 “Every human being hungers for certain colors.” The city dweller seeks out green.12 “Taste is only another expression for necessity.”13 [20] Every person needs all colors, but he has just one favorite color; it is the color he has seen most since his youth, the color to which his predecessors became acclimatized.
n au m a n n : The Harmony of the Colors, page 136 “It is far easier to discuss the names of tones than of colors, as there are fewer tones than colors, and because we have learned to describe tones using musical notation.”14 In painting, all tones exist within a single octave, although the scale distinguishes a greater numbers of gradations.
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Path toward musical notation in painting: In painting, D would be the result of mixing E with C. When we mix red with yellow we get orange. When we mix a color with wavelength x with one of x + 4, we will arrive at [21] 2x + 4 / 2 = x + 2. This is how the tonal scale of painting develops. We have to assume that the scale is fixed. All tones on the scale are homogeneous colors. Combining naked tones from the scale produces a chord, like in music. In music you must combine these tones into a simultaneous moment; in painting you must combine them on the same spot. Just as in music, there are beautiful chords, and there are dissonant chords. We refer to the chords as pure colors and to the dissonant chords as muddied colors. Naked colors are those that do not break into separate components when refracted. A newly laid gravel path, a guard’s hut laid with bricks, a frosty heath, a gloomy spruce forest.15 “It was quite obviously a chord in red, but beyond this all attempts to define it failed. The spruce forest, which we certainly can describe as dark green, undoubtedly contained some concealed red (burnt Terra di Siena?). The [22] eye sensed this hidden red because it had been tuned to red by its surroundings. In a different environment, the same forest could have appeared part of a bluish harmony. (C and E are part of a C-major chord and an A-minor chord.)16 The hidden red of the forest was related to the red of the gravel path. In other circumstances, this gravel path can be part of a harmony in yellow. The related red tones of the forest and the gravel path stood in semi-hostility to the red of the guard’s hut (more tuned to carmine). It is precisely such semi-hostilities between colors that are interesting. Depending on the circumstances, they can completely destroy the overall impression or enliven a situation tremendously, as when a color appears that has a good, steady relationship with its two counterparts. In this case it was the color of the heath. Though the color itself was unclear (a kind of Van Dyke brown?), it was precisely this lack of clarity that sustained the [23] connection between right and left, top and bottom. This, evidently, was a very elemental color structure, and this basic structure had the benefit of being surrounded by basic secondary relationships. The blue in the spruce forest somehow complemented the yellow in the gravel path, and the faded green that combined with the red-brown in the heath likely belonged to a family that somehow descended from this blue and this yellow. At the same time, it is not impossible that the guard’s hut, the heath, the forest, and the gray sky shared a blue friendship, one that was slight and difficult to discern.”17 “But color is everything. No: Color and form.” Naumann, p. 142.18 [24] 24 27 30 32 36 40 45 48 Consonance
Dissonance
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The harmony between two notes increases as the number expressing the ratio of their frequency decreases, that is, the more often the vibration of one note coincides with the vibration of the other in the same phase. 1
9/8
5/4
4/3
3/2
5/3
15/8
2
9/8
10/9
16/15
9/8
10/9
9/8
16/15
Standard Pitch 435 vibrations19 Lowest tone 14, highest tone 40 000 E 41 ¼ vibrations d 4752 vibrations. These are the tones that can be expressed musically. Different colors are the result of the higher or lower frequency at which molecules vibrate in a body. Violet light has the highest, red the lowest wave frequency. [25] [Marginal note: Octave difference] Violet Red
800 000 000 000 000 (highest refraction rate) 400 000 000 000 000 (lowest refraction rate)
(450?) Highest tone 40 000 Lowest tone 14 Huygens’s wave hypothesis20 Violet Red
(chemical rays) (thermal rays)
greatest refraction least refraction
Following the analogy with the 7 tones in music, Newton distinguished 7 main colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. [Marginal note: magenta?] Furthermore, in a completely dark room where the main colors have been extinguished, Helmholtz was still able to detect rays beyond the red spectrum as a brown-red light and rays beyond the violet spectrum as a lavender-gray light. [26] e 132 ¯e 264 ¯a 435 (440?) [Marginal note: Basic and Mixed Colors.] The sensation of a specific color can be formed in one of two ways: either it is the effect of a single, specific type of ray, or it
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is the conjoined effect of many different-colored rays. Unmixed and mixed colors, which convey virtually the same sensation to the eye. Distinguished by the prism. Unmixed colors seen through the prism remain unchanged (Koppe, page 213).21 [Marginal note: Prismatic yellow mixed with a prismatic blue makes white. (Koppe 213)] The color sensations achieved by combining two colors from the prismatic color spectrum differ significantly from the colors produced by mixing the respective color pigments. (Koppe 213) [27] The three prismatic colors, red, green, and violet, produce white, just as indigo and yellow (prismatic) (according to Helmholtz) (Koppe, 213) It is the harmony of form and content that establishes the significance of the artwork. This is Menzel’s rediscovered law of beauty. (Modern Painting in Germany by Alfred Köppen— page 25)22 I think reflecting on abstract art is a very good thing; but it should not determine art. Nature, not rumination, must always be the guide. Surrounded as I am by landscapes, I let these pastoral impulses affect me. I keep the essential aspects and compose an abstract painting from them. I was even inspired to make such a picture by a bouquet of thistles on a blue book. In any case, I am now completely and utterly rejecting the experimental manner. Willingshausen, 13 June 192023 [28] From letter 118 to Helma I was drawing on a white sheet of paper in the sunlight. When I looked up, a red sheen had spread over everything. When I closed my eyes, I saw a bright green spot. From letter 118 to Helma In Laatzen we encountered a dark tree set off against a bright surrounding atmosphere.24 When I looked at it with my eyes wide open, it had a blue border, and with narrowed eyes, the border turned orange. Today I saw a tree and in its border I could discern, moving from inside out, violet, blue, green, yellow, orange. Refraction of light. I think that the border surrounding any dark shape seen against a bright background will contain the colors of the rainbow in reverse order. This appearance at the border is actually there; the eye does not produce it. The fact that the eye generally sees [29] a monochrome light can be explained as the result of the surroundings reinforcing certain rays and absorbing others. Because the rainbow contains the potential for all colors, the border around a dark object can have any color; it all depends on the surroundings. From a letter to Helma (Harzburg, 20 August 1910) You claim that one person sees red where another sees violet. This is as wrong as claiming that one person sees 2 cherries where another sees 4. Because where one person perceives 400 000 000 000 000 vibrations, another cannot perceive 800 trillion vibrations.
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X
X
X
This is why I simply fail to see how my theory of the juxtaposition of colors and the succession of tones can be overturned. The great distance between color and tone makes it impossible to confuse the two. Color is always tied to space (there is no color that is independent of a body) and it is independent of time. To the eye, everything [30] appears as if it were juxtaposed in space. Tone exists independent of space; it is momentary, temporal; and the ear perceives it as a link within an eternal succession. X
X
X
Time and space should not be confused in pure painting. However, when interpreting the relationship between music and painting, you must always insert the spatial concept for the temporal one. This is the only dissimilarity between the two arts. [31 and 32] To achieve complementary colors: [Schwitters includes a schematic drawing of a triangular prism refracting light in two directions, leading to the words red and green, with the following note:] A small triangle needs to be inserted here. This will successively produce all the complementary colors. [38] (Psychology) Perceptual tone = tone of sensation = sensuous feeling (page 41) Pleasant = promoting corporeal life Unpleasant = inhibiting " " Bodily perceptions have a strong emphasis, sensory perceptions a weak emphasis. Sight and sound have the least emphasis. physiological tone
––––– –––––
psychological sound
A tone results from a primary note reverberating in conjunction with the overtones. Timbre depends on the number of tones. The visual sense is sensitive to light and color. red blue gray
––––– ––––– –––––
cheerful calming cold
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[39] Example 10 August 1910 Our house in Harzburg faces a deciduous forest.25 In the summer it has beautiful leaves, and among the tree trunks the fallen leaves show reddish brown. One evening, the setting sun pervaded the forest with a red light. The red light intensified the color of the brown leaves to a light reddish brown and muted the green of the trees to a grayish green. This is how all light works in nature. A light that intensifies one color diminishes its complementary color at the same time. From this I derive the rule: Where one color is very vivid, its complementary color must be dull to achieve harmony. The more vivid a color is, the less vivid its complementary color must be. Example 10 August 1910 Art always proceeds from the depiction of beautiful relationships. This is why a balanced artwork must always render everything multiple times, at least twice. Because anything that is only given once will look in vain for something it can relate to. I am only speaking [40?] of purely artistic values here, not of things. In a painting, every color must appear multiple times, either with the same tonal value or in variations. In any composition, a bright mark must be placed in relation to another one, whether brighter or darker, larger or smaller, or even to numerous marks. [Marginal note: Introduction] 10 August 1910 At first, art tried to reproduce objects as precisely as possible. Compositionism sought to stimulate the effect of objects as precisely as possible. Pure painting solely captures the nature of the effect. [41] [Schwitters completely crossed out his notes on this page; no transcription exists.] [42?] Continued from 2nd attempt, page 56, 8.26 “We frequently encounter the unity of a special musical structure [Gestaltung] in the consonant chords, in the specific character of its key, in the determination of a meter, a rhythm, in the recurrence of rhythmic-melodic motifs, or in the formation and repetition of fully developed themes. The contrast-conflict in harmonic exchange; dissonance, modulation; the change between different rhythms and motifs; the opposition in character of the opposing themes. The contrast must be sublated into a higher unity; the conflict must be resolved; that is to say, the succession of chords must determine the key; the modulation must revolve around the principal tone and return to it; the dissonance must resolve itself. The themes must reemerge from the turmoil of the parts of the performance, etc. Thus the rules for specific musical structures must be derived from the rules of a general aesthetics.[”] [“]The contrasting effects are based on opposition, not on heterogeneity.[”]
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[43?] [“]These handbooks on composition can be recommended: Reicha, Traité de haute comp. musicale (Paris 1824– 26);27 Marx, “Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition” (Leipzig 37– 41), newly revised by Riemann 87.28— Sechter, Grundsätze der musikalischen Komposition (Leipzig 53– 54)29— Lobe, Lehrbuch der musikalischen Komposition (Leipzig 58– 67, revised by Kretzschmar 84 and 87);30 Riemann, Katechismus der Kompositionslehre (Leipzig 89).[”]31 When discussing a painting, it is best to address physical appearances first, then physiological, then psychological, then aesthetic. Optics, Physiology, Psychology, Aesthetics.
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(2) PROBLEM OF PURE PAINTING. 2ND ATTEMPT. 1. BEGINNING Unpublished notes in shorthand, “Problem der reinen Malerei. 2ter Versuch. 1. Anfang” (before December 1910).
the visual organ Every nervous system is made up of two kinds of small elements, nerve cells = ganglion cells and nerve fibers (2 kinds), the branching dendrites and the axons that run along straighter axes. A nerve cell, with its two different types of fibers, is an anatomical or physical unit called a neuron. The transmission of an impulse from one neuron to the next occurs when the impulse passes from the first ganglion cell through its axis-cylinder prolongation to the dendrites of the second and then, from there, to the ganglion cell itself.
14
(3) MATERIALS FOR MY WORK ON THE PROBLEM OF PURE PAINTING. 3RD ATTEMPT Unpublished notes in shorthand, “Materialien zu meinem Werk über das Problem der reinen Malerei / 3. Versuch” (Dresden, 2 November 1910).
Hirth: Physiology of Art, page 2: The physiology of art is a “highly complex interaction of sensations, attention, memory, fantasy, reason, and reproductive skill.”1 For me, what is purely artistic is the ability to depict or envision in the most pleasant way something that has been imagined. Somebody may reproduce something absolutely correctly without actually creating a work of art. By purely artistic, I mean the ability to distribute your resources well. The artist must pursue his intention artistically and be able to realize what he wants.
(1) on abstract painting There are many resources that contribute to the pleasure we take in a picture: In terms of what is depicted: 1. Memories recalled by the image (the content of the image) 2. The interest in the object 3. The ideational content In terms of the manner of depiction: 4. Technical qualities 5. Purely artistic values a ) through line b ) through chiaroscuro c ) through color or a ) in structure b ) in the execution Because art only aims to please, all these resources have their legitimacy. Personal taste dictates which of them you will prefer. However, you would be mistaken if
15
you were to conclude from this that an artwork that uses all these resources to create an effect is better than one that restricts itself to only a few of these resources. Because every resource that draws attention to itself obstructs the attention being drawn to the other resources, which, in turn, become superfluous. And art should avoid what is superfluous.
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(4) 2ND BEGINNING TO THE PROBLEM OF PURE PAINTING. 2ND ATTEMPT Unpublished notebook in shorthand, “D. 2ter Anfang zu das Problem der reinen Malerei. 2ter Versuch” (December 1910– January 1911). On the translation of Schwitters’s quotations from published books, see introduction to text 1.
This notebook consists of three distinct sections, separated by blank pages in the original manuscript and marked accordingly. In the first, Schwitters responds to a portfolio of work by Katharine Schäffner (1864– ?), published as a set of tipped plates together with an essay by Ferdinand Avenarius, Eine neue Sprache? Zweiundvierzig Zeichnungen von Katharine Schäffner [A new language? Twenty-four drawings by Katharine Schäffner] (Munich: G. D. W. Callwey im Kunstwartverlage, [1908]), n.p. (Avenarius republished this essay as “Eine neue Sprache? Zu den Zeichnungen Katharine Schäffners” in the journal he founded and edited, Der Kunstwart 21, no. 22 [August 1908]: 185– 93.) Schwitters goes on to comment on another portfolio of Schäffner’s drawings, Sechs Zeichnungen in dekorativem Stil [Six drawings in the decorative style] (Munich: G. D. W. Callwey, [1910]), and refers to an exhibition of her work on view at the Galerie Arnold in Dresden in December 1910. Schäffner studied at the Berlin and Munich Art Academies, returning to Prague to study with Hermina Laukotová (1853– 1931). In her graphic works, she developed an early approach to abstract art based on ornamental decorative motifs. The second section of this notebook contains Schwitters’s notes on the physiology of vision based on his reading of Georg Hirth, Aufgaben der Kunstphysiologie [The task of the physiology of art], vol. 1 (Munich: G. Hirth’s Kunstverlag, 1891); see text 3. In the third section, he continues this line of thought and returns to Avenarius’s essay on Schäffner in fragmentary reflections about abstract art with an unknown interlocutor.
Katharine Schäffner The abstract drawings of Katharine Schäffner that I appreciate the most are those where she has largely or even entirely freed herself from any imitation of nature. These include such works as Hymn, Mystery, and Repose. All her other 17
1 Katharine Schäffner, Die Hymne (Hymn), ca. 1908. Reproduced on the cover of Ferdinand Avenarius, Eine neue Sprache? Zweiundvierzig Zeichnungen von Katharine Schäffner (Munich: G. D. W. Callwey im Kunstwartverlage, [1908]).
works stop midway, as in Passion, which seems to be some kind of a wood-turned figurine, or Silent Forest, which still strongly recalls a forest. In my own abstract painting I am on the verge of leaving behind all corporeality, for the goal is to elicit a visual pleasure, avoiding anything that can distract from great beauty, including the thing-concept [Dingbegriff ]. My claim that corporeality is distracting in Katharine Schäffner’s work may sound strange, especially since she is specifically trying to use bodies to clarify “feelings.” However, the contradiction of my claim disappears once you take into account that art must create beauty above all else and must seek beauty in its innermost being. While it is the task of pure poetry to arouse beautiful feelings, painting should produce a visual pleasure with its own specific means: color, light, and line. But the thing-concept does not so much foster as destroy such visual pleasure. So enough with the thing-concept and all memories of it. Here I want to mention the other thing I have against Katharine Schäffner: abstract art should not seek to evoke feelings, least of all clearly delimited ones. A direct comparison with music immediately demonstrates the accuracy of my claim. Music, in its highest form, does not aim to evoke specific feelings. Rather, its sole aim is to have a pleasurable effect on our sense of hearing. Its creations are called Sonata or Symphony, not Passion or Repose. Sonatas produce feelings too, but they do so
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through the ear. Abstract paintings also produce feelings, but they must attempt to do so through the eye. However, Schäffner’s drawings evoke feelings mediated by the mind and are therefore not as warm as they would have been had the mind not been involved. Those works of Katharine Schäffner that do not seek to evoke but instead characterize feelings, such as “The Artist” or “A Great, Fat Folly,” I consider to be caricatures, not abstract art. Please take my criticism as kindly as possible. Katharine Schäffner has achieved what she set out to do; that is, to convey feelings and characters through drawing, and she took a big risk, standing out first and on her own with abstract drawings that are already very significant. Because the field of abstract art continues to be very problematic, such mistakes can occur without the significance of the works being fundamentally affected. But once such mistakes are recognized, they must be avoided if abstract art is ever to come into full bloom.
Quotations from Avenarius “Until we see how even the landscape dissolves in her work— not into decorative elements, but into expressive ones.”1 “She does not aspire to anything apart from the transference of a spiritual state through a visual impression.”2 “By far the greatest number of Katharine Schäffner’s larger drawings are of this sort: a landscape-like background, seen in an utterly general and dreamlike way, is combined with ‘symbols,’ that is to say, with vehicles of associations (flames, waves, clouds, eyes, swords, thorns, wheels, tears, wreaths, microscopic cell structures, among others) or with sensations of movement, which are no longer linked to bodies but only to lines, and with the characteristic sensations that the interaction of light and shade stimulates within us.”3
Katharine Schäffner: 11 December 1910 Galerie Arnold4
“6 drawings in the decorative style.” Cover Sheet: The circle-like lines are slightly distracting in this arrangement of marks. This makes the bright spots in the upper section forge together, which has a disagreeable effect. Title Sheet: Pleasant rhythm. Great sense for composition.
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Sheet with vase-like form with arabesques: Lacks unity because of the rendering of the cone-structure. Altogether too corporeal. Sheet with cliffs and earth-cold sun: (Death?) Sublime in mood, but not abstract art. Sheet with the rolling sphere: Powerful atmosphere. Genius. Uncanny, but not abstract art. Too much landscape. Sheet with the large curving wave: Excellently composed. But unfortunately too corporeal. Not abstract art. The basic difference between Katharine Schäffner and me is that Katharine Schäffner seeks expressive forms, whereas I seek beauty. ∙∙∙
Illumination by the sun is about 800 000 times stronger than the brightest illumination of the full moon (cf. Hirth, page 172).5 The Weber-Fechner Law6 applied to painting according to Hirth, page 175: “Within a very wide range, the differences in luminous intensity are equally distinct or appear equally great to sensory perception if they make up the same fraction of the compared luminous intensities in their entirety.” (100 : 50 : 10 = 10 : 5 : 1) Pupils can vary in diameter from 1½ mm to 5 mm. Subjectively, this can increase the intake of light by a factor of 15 to 20. The eye has the greatest sensitivity for weak shadows in blue and the least sensitivity for those in red (according to Helmholtz). The eye senses differences of 1/205 to 1/268 in blue, it registers a difference of 1/16 in red, and with the gradation of color it notices differences from 1/50 to 1/70 over longer observation. For a blue and a red that seem equally bright under medium lighting, the blue will seem brighter in softer light, whereas the red will seem brighter with the increased light. Strong light (sunlight) has a simplifying effect by making our visual organ insensitive to small differences. Of course, weak lighting also has a simplifying effect.
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[Marginal note: Subjective appearances] “As much as we experience the intensification of total illumination in nature according to its absolute value, so too do complementary energies strongly affect us whenever and wherever they exist . . .” (Hirth page 180). “. . . the relevant appearances here are . . . the contrast at the delimiting contour [Grenzkontrast] (Hirth calls this induction) and the so-called colorful shadow. These differ from ‘successive’ contrast, from negative afterimages, only in that they come about when they are placed simultaneously side-by-side, respectively one above the other.”7 Induction has the greatest effect on neutrally colored surfaces, light or dark. “When the complementary color falls in the vicinity of a given color, its complementary energy is amplified to the degree that the surface area and the intensity of the inducing color relates to the induced energy.” Hirth, page 181. Hirth, page 189: “In addition to objective and subjective light, the painter and draftsman must also include other elements in his equation: These are the effects of embodied sight. Whereas simplification better characterizes the former, the latter is mainly and nearly exclusively achieved by strengthening the light energies, by displacements and exaggerations.” According to Hirth (page 196), the reason why black and white balance out the disharmonies among colors so well is because they contain all the colors. ∙∙∙
What is appealing about a sketch-like technique is the cooperation of the inner eye. Hirth thinks that seeing with two eyes means that the inner eye physiologically combines two separate images into one. This is what produces the luster of nature, he argues. The impression of a sketch must be related to this process. (Dresden, 15 January 1911) (From a conversation with Lange,8 28 December 1910) With abstract art it is not a matter of exhausting an expression as much as possible, but of rendering the expression as beautifully as possible. (See the following page, below)9 (From Avenarius’s Introduction to Schäffner:) Color, light, and line mediate the reproduction of reality . . . and they do so in two ways: By stimulating the visual sense to experience pleasure or displeasure, for instance, through “beautiful” or “ugly” colors, or by creating empathic connections, as when we identify with the movement evoked by [drawn] lines, for example.10
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Art is a mental activity that enlists different resources to produce a pleasing effect on the mind. (From Letter 5 to Lange) Abstract art inscribes a sublime sensation (phonographic) legible to anyone, whereas ornamental art is an exclusively sensual pleasure. (From Letter 5 to Lange) (From Letter 7 to Lange, dated 29 December 1910) Of course, abstract painting is a visual pleasure. But it nevertheless conveys feelings. To understand this, some kind of apperception is needed. First off, there is an optical process, for instance the glowing of the gas in a flame and the emission of light rays from this flame; then there is a physiological process, the agitation of the sensory nerves in the eyes by way of the light rays; and, finally, a psychological process, the entrance of the perception of light into consciousness. The optical process of an abstract painting consists in the radiation of light rays of different colors and different brightness. The physiological process consists in a pleasant effect that these rays have on the eye, in a visual pleasure. The psychological process consists in the stimulation of feeling. (Compare to the previous page.)
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(5) ABSTRACT PAINTING. 1918. A. Unpublished notebook in shorthand, “Abstrakte Malerei. 1918. A.” (28 February 1918).
I am using my earlier notes and will name the available books A, B, C, etc., using these letters randomly in the order the notes come to hand. This book I will call book A.
Index
1. the effect of colors The Effect of Colors Red— has an exciting quality. When heightening the mood, it can appear radiant and joyful; when used for contrast, screaming, agonizing. Light red is the color of life. Blue— has a calming, affectionate, celebratory and sublime, comforting quality. Blue can also be light and indifferent. Yellow— is cold, rational, poisonous, frightening. Dark Red— is calm, good, ceremonial. Light Yellow— has a jubilant, exultant, elementary quality. Purple— has a calm, placating, wistful, sad, or sentimental effect. Black— is earnest, monumental, oppressive, deadly. Green— has an affectionate effect, like healthy life. Gray— has an indifferent effect. Harmony between two complementary colors can be achieved when a third color is added that is related to both. For instance: green and red with the addition of purple or with the addition of reddish-yellow. Where one color has a strong presence, its complementary color must be matte in order to maintain the harmony. The red light at dusk makes the red of the house appear even redder, while it makes the green of the forest grayer.
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(6) MERZ-PAINTING “Die Merzmalerei,” Der Zweemann: Monatsblätter für Dichtung und Kunst 1, no. 1 (November 1919): 18. Reprinted in Christof Spengemann, “Kurt Schwitters,” Der Cicerone 11, no. 18 (1919): 580, 582. First published without the final paragraph in Der Sturm 10, no. 4 (July 1919): 61.
Schwitters wrote this text on the occasion of his first exhibition of work in collage and assemblage at the Galerie Der Sturm in July 1919.
Merz-paintings are abstract artworks. The word “Merz” refers, essentially, to the embrace of all conceivable materials for artistic purposes and, technically, to the equal evaluation [Wertung] of individual materials as a matter of principle. So Merzpainting avails itself not only of paint and canvas, brush and palette, but of all materials visible to the eye and of all necessary tools. It is irrelevant whether the materials used for Merz-painting were once made for a specific purpose or not. The wheel of a baby stroller, wire netting, a piece of string, and cotton wool are all elements that are equal to paint. The artist creates by selecting, distributing, and de-forming [Entformung] materials. The distribution of materials on the picture plane can already achieve this deformation [Entformeln]. This process is further supported by segmenting, folding, covering up, or overpainting. Merz-painting turns the lid of a box, a playing card, or a newspaper clipping into a plane; a length of string, a brushstroke, or a pencil mark into a line; wire mesh, a layer of paint, or a pasted sandwich wrapper into a coat of varnish; cotton wool into soft scumbling. Merz-painting strives for expressive immediacy by shortening the path from intuition to the visible realization of the artwork. These words should facilitate an understanding of my work for anyone who is truly willing to follow me. Too many will not wish to do so. They will encounter my most recent work in the way they always do when faced with the new: with outrage and howls of derision.
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(7) A SOLID ARTICLE: A WIENERIZATION IN STURM “Ein solider Artikel: Eine Anwienerung im Sturm,” Der Sturm 10, no. 5 (August 1919): 76– 77. Reprinted with the title, “Tran 1. Ein solider Artikel (Berlin soll nicht zur Ruhe kommen.) (Ein Zwiegespräch, Herrn Dr. Cohn- Wiener gewidmet.)” (Tran 1. A solid article [Berlin shall not come to rest.] [A conversation, dedicated to Dr. Cohn- Wiener.]) in the second and enlarged edition of Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1922), 46– 49.
This is Schwitters’s first retort to the negative criticism generated by his inaugural exhibition of Merz works at Der Sturm. He takes aim at a review by the art historian Ernst Cohn-Wiener, “Auch eine Kunstausstellung” (An art exhibition, too), published in the Neue Berliner Zeitung: Das 12.00 Uhr Blatt (1 August 1919). CohnWiener had penned an imaginary interview between Schwitters and a journalist, borrowing a device regularly used by Herwarth Walden, director of Der Sturm, in his replies to critics of his gallery. In his satirical review, Cohn-Wiener also paraphrased Schwitters’s own words from his statement “Merz-Painting” (text 6). Schwitters continues the interview here, appropriating Cohn-Wiener’s language (most notably his repetitive use of the word “solid”) and interjecting fragments lifted directly from his adversary’s text and from random newspaper advertisements. Many of his parenthetical asides are written in a flirtatious feminine voice, referring to Cohn-Wiener’s caricature of Der Sturm as a “young girl” at risk of turning into a “wallflower.” The word Anwienerung in the title can be read as a cross between the critic’s name and the word anwidern (to nauseate).
Doctor: Pardon me, but what does the word Merz mean? (De-merzing warns ides.)1 Me: It’s a new word, I chose it to name my new style. (Come, play with me.) Doctor: Where did you get the word? I would never believe myself capable of putting four letters together. Me: Overcome Merz difficulties. Merz named itself. (Automatic carbonic acid dry chemical extinguisher “Total.”) Can you read? (Here on the Merz-Picture.)2 Doctor: (Berlin Athletic Championships.) Read? Sometimes, if the word has a solid meaning. I love the word “solid.” (Berlin Wrestling Matches.) The word Merz, however, is not solid, it is pure chance. (Young girl, totally automatic.) (Also, I wonder if he is healthy?)
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Me: The word emerged from art’s strictly organic process of creation. (National Lap Swimming Festival.) The Solid Doctor: Why don’t you write the word yourself? After all, I write all my solid articles myself, too. (You could give me even more difficult tasks.) (I wonder if he loves me?) And yet I have no organic connection to art (simply because the prices could not be fixed). Me: Straight through Neukölln3 (Yellow doesn’t suit me). The Doctor: All I will say is: “Make art like so and like so and like so, and whoever doesn’t make art like so and like so and like so just does not express any feeling.” (The Ostmark4 is in grave danger.) Please excuse my many questions, but I am gathering scraps (colossal idiot), otherwise I would not know what to write. (Down with the pourquoi, up warum.)5 I prefer a solid scrap collection to a review. (A small, well-rested head.) (Blue mouse.) And once I solemnly frame these scraps, and once I solemnly frame these scraps (An incomprehensibly solid glue.), then then I need only write: “An Art Exhibition, Too” above it (Sweet and sour kitsch.),6 and I will have a solid article for the Neue Berliner newspaper. You see, I cannot manufacture boot polish (Nor can you.), I wouldn’t even know where to get a solid name for it. (Berlin Boxing Matches.) I cannot write reviews; the effect would be what an unusually respectable schoolmaster would make using unsuitable materials. (Thoroughbred.) This is why I write solid articles. (Stork pays well.) (We are in earnest.) You see, a review is a gamble. But I’m no friend of silver lead regattas. I risk solid articles. I curse wallflowers. (Read Der Sturm.) Do you live the journal Der Sturm? (Earthworm curses.) (What is most sacred is endangered.) (What is most sacred is endangered.) But otherwise, uncomfortable topic. (What is most sacred is endangered.) You know, you can write such marvelous articles about titles, solid articles. (Artifacts.) Where is the connection between your paintings and my articles? (The German Boxing Champion as dog butcher.) Where is the connection between your paintings and my articles? Me: Very much. Dear Sir, very much. Thou thee thee thine.7 I like you so much. (Be mine!) And yet I must pain you! The Doctor: Where are the connections? (Amorsäle.)8 Me: Very much. Connections are very difficult. I am so very. For your sake, very much. (Challenge Match Cohn-Wiener– Anna Blume, Starts 8 o’clock.) The title is a protective wall. (My sweetheart arrives tomorrow.) Solid schoolmasters cannot overlook it. (European Boxing Championship.) One critic, however, climbs the wall and sees what’s behind it. (Wallflower.) (I wonder if he knows how much I love him?) In front of the barrier is wind, behind the barrier is storm [Sturm]. (Modern settlement.) Hence, I would advise you, you should remain, you dear Doctor, dear Mr. Doctor, Dear dear Before before the Wall wall. (Anna Blume has a Bird bird.)9 (I wonder if I’m pleasing him like this?) Yours sincerely Kurt Schwitters Text 7
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(8) THE MERZ-THEATER / TO ALL THE THEATERS OF THE WORLD “Die Merzbühne” and “An alle Bühnen der Welt,” in Kurt Schwitters, Anna Blume: Dichtungen. Die Silbergäule 39/40 (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1919), 31 and 31– 35. Reprinted in the second and enlarged edition of Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1922), 70 and 71– 75.
“To All the Theaters of the World” includes a text Schwitters first published as “Erklärungen meiner Forderungen zur Merzbühne” (Statements on my demands for the Merz-theater) in Sturm-Bühne: Jahrbuch des Theaters der Expressionisten 8 (October 1919): 3. Here, as part of the collection of poems that made him a literary sensation, he expanded his demands for the Merz-theater and made a few minor alterations to the initial text (as noted). Stressing this shift in context, he also supplied a preface, “The Merz-Theater,” which he credited to the fictional character Alves Bäsenstiel. Alves (an anagram for “Salve,” or salvo) Bäsenstiel (homophone for the German word for “broomstick”) was the narrator and protagonist of the sadomasochistic political prose poem that Schwitters wrote shortly after the 1918 November Revolution, “Die Zwiebel” (The onion), which also appeared in Anna Blume: Dichtungen (pp. 16– 27) and contains several of the same references as “To All the Theaters of the World” (e.g., the singing of the “Internationale”). Bäsenstiel also featured in the first chapter of Schwitters’s unrealized novel Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling (Franz Müller’s wire springtime). This tale, “Ursachen und Beginn der großen glorreichen Revolution in Revon” (Causes and beginning of the great, glorious revolution in Revon), was an absurd narrative about collective hysteria that became one of his favorite works to recite publicly. Schwitters would later incorporate his demands for a Merz-theater once more into an ambitious statement about his life and art, “MERZ (Written for the Ararat, 19 December 1920),” published in January 1921 (text 26). As he recycled this text in these various contexts, he self-consciously tested the limits of genre and reception, relishing how the piece could function both as a serious theoretical statement and as a poetic, even musical soundscape with only a tenuous hold on literal meaning.
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The Merz-Theater I have, for a lack of Spiritus, reluctantly decided to circulate this “article.” As soon as there is sufficient Spiritus available again to produce the old, good feuilleton style, I will discontinue the Merz style, unless there is a subsequent demand for it. Dissatisfied readers will get their money back. In that case, please let me know why you were dissatisfied, to what extent you noticed a lack of success, how long and how frequently you read the article, and for what ailment. Furthermore, please return the used Silbergaul1 as a sample without resale value. Reimbursement for uncreased examples will likely follow Spiritus-Central2 to paste Weimar vice versa. Yours most respectfully, Alves Bäsenstiel
To All the Theaters of the World I demand the Merz-theater. I demand the complete embrace of all artistic forces to achieve the Gesamtkunstwerk. I demand the principled equality of all materials, the equality between fully realized human beings, idiot, whistling wire fence, and idea pump. I demand the complete cataloguing of all materials ranging from the dual-track welder to the three-quarter-size violin. I demand the most conscientious rape of technology to the point of the complete implementation of fused fusion. I demand the abstract utilization of critics3 and the indivisibility of all their essays on the changeability of the stage set and the inadequacies of human knowledge in general. I demand the Bismarck herring.4 Arrange immense surfaces, grasp their conceptual infinity, coat them in color, move them threateningly, and warp their smooth modesty.5 Snap and turbulate finite pieces and twist perforating bits of nothingness infinitely together. Paste over smoothing surfaces. Use wire to draw motion lines, actual movement climbs the actual rope of wire mesh. Cross flaming lines, creeping lines, surfacing lines. Let lines fight each other and caress each other with requited tenderness. Points should become stars in between, dance pirouettes, and manifest each other as lines. Bend the lines, crack and crinkle corners chokingly churn about a point. In a churning storm of waves, a line rushes by, made tangible with wire. Roll balls of swirling air making contact. Intersecting surfaces disjoin each other. Crates cant upward, straight and skewed and painted. Folding top hats sink cases strangle crates. Trace drawn lines draft varnishing a net. Nets envelop constricting Saint Anthony’s suffering. Let nets break in waves and dissolve as lines, contract as surfaces. Net the nets. Let veils fly, folds softly fall, let cotton wool drip and water spray. Shore up air soft and white with thousand-lumen arc lights. Then take wheels and axles, shore
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them up and let them sing (giant tree water course). Axles dance balls roll barrels mid-wheel. Cogwheels sense teeth, find a sewing machine that yawns. Turned up or bent double, the sewing machine beheads itself, feet up. Take a dentist’s drill, a meat grinder, a tram track scraper, omnibuses and automobiles, bicycles, tandems with their tires and their wartime spares, and deform them. Take lights and deform them in the most brutal way. Have locomotives crash into each other, have curtains and drapes dance the cobweb gossamer with the window-frame and shatter whimpering glass. Have steam boilers explode to produce the railway smoke. Gather up petticoats and other similar things, shoes and false hair, even ice skates, and throw them in the right place, where they belong, and of course always at the right time. If you like, take mantraps, automatic firing devices, infernal machines, fish-shaped pans in which you bake puddings (critics), and the funnel, everything in an artistically deformed state, of course.6 Tubes are highly recommended. In short, take everything from the propeller of the SS Imperator 7 to the hairnet of the noblewomen, always according to the proportions that the work demands.8 People can also be used. People can be tied to the stage sets. People can also appear onstage in an active role, even in their everyday guise, speak on two legs, even in rational sentences. Now start marrying these materials together. Join, e.g., the oilcloth and the housing development joint-stock company in matrimony, allow the lamp cleaner to have a relationship with the marriage of Anna Blume and concert pitch A. Feed the sphere to the plane and have a twenty-two-thousand-lumen arc light destroy a cracked corner. Have people walk on their hands and wear a hat on their feet, like Anna Blume. (Cataracts.) Foam will be sprayed. And now begins the ember of musical saturation. Organs behind the stage sing and say: “fütt, fütt.” The sewing machine rattles away ahead. A person in some stage set says: “bah.” Another suddenly appears and says: “I am stupid.” (Reproduction prohibited.) A clergyman kneels backward in between and calls and prays loudly: “O, merciful one, swarm scatter gaze Hallelujah boy oh boy married water drip.” A water pipe drips with unchecked monotony. Eight. Kettledrums and flutes flash death, and a tram conductor’s whistle shines brightly. A stream of ice-cold water runs into a pot off the back of the man on one of the stage sets. He accompanies it, singing C-sharp, D, D-sharp, E-flat, the entire “Internationale.”9 A gas flame has been lit under the pot to boil the water, and a melody of violins oscillates purely and with girlish tenderness. A veil bridges breadths. The center cooks embers deeply red. There is a faint rustling. Long sighs swell, violin, and expire. Light darkens stage, even the sewing machine goes dark.10 I demand uniformity in the shaping of space. I demand uniformity in the forming of time. I demand uniformity in questions of mating, in terms of deformation, copulation, intersection.
The Merz-Theater / To All the Theaters of the World
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This is the Merz-theater that our age requires. I demand that all the theaters of the world be revised according to the Merz-idea. I demand that all social ills be removed immediately. But above all I demand the immediate construction of an international experimental theater to develop the Merz-Gesamtkunstwerk. I demand that Merz-theaters be erected in every large city for the flawless presentation of performances of all kinds. (Children pay half price.)11
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(9) ARTISTS’ RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION “Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Künstler,” in Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1919), 36– 37. Reprinted as “Dada: Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Künstler” with additional text (as noted) in Der Bücherwurm 7/8 (1920): 240.
When this text was reprinted in the literary journal Der Bücherwurm, the editors added the following two paragraphs: From Kurt Schwitters, Anna Blume, Dichtungen. Paul Steegemann, Hannover, 3.00 [RM]. The pamphlet was issued as volume 39/40 of the collection “Die Silbergäule,” which also includes poems and essays by Edschmidt [sic], Flake, Carl Hauptmann, Heinrich Mann, Moreck, Heinrich Vogler, and others. Dadaism is a softening of the brain, a pronounced softening of the brain coupled with racketeering; Dadaists coolly, and with remarkably astute business sense, rearrange nonsense and behave in deliberately mindless and childish ways while charging exorbitant entrance fees; e.g., a Dadaist is someone who gets up onstage (seats including coat check and luxury tax cost 10 mark 65) and places a chamber pot on his head and toilet paper in his buttonhole while stammering: man — bottle — table drawer — stupid — — dada — dada, and so it’s a Dadaist. — Dadaist = intellectual impostor. Dadaists = people who unfortunately survived the war.
afterword HeavenworldsIronwhirls,RailroadStationandPaulSteegemann. And so I decided to publish this collection of my poems, amen. What does it mean to write poetry? 2 × 2 = 4, which is not yet a poem. (Syracuse, bread and butter, central heating as the crow flies.)1 It is very difficult to make poetic use of a statement. Stramm beat a thousand, even millions.2 (Cleansing salt is used to treat a wide range of stomach complaints.) Stramm beat a thousand, even millions.3 Stramm was the great poet. Sturm’s achievements in making Stramm known is very. Stramm’s service to poetry is very Abstract poetry. Abstract poetry evaluates values against values. You could also say “words against words.” 31
This makes no sense but it creates the sense of a world, and that is what matters. (The common soldier must show respect and deference to every officer.) Transference of the artist’s worldview. (Callus and corn ointments in a society at peace, war merchandise.) Total experience greens brain, but the shaping is what matters. Rhyme, rhythm, and ecstasy must never become mannered. (As darkness falls, these same will be completed at no extra cost, thus only a single edition.) This is what is meant by abstract poetry. Merz-poetry is abstract. It uses complete sentences taken from newspapers, billboards, catalogues, conversations, etc. as given parts, with and without alterations, in a manner analogous to Merz-painting. (That is dreadful.) These parts need not fit the meaning, as there is no meaning anymore. (That too is dreadful.) Nor are there any more elephants either, only parts of the poem. (That is terrible.) And you? (Sign up for war bonds!) Decide for yourself what is poem, what is frame. I owe a lot to Anna Blume. I owe even more to Der Sturm. Der Sturm was the first to publish my best poems and the first to exhibit my Merz-pictures as a collection. Greetings to Herwarth Walden! Kurt Schwitters The switch from the old, ungainly pince-nez to the new, elegant finger lorgnette, a facial adornment for everyone.4
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(10) THOU ME, I THEE, WE MINE (AND SUN INFINITY THIN OUT THE STARS) “Du meiner, ich deiner, wir mir (und Sonne Undendlichkeit lichten die Sterne),” Der Zweemann 1, no. 2 (December 1919): 20– 21.
Schwitters addresses Martin Frehsee, among his most conservative critics in the Hannover press. Frehsee was a prolific, middle-brow playwright and the feuilleton editor for the Hannoverscher Kurier, the city’s unofficial organ of the nationalliberal German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei, DVP). He vehemently attacked expressionist and Dadaist literature and frequently distinguished between “sick” and “healthy” art in nationalist terms. The title of Schwitters’s text consists of lines taken from his poems “An Anna Blume” and “Mordmaschine 43” (Murder machine 43). Shortly after “An Anna Blume” was published in the Kurier (11 November 1919), Frehsee singled it out as an especially sordid example of cultural decline, noting, with reference to the heroine’s “27 senses,” that it would take more than five to make any sense of modern poetry. Schwitters uses this barb to launch his own complex retort, and he responds to negative reviews of the work of his friends written by other critics for the paper, offering his own linguistic collage and poetry as a superior form of criticism.
open letter to mr. martin frehsee. Dear Sir! Let us assume you had 27 senses (I would gladly wish them on you) or even just a few more than 5 (as you seem to wish for yourself ), then maybe one of them would be a sense for art. Then perhaps you would also know that in art there is a form (it all depends on formation), and that artistic logic is different from rational logic. (Always assuming, you have.) Then perhaps it wouldn’t seem to you (O, Christmas Tree)1 as if you were (Cain, I love thine!)2 taking an artistic claim seriously. (Applause.) And if indeed one of those senses was a sense for art, which still may not necessarily be the case (Tante Tüschen),3 then perhaps you would (while I was still in a winged smock)4 not always be taken in by “reviews” that are not very intel33
ligent. (Feed the birds, especially Anna Blume’s bird).5 Then perhaps you would also have (a review is a gamble) a review in the Kurier (abandon all hope, ye who enter here) discussing works of art from an artistic point of view. Then perhaps you would reject articles that dismiss Max Burchartz,6 one of the most important artists of our time, with such empty phrases as “grotesque distortions” and “formal affectation.” (Rhinoceros without spectacles.) Then perhaps your reviews would touch on the essentials for once and speak about Max Burchartz’ deep feeling, his wealth of expressive resources, and his extraordinary powers of composition. (Textbook example.) But your talent has been led astray. (27 cents apiece.) You’d be better off reading Anna Blume! (32 cents apiece.) Turn back, there’s still time! (43 cents apiece.) If you had 27 senses (Kurier means runner), perhaps you wouldn’t have served a poem with 27 senses to your audience (“Woodcuts catch your eye in room 10”; Be careful! Eyes closed!), who, for the most part, don’t have 27 senses either, so that they could ridicule it. In general, the public only has one sense— nonsense. (Whose “yearning,” by contrast, isn’t as pleasing given how its facial expression lacks nobility.) Only a few people can give artistic form to their ridiculousness. (27 senses, I love thine!) Most people see their own ridiculousness in art and laugh. (Art is serious and life is cheerful.) After all, what use is a rubber shoe to me if it isn’t waterproof? Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.7 (In English: “Anna Blume back from her travels.”) And thou, thou most glorious of all, thou art from the back as from the front: “A– N– N– A.”8 (I wonder if he’s healthy?) Yours sincerely, Kurt Schwitters.
Text 10
34
p.s. I have just read the review in the Kurier of the Molzahn exhibition at Sturm.9 I tried to read the review “in good faith,” but it was really too funny. Imagine a “critic,” who was so eager “to seek understanding” and yet did “not find,” who only “vaguely felt” something at times, and whose “eye finally succumbed to fatigue before such incomprehensible color and futile searching.” Isn’t it terribly funny that this man writes reviews at all? Allow me this once to write about Johannes Molzahn:10 To Johannes Molzahn! Turning worlds thou. Thou turnest worlds. Thou subduest chirping Apyl to the waters the machine. World hurl space. Thou hurlest worlds space. Worlds turn the new machine to thee. To thee. Thou, thine the new machine space. And axles break eternity. The work, to which we, to ourselves heir, thou. Just this once I will even give you permission to reprint my poem to Johannes Molzahn, in return for fitting compensation. I am a businessman. (Would you mind mentioning this as well?) Perhaps it’s best if you reprint this entire review.
Thou Me, I Thee, We Mine
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(11) NOTHING KILLS QUICKER THAN RIDICULE “Nichts tötet schneller als Lächerlichkeit,” Der Sturm 10, no. 11 (February 1920): 157.
Felix Neumann was editor of the Berlin newspaper Die Post: Berliner neueste Nachrichten, where he published a critical review of Anna Blume: Dichtungen, “Aus dem Reiche der Dadaisten” [From the kingdom of the Dadaists] (6 January 1920). Schwitters takes hold of several of Neumann’s metaphors, most notably the critic’s description of Dada as a “hefty storm . . . that shakes the trees bearing the proud fruits of German poetry, music, drama” and his comparison between avant-garde artists and rats, who gnaw through the roots of these trees. Neumann believed that the storm would soon pass, however, since “nothing kills quicker than ridicule”— a phrase Schwitters turns into the leitmotif of his retort. Schwitters also reverses the charge of profiteering that Neumann had leveled against the publisher of Anna Blume: Dichtungen and ironizes the critic’s dismay at the booming market in cheap, commercialized literature.
Today let’s just “seize” on Mr. Felix Neumann. “Nothing kills quicker than ridicule,” he writes. But my dear sir, you are committing suicide! Didn’t you read your article in the Post from 6 January 1920? Pure suicide! (Nothing kills quicker than ridicule.) I quote, verbatim: “The outlines of all the elements have been blown way out of proportion.” Let’s just “seize” on this sentence, just for today. What were you thinking? (Female wrestling match with turbines.) So please, just show me the outlines of an element, or an outline blown way out of proportion. (Women aren’t clockwork mechanisms, after all!) Let’s just seize the next sentence: “Everything old and venerable that has been passed down to us has been consigned to the garbage heap.” So tell me, Mr. Neumann, are you also something venerable that has been passed down to us? In that case, we had better continue. So, you are playing “fast and loose,” as it were, with Anna Blume. (Hairdressing championships accompanied by salon music.) (He milked a bull.) You say I was gnawing at the roots of our strength with my thousands of like-minded accomplices. (A beautiful image.) But I presume you mean: your strength? No, a million times no, I am not gnawing; don’t be concerned. I am not a rat, and you are not a tree. I wouldn’t even know how to find the roots of your strength. Anyway, I would also gnaw away on my own, without thousands of rodent accomplices. But I’m no rodent. Rather, someone’s gnawing at me. Will you quit gnawing at me this instant, or I’ll make you 36
look ridiculous, yes indeed! And as you are well aware, that’s deadly. (At the age of twenty, the tail still stood erect; at thirty it already had a curve.) All I need to do is copy down what you yourself have written; that’ll suffice. I just need to take your own words and “cast them onto the book market.” I do not even need to drag you “into the Dadaist poet’s maw.” (And my teeth were so expensive.) You say that “filth in word and image will set the tone.”1 My dear sir, your kind of criticism will never set the tone; nothing kills quicker than ridicule. You think these murky appearances are only “passing.” To this I must object. Reviews such as yours exploit the currently favorable economic conditions and, in their thousands, “destroy” (filth in word and image) the remaining sensitivity of the German people and chip away at the tree of art. “But nothing kills quicker than ridicule.” And the tree of art is a snake (nice, no?) with a thousand heads on its foot, and once you gnaw one off, a thousand toes grow from each of the corns on its roots, and that’s bad for you. Just think, what would happen if the tree of art were a plum tree that had singled you out and dragged you before the judge’s bench (“and picked you apart in all your abject misery”) and made a mockery of you. (“And— made a mockery of you.”) My dear sir, I have to laugh; I can’t write with a straight face anymore. I am about to bite through the last remaining root. “Beware, or you’ll fall!” “But above all, I pity the German people, whom modern critics dare to present with such trifles.” It’s not worth getting into details. “No roof tile has e’er fallen from the clear blue sky.” Anyway, no offense!
Nothing Kills Quicker Than Ridicule
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(12) BERLINER BÖRSENKUKUKUNST “Berliner Börsenkukukunst,” Der Zweemann 1, no. 4 (February 1920): 13– 14.
Curt Glaser (1879– 1943) was an art historian, a curator, and, from 1924 to 1933, the director of the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin. As a staff writer for the feuilleton of the Berliner Börsen-Courier, he published a scathing review of Schwitters’s first Merz exhibition at Der Sturm (“Vom süßen und saueren Kitsch” [On sweet and sour kitsch], 20 July 1919) and was the first to charge the artist with being an epigone of Picasso. Here, Schwitters playfully picks up Glaser’s description of Merz as a “waxworks dump” and uses other terms from the review ironically (“young man,” “brass faucet”). He cross-cuts his attack on Glaser with a response to another article published in the Börsen-Courier (30 November 1919), a parodic report on Merz published by a certain “r. b.” This writer characterized himself as a “student of the inventor of Merz-painting” and a collage by Schwitters as a still-life made out of a woman’s half-slip (Unterrock). Along with these various motifs, Schwitters also appropriates lines from his own “Merz-Painting” (text 6).
The Berlin Börsenkukurier always writes such droll little articles about art. (Please pay close attention to the company while you shop.) In July, a certain Mr. Ku-Kurt Glaser wrote quite a kuku-comical article about my first survey exhibition of Merz-pictures at Sturm. There he (Abstract criticism.) persistently called me “the young man.” (The truck in other circumstances.) Old Mr. Kuku wrote something as follows: Kurt Glaser to his Master Glazier Dear Master Glazier! The gallery Der Sturm recently broke one of the bay windows in my front room because it wasn’t sufficiently caulked. Some children playing in the streets smashed another window to pieces the other day, apparently with a real brass faucet or a similar object. I immediately ran out into the street and shouted at the top of my lungs, but I could not catch the offender, a young man. Please see to it that at least the windowpanes are reset, since I find the fresh air unpleasant, even in July. Sincerely yours, Kurt Glaser
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Please compare this letter with the respective article to see whether my feelings have deceived me. (Contradictio in adjecto.) (Women’s underwear made to measure.) Ever since, the B. Bkukurier has delighted me 3– 4 times roughly every day with little articles, and it seems to have a real interest in the color of Anna Blume’s bird.1 (Petticoat made of Madapollam with embroidered lining and insert 22.50 M.) But I will only reveal the color of Anna Blume’s bird once the Berliner Börsenkuku reveals to me how seriously to take its little articles. (Ladies’ pantaloons with decorative cloth border and hemstitch 25.00 M, Ladies’ pantaloons with embroidered lining and insert 27.00 M) The ladies’ underwear are dedicated to Mr. r. d. delicatissime in return for his delicious article on half-slips. (I would choose the second set of pantaloons; for a couple of extra marks they really are much nicer.) By the way, Mr. Kuku-r. d., you certainly went to great lengths with your article “Merz”; it’s just a shame that you are so utterly clueless in the face of our times. (You look exceptionally charming again today!) By the way, my so-called student appears to have absolutely no artistic talent himself. (r. d. merzes himself.) Merz-paintings are abstract artworks. (Read Valori Plastici.)2 The artist creates by selecting, distributing, and de-forming materials. (Even half-slips.) Were I Mr. Kurt Glaser, for example, and were I to use a pair of ladies’ pantaloons and a Berlin Börsenkurier (Pardon me, “Courier”) as my material (though I probably wouldn’t use this combination anyway), then I would still only use the B. Bcourier as a ground for painting, despite its nice little articles. I would cut up and de-form the old man and the ladies’ pantaloons and distribute the pieces on the picture surface according to the laws of artistic logic. That is, I would use Mr. Kurt Glaser as a beautiful and expressive form, as rhythm, and as a sculpted mass in chiaroscuro. My so-called student seems to love the wax museum more than art. For instance, he would use Mr. Kurt Glaser as a proper critic with an angrily furrowed brow and a quill pen in hand, delicately drape the pantaloons behind him, and respectfully set the Börsencourier, as the leading paper for art criticism, on the table as a real newspaper. (With three supplements.) I, on the other hand, demand the abstract use of the critic. (Read Anna Blume, Publisher Paul Steegemann, the Merz-Theater.)
Berliner Börsenkukukunst
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(13) TRAN NUMBER 7. GENERAL AMNESTY FOR MY HANNOVERIAN CRITICS IN THE STYLE OF MERZ “Tran Nummer 7. Generalpardon an meine hannoverschen Kritiker in Merzstil,” Der Sturm 11, no. 1 (April 1920): 2– 4.
Schwitters addresses four of the most widely published art critics in the Hannover press and pushes his penchant for literary montage and experimental syntax to new limits. His first target is Johann Frerking, journalist for the Hannoversches Tageblatt, member of the Kestner-Gesellschaft, and, later, artistic director of the Hannover Municipal Theater. Although Schwitters and Frerking moved in the same local literary circles, Frerking was critical of abstraction in the visual arts and, in numerous reviews throughout the 1920s, of Schwitters’s art in particular. The second critic, Erich Madsack, was the feuilleton editor of the Hannoverscher Anzeiger, who, in his review of the third exhibition of the Hannover Secession (15 February 1920), condemned Merz compositions as childish, unleashing Schwitters’s extreme play with grammar and appropriated language in his nearly indecipherable reply. (On the Secession, see text 15.) The third critic, Adolf Schaer, editor for the Hannoverscher Kurier, promoted the idea that, after four years of war, art ought to serve as a therapeutic vehicle of diversion and distraction. Like others writing for the Kurier, he considered Merz to be pathological (see text 10). Finally, Schwitters turns to the critic Hein Wiesenwald, a pseudonym for an unknown critic who wrote for the Volkswille, a daily paper affiliated with the Hannover Social Democrats (SPD). Wiesenwald literally means “meadow forest,” and elsewhere, writing under the name Silvanus (a reference to the spirit of woods and fields), the critic would describe having long conversations with birds and forest animals as he debated the merits of artworks— a conceit Schwitters finds patently ridiculous.
Not all critics could be taken into account; there are just too many of them. (That’s neither here nor there, by the way.) I retain the right to criticize the other gentlemen later. (Merz style is work.) To ensure no one feels neglected, I will proceed alphabetically. (Of course, the parentheses are neither here nor there, either.)
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1.) Mr. Fg. (Frerking.) (Hann. Tageblatt)1 is a little too old to sympathize with us young artists. (Meier’s waterproofing paste makes old sailcloth covers as good as new and watertight, guaranteed.) Unfortunately, this does not excuse Mr. Frerking for writing reviews: (How do I learn to write poetry?) Even an art critic must have a certain something, let’s say: a capacity for judgment. To quote your own words: “The wine in a barrel must ferment before it becomes mature and delicious.” (Oh, you unfermented critics!) When you list the materials that have been used in a work of art, you simply reveal your lack of critical faculties. (Municipal tax screw with an internal combustion engine.) Serious criticism does not benefit from lazy jokes (eyes open!): “nevertheless, not quite worthless, since he adds an actual copper two-cent piece to ingredients taken from the trashcan.” (Me, that is.) (A one-time bargain offer!) What would you say, Mr. Fg., if I wrote that your stuffy reviews are muddled (practical, easy-to-understand instructions for apprenticeship, with examples and practice questions) and compared them to an unruly pile of junk (we buy old dentures, fragments, and individual teeth), with the caveat that they are, nevertheless, not quite worthless (prices starting at 15 marks per tooth.) considering their astonishing likeness to the haphazard mishmash found in a trashcan. (Bedsprings, beds, a highly profitable business for furniture and upholstery stores.) What would you say? (Author and editor hereby present the poet with a booklet they hope will provide guidance to beginners on how to write poetry.) But I ask you to reread your reviews after this. (Surely, the gift for writing poetry must be innate.) (There is a bed for every bedstead and mattress.) 2.) Now to you, Mr. Dr. Erich Madsack! (Hann. Anz.) As you know, “A painting’s spiritual and intellectual content generally rests in the oil paint itself.” (Sturm 10, no. 9: “Forbearance Witnesses” by Herwarth Walden.)2 (Each bedstead can earn you about 30– 40 M) so I would say it is unnecessary for (extra income, if ) you to think (you include the beds in your delivery.) “cardboard lid nail job” (Sole manufacturer of the world-famous Merz style) handsomely decorated with your “tailorshop waste” (Cooked illness is health, cooked health is eternal life.) and these international packaging-tailor-shop-cardboard-waste-decorations,3 disregarding your helplessness, which you present with such self-confidence (Man with fencing post.), with the help of my toy manufacturing industry for grown children. (Who are you referring to with your comment about “grown children”? Nobody else has come up with this apart from you.) Come and play with me! (I also recommend leather sheen, leather finishing, instant leather polish, pre-pulled pitch, etc.) from the Hannoverian Art Preservation Society (Anzeiger review, perhaps?) If you are unfamiliar with this tincture, you should immediately order a sample. (payment upon consignment) I nearly forgot. (payment underover contrasignment) just joking! (or against receipt of 8 M per post.), which is why namely evermore (life, social, accident, liability, fire, burglary and theft insurance with limited brain activity) likewise against whatever behind (newspaper jargon surpasses) in a loose manner
Tran Number 7. General Amnesty for My Hannoverian Critics
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given the verist mediocrity that was to have been essentially relieved (but not for female kinderguardners!) I, too, can express myself in a highly educated manner. Yes, indeed! (Price 37 cents.) even includes steam operation. Well, now everyone knows what art is. (Satisfaction or your money back.) Your review, Doctor, proves, however, I am sorry to have to say this, in your own words, what unfortunate misunderstandings the most recent movement of art can elicit from reviewers who cannot see beyond the surface of artistic creativity. Do you really think you are capable of that? 3.) As for you, Mr. Dr. ASch. (Adolf Schaer.) (Hann. Kurier)4 You write: “What is there to say about the strange creations by Kurt Schwitters, who has once again fooled the world with his Merz-drawings, etc.? Are we really supposed to accept pasted paper scraps and trouser patches as ‘art’? Are we to take such aberrations with a straight face? Are we to give them the satisfaction of our furious objection? It is best to follow the saying, ‘The rest is silence,’5 in the hope that silence will indeed put this entire nonsense ‘to rest.’” Let me ask the counterquestion: “Are we really to take such blather with a straight face?” Because, what you call “silence” I call blather. (An efficient source of Tran, obtained directly from the Tran rendering station.) As is well known, reviews note what type of brush the painter used. (Attention! Attention, Blinkers! Attention! Patented blinkers! Patented blinkers are the lightest blinkers the world has seen, and once they are set at the correct angle, they will not shift. Each screen is made of a single piece, each pair weighing no more than ca. 100 grams. Comfortable fit. Available from most wholesalers and saddlers.) By the way, allow me to draw your attention to the fact that my colleague, Mr. Marc Chagall, you know, the man with the soulful portrait (Noble let man be, helpful and good.6), whom you have already called Chagall three times, is not called Max Chagall, but Marc Chagall. (Horse and dog combs made of aluminum are second to none.) However, the mix-up with Chagall’s name is understandable, since this is the first time he is exhibiting. (Funeral horse blankets, an outstanding new product. Samples sent on request.) I make special mention of this lest someone wrongly suspect that you have not had much previous experience with art. (Merriment in the auditorium.) That said, I would advise you not to continue calling my colleague Max Chagall. If you don’t believe me just ask the owner of this Chagall, Mrs. Amalie von Garden (Eugenie von Garvens),7 otherwise I will claim that you are August Adalbert von Shearrs8 (Top Quality.) This would allow someone with a twisted mind to say that August von Shearrs uses his noble shears to cut out what an August deems noble, rather than writing an actual art review.9 And I would really be sorry if “your efforts were made a laughing stock.” (Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung, 25 February 1920.) By the way, some friendly advice: you really should be silent in future, completely silent. Your reviews “at least have the advantage of being amusing,” but you really don’t want to be the cause of unintended laughter. (Coachmen’s cloaks, coach decorations, and complete hearse trappings, top quality guaranteed.)
Text 13
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4.) And you, Mr. Hein Wiesenwald, majority socialist10 writer— let’s say art writer— for the Hannoverscher Volkswille! (every teenage girl’s favorite magazine.) Your reviews are so childish that it’s hardly worth engaging with them. (Cows have a tail behind, a head in front, and a pompadour in the middle.) Just imagine yourself as an impartial observer witnessing the scene as you, a grown man, loudly converses with the birds in the park. (Concentrated Restitution-Liquid, ex.-strength, for horses & other pets, foll. recipe by est. Royal Horse Doctor Fabricius, proven effective over thirty years, outstanding for stiffness, shoulder & low back pain, dislocations, wrenches, sprains, & weakness of all kinds.) I think you would laugh out loud. (Who makes well-tanned horse leather, suitable for collars?) You recount so often in your reviews that you get your inspiration for your discussions about art from the birds, that one cannot help but believe you, strange as it may sound. ( Just let your horse carry on with its work, every tin is embossed with this trademark.) You call this art criticism? (Drape a soft cloth over your finger and softly run it across the surface of the crème. If some of the crème sticks, apply it in the thinnest layer.) So this is criticism for the people? My dear sir, I sincerely hope the people will be critical of such criticism, even without my criticism of your criticism. (Milk Matron is a great leap forward for your business. You’ve probably already heard of this lubricant. It’s essential for every stable owner and cattle farmer, since it removes all damage quickly and safely.) If it’s not enough to visit an art exhibition with the wife and kid and two Wandervögel,11 if that’s not enough for you to be able to concentrate, then let me suggest: Take along a pair of real birds, Wiesenwald birds and a few hunting dogs, or even a backpack with a canteen and buttered sandwiches. (A Quite Unbelievable Critic.)12 Birdwatchers are always welcome to boil water in art exhibitions. At any rate I always gladly acknowledge the courage of the worthy critics in my hometown. Your obedient servant Kurt Schwitters (The Captain of Köpenick of painting)13
Tran Number 7. General Amnesty for My Hannoverian Critics
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(14) WHAT ART IS: A GUIDE FOR GREAT CRITICS “Was Kunst ist: Eine Regel für große Kritiker,” Der Zweemann 1, no. 6 (April 1920): 11– 12.
Throughout this text, Schwitters plays on the various meanings of groß (big, great) and Größe (size, greatness) to stress that ahmen (to measure) is the etymological root of Nachahmung (imitation).
Art is the imitation of nature. The more intensely imitation takes the measure of things, the greater the art. There is art that is great or small; there is even art that is middling. Middling art makes a middling means (which is neither here nor there, incidentally). Or middling art has the means to make something that is middling. Sculpture comes closer to nature than painting. Therefore, sculpture is the bigger sister to painting. Of course, within sculpture itself there are different degrees of greatness. Now, it is not the sculpture with the greater girth, say, that is the greater sculpture (though girth is certainly an artistic factor, especially in the case of precious materials). Rather, the greater sculpture is the sculpture that has the greatest proximity to nature. (All you have to do is think consistently.) At this point we need to slice and dice the question of material. (Material is baloney, after all.) Naturally, to represent human skin, the best material is colored wax, rose-colored wax. It gives flesh (the wax, that is) a transparency, as if it were alive. But you should scrupulously avoid modeling the mannequin’s suit out of wax. Because, firstly, wax looks too transparent to be clothing, and that won’t do. And, secondly, it’s best to use actual cloth to imitate a suit. The really great sculptors have long recognized that this is the only correct method. They first construct a scaffold using real bones. (Talentless imitators start with an iron scaffold.) They then clad this scaffold with wax in the shape of muscles (meat, see: anatomy.) At this point, even the really great artists commit the inexplicable mistake of modeling the clothing too, and out of papiermâché at that. (Kneadable paper mass.) This is utterly wrong. The only correct thing to do is to clad the correctly modeled nude in actual clothing. On this score, you can find truly excellent examples of window dressing, particularly in shops for fashionable clothes. This method offers the greatest advantages. First off, you can confirm for yourself, at any point and by the by, whether the nude has been correctly modeled. In addition, however, and this is especially important, you can also change the sculpture’s clothes according to the changing fashion. How much closer to our sensibilities would the well-known scribe of ancient Egypt be, for example, 44
if only we could dress him in the elegant suit of a modern businessman. Incidentally, it is much easier to change the sculpture’s suit than to remake the sculpture repeatedly (monthly fashion), especially when the material is precious. (Bronze.) I will return to the term “precious” in greater detail later. You can buy wigs and beards for the hair, which you can simply attach in one piece. Just take care not to use moss, like the famous moss folk of the Harz.1 Make sure that you get wigs of especially high quality. Ideally, use glass for the eyes. (Use blacking for a black eye.) I suppose there is no need to go into the use of spectacles, teeth, brooches, shoes, rings, gloves, bracelets, cigars, etc. Nor is there any need to mention that a silk dress is more artistically valuable than a woolen dress, that a golden clasp is more valuable than a silver one. (The world begins in the human being.)2 Clothes make the man. All this applies to the manner of artistic representation. But the represented object, too, is of great importance for artistic value. Here I return to the term “precious.” (Specialty store, August Scheere, Hannover, Kurierstrasse 1a.3 Crossing this boundary is prohibited by order of the railway police.) The material doesn’t need to be precious. What is precious material, anyway? The material must befit nature, and it is the nature that is represented that must be precious. Noble personages have the advantage over the middle class. A noble sculpture is more valuable than two middle-class sculptures together— and more than four middle-class paintings with a still life thrown in. It is best if art portrays the intellectual aristocracy, critics and the like, especially in pursuit of their most noble activity, namely when reviewing their own precious sculptures, notebook and pencil in hand. This, then, would yield a double sculpture: 1. The critic in noble repose, and 2. the same critic, standing just off to the right, reviewing his own precious sculpture. Next to the name of the represented critic, the notebook lists: precious, precious, noble, nature, precious, divine, noble, natural, precious, precious, precious. It goes without saying that the artists themselves come in different sizes, too. This refers not to the physical but the artistic size. There are artists who are great, small, or middling, or, as with civil servants, high, low, and mid-level. To conclude, I simply want to mention that there are also great, small, and mid-level reviewers, even middling ones. I set these regulations down only for the benefit of the greatest reviewers. (Wood is the best and most practical solution for windowpanes.)
What Art Is: A Guide for Great Critics
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(15) STATEMENT “Erklärung,” Der Zweemann 1, no. 6 (April 1920): 8.
The Hannover Secession was established in June 1917, and Schwitters joined the following year. He first showed his Merz work in his home city at the third exhibition of the Secession, on view at the Kestner-Gesellschaft from 8 February to 8 March 1920. The introduction to the catalogue was written by Bernhard Dörries (1898– 1978), a painter who advocated a return to the emulation of the Old Masters. In his text, Dörries argued that the celebration of genius that had guided modern art since the Renaissance rejected the community of tradition and religious feeling in favor of an isolated individuality that ultimately could prove no match for the overwhelming chaos of the contemporary metropolis. Schwitters rejected those claims, signing the statement “Erklärung” with the painter Max Burchartz (1887– 1961), who would later work as a typographer and photographer affiliated with the ring neue werbegestalter; the painters and printmakers Otto Gleichmann (1887– 1963) and Lotte Gleichmann-Giese (1890– 1975); and the printmaker and ceramicist Otto Hohlt (1889– 1960).
In response to the introduction that was included without our consent in the catalogue of the Hannover Secession (1920), we make the following statement: In letter and spirit, the introduction lays out a conception of art that in no way corresponds to our own, and as members of the Hannover Secession, we feel compelled to protest against it. For us, art is always the formed expression of religious experience, and the artworks valued in every era, even our own, were and are the consistently original creations of individuals. It is in these works that we recognize the same inner essence in a perpetually renewed form. We refuse to assign inflated significance to any school or system of thought, as is frequently the case today. A deliberate return to so-called tradition contradicts all creative work. Over the course of time, we can indeed make out a deep-seated, shared mentality that unites a group of artists and is externally visible. It is in this sense (not in the sense of a “school”) that we also understand the terms “impressionism” and “expressionism.” Hence we see no other option than to reject any conception of art that employs such terms as “conscious joy in experiment and discovery,” “the development of a generally binding style,” “intellectual isolation,” “historic institution,” etc., and which remains solely attached to external appearances. 46
(16) [I DIVIDE MY POETRY INTO THREE TYPES . . .] Published in the Literarische Rätselecke (Literary puzzle corner) in Die Gegenwart 49 (April 1920): 150– 51.
Die Gegenwart published my poem to Anna Blume in their second January 1920 issue. Then, in their first February issue, they published a review of me and of my poem, which greatly amused me. Dr. Ilgenstein presently had the presence of mind to present me with the opportunity of presenting my mind on this ingenious interpretation of my genius in the puzzling puzzle corner of the journal. T. 6. M. M D. I divide my poetry into three types: 1. lyrical, 2. grotesque, 3. Merz. (Read “Anna Blume,” Verlag Paul Steegemann, the journal Zweemann, the journal Sturm.) 1. Purely lyrical poems express a mood. August Stramm is a lyrical poet.1 Words are the material. In poetry, words are assessed against each other, just like colors in painting and sounds in music. No meaning is created. Anyone attempting to find meaning in such poems will seek in vain and only find nonsense. But the sound of the words, the rhythm, the alternation between meaningful and meaningless word combinations create a mood that can be sensed only by someone who limits themselves to feeling, rather than thinking. I suggest you listen to or read my lyrical poems with this in mind. 2. Grotesque poems have meaning. As examples, I mention the poem “To Anna Blume” and “The Onion.”2 The meaning is the generally comprehensible, artistic formation [Gestaltung] of everyday events and occurrences, whose existence in the world of facts is entirely unnecessary. For me, the Anna Blume poem typifies the love poem. “The Onion” is the mendacious tale of a habitual liar named Alves Bäsenstiel. As Alves recounts how he was slaughtered, robbed, and put back together again, the listener thinks about a thousand other things. The poem typifies these distracting thoughts and they interrupt the flow of the narrative. Elsewhere, the narrative inspires purely lyrical formation. 3. Purely Merz poems have no meaning. In terms of their structure, they are similar to lyrical poems. However, these poems do not just evaluate words against words. They also take sentences that express ideas and treat them as equivalent material to assess against words and against other sentences. Such sentences come from newspapers, letters, posters, conversations. Moreover, just as with grotesque poems, individual, distracting sentences have been added that bear no relation to 47
the poem at hand. These sentences merely typify how thoughts distract the listener. These Merz-poems do not express a mood, either. They want nothing more than to give artistic form to a piece of life. Furthermore, I want to stress that art is always the transfer of a reality that elicits an artistic response. If I say, for example: “Thou wearest thine hat on thy feet, and wanderest on thine hands,”3 this means that, as a poet, I am gripped by the fact that Anna Blume is such an enchanting, utterly natural girl, just like all the others. But this does not mean that she ever walked on her hands. The words “thou thee thee thine” amplify the word “thou.” It is not very good to say: “thou thou thou thou.” By first using the accusative and then the dative case, I create a grammatical loop that leads back to the nominative case. These kinds of subtleties are essential. “I love thou” is more expressive than “I love thee,” because it is unusual.4 Had I written, “I love thee,” nobody would have noticed that I love Anna Blume. This is not to say that the next time I won’t write, “I love thee.” The king in “The Onion” is not a sovereign, but a king in a fairy tale. Even the princess is a fairy-tale figure. It is not possible to explain artistic logic rationally. But I do hope that at least I have given those readers who still cannot grasp the Merz-poems on an emotional level some inkling of their artistic seriousness.
Text 16
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(17) HANNOVER “Hannover,” Der Sturm 11, no. 3 (June 1920): 40. Reprinted in the second and enlarged edition of Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1922), 52.
The Hannoverians are the residents of a city, of a major city. The Hannoverian never contracts canine diseases. Hannover’s city hall belongs to the Hannoverians, and that surely is a legitimate claim. The difference between Hannover and Anna Blume is that Anna can be read from behind and from the front. Hannover, however, best just from the front. But read Hannover from behind, and you get a three-word constellation: “re von nah.” You can translate the term “re” in different ways: “backward” or “back.” I recommend the translation, “backward.” Then the translation of Hannover from behind is: “Backward from close by” [Rückwärts von nah]. And this is correct in so far as the translation of Hannover from the front would yield: “Forward into the distance” [Vorwärts nach weit]. That is to say: Hannover strives forward, namely into the immeasurable. Anna Blume, by contrast, is the same from behind as from the front: A-N-N-A. (No dogs allowed, if you please.)1
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(18) EXTENSION “Erweiterung,” Der Sturm 11, no. 3 (June 1920): 35– 37.
Schwitters responds to a negative review by the art and theater critic Franz Servaes of an exhibition of his Merz work at Der Sturm (“Expressionisten-Parade [Expressionists parade],” Berliner Lokalanzeiger, 27 April 1920). His title refers to “The Extension,” the first of Arthur Schopenhauer’s thirty-eight rhetorical strategies for winning an argument from Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten (The Art of Being Right), in which the philosopher advises his readers to exaggerate the claims of their adversaries.1 Schwitters repeatedly plays on the name “Franz Müller,” recalling the title of a Merz-picture that Servaes had singled out for ridicule. Müller was also central figure in one of Schwitters’s favorite literary recital pieces, “Ursachen und Beginn der großen glorreichen Revolution in Revon” (Causes and beginning of the great, glorious revolution in Revon; see text 8). In that tale, Müller sets a revolution in motion by standing completely still in a public space, wearing a suit that makes him look like a Merz-sculpture, to the utter bewilderment of an art critic at the scene.
Mr. Franz Servaes devotes the following review to my April 1920 exhibition of Merz-pictures at Sturm: If you want to witness what expressionist mass production truly achieves, take courage and head out to the salon on Potsdamer Strasse, where the horde of believers stand crammed together as if in a concentration camp.2 Here, no one judges you on personality and talent anymore; all they are interested in is your religion. Whoever has dutifully internalized the expressionist-futurist catechism and can parrot the credo with conviction is welcome, whether they are a genius or a cobbler. Currently, one of the worst cobblers is running off at the mouth there (inquire after his name on site). For some reason he calls his excrement Merz-pictures. He appears to be a rag-and-bone man who has carefully gathered together whatever he has found on the street: old bits of wire, rags, cotton balls or dross, discarded buttons or metal plates, even used train tickets and postmarks. He then pastes this junk onto wooden boards or sheets of cardboard before covering them somehow with paint. Then he labels this drivel “Franz Müller’s Wire Springtime,” “Portrait of an Old Lady,” “Probing Triangles,” “Red-Heart-Church” and markets them as the very latest art.3 “Follies?” Not at all. Deliberate nonsense that finds both “love letters” and enthusiastic buyers. 50
I got to know Mr. Servaes by chance and have now written him the following answer:
An Intervue (that is, An Interrogation.) with Professor Franz Servaes. In an art exhibition someone pointed out Mr. Servaes to me. (Remove celluloid capsule with knife!) “So that is the gentleman,” I asked, “who called me one of the worst cobblers and referred to my Merz-pictures as excrement?” (The brilliant invention, what women have long desired. Franz Müller’s corset extender, “Simplicity.” A World First!) “Yes indeed, the local cobbler, who runs his local mouth off in the Berliner Lokalanzeiger on April 27th (inquire after false teeth on site. Front Row Seat) and labels his drivel ‘Expressionist Parade.’” “Here, no one judges you on personality and talent anymore; all they are interested in is your religion.” (That is, in the local mouthpiece.) The local teeth (local teeth, Front Row Seat) make up a kind of local front row seat, namely, that is to say, false teeth, front row teeth, of course. (Hairdressers for Ladies and Gentlemen.) This is where artists have their hair done; this is where artists are chewed up with local dentures. (Franz Müller’s extender, “Simplicity,” weighs no more than the whalebone stays it has replaced and is just as flexible and supple.) Mr. Servaes, I ask that you chew my trash (Mülle)4 quite carefully, and I wish you bon appetit. (Gaze forward, work upward, united, feels German.) I gathered up my courage, showed Mr. Servaes the soles of my shoes, and introduced myself with the words: “I am the worst cobbler, whose mouth you are now running off.” Mr. Professor was very composed, considered the soles of my shoes with composure, and composed his feelings in the sentence: “My dear sir, may I say you make a far more sympathetic impression than your pictures.” (Hautana Loin Cloth,5 to be worn directly underneath the skin.) “Mr. Servaes,” I said politely, “you, too, make a far more sympathetic impression than your reviews.” (Remove celluloid capsule with knife!) “However, at the moment I am more interested to know how you got to be so clairvoyant that you could see from my paintings that I can mend shoes? You certainly don’t look it.” Indeed, I would not have known that this gentlemen was Mr. Professor Franz Servaes. I would not have believed that this gentleman had the ability to look beneath the surface of things. (Now I know which book I should give my teenage daughter as a gift.) (Wood stays wood, and nothing is more soulful than the German soul.) After all, I am indeed a cobbler by trade. At this point, Mr. Servaes softened and said he would like to learn, and he took the opportunity to ask me to enlighten him. (Wood stays wood, and nothing is more soulful than the German soul.) I am a supporter of the moveable front (finally, the wish of all women has been answered and the pain and suffering from the constricted corset has been relieved), but I am well aware how strange a reviewer seems who turns to his cobbler for advice because he would like to learn. (Remove celluloid capsule with knife!) With a few well-chosen words, I then introduced him to art and recommended Franz Müller’s genuine Guano Paste for all his cobbling needs (“Please
Extension
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inform me, how many millimeters does Prussian law allow for the application of the material?”), I recommended that he paste trouser fabric (as suggested by Otto Nebel)6 so that the holes open to the inside, and culminated my presentation with the poet’s great words: “The god who shaped shifty sheep clearly couldn’t create.” At that point this old nag, that old nag, the old nag reared up. Here lies this tree, that tree, the tree. The tree is root-sick, branch-sick, leaf-sick. In the storm [Sturm], the tree was blown on, blown askew, blown over. (It is a known fact that women wear corsets to enhance their figure.) How desolate is the sight of a felled tree once the butcher bites its branches off. (I wear a young girl’s shoes today; tomorrow they’ll be put away.) Mr. Professor Servaes, I wish you went by Bogumil, then I would cry Mülle. (During meals, on walks, while dancing, and in rising temperatures, the corset becomes bothersome and causes women endless distress.) However, please allow me to take precautions so that the fruits of my suggestions will never fall on your good soil. (Confer Nebel, so that the holes open to the inside.) Wood stays wood, and the celluloid capsule is to be removed before use. (In this case, the woman wearing the corset would consider herself lucky were she able to extend the corset waist surreptitiously by 3– 4 cm or more.) Please excuse the fact that I have become slightly invasive. As a matter of principle, I have the simple-eyedness of happily seeing the splinter in the other person’s eye, but my own beams I always fail to see.7 In this I distinguish my from you and me from your. In addition, I wish you a continued good night. (Franz Müller’s corset extender, “Simplicity” puts an end to this suffering with a single blow. D. R. G. Müller.)
Text 18
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(19) TRAN NUMBER 11. GERMAN POPULAR CRITICISM, THE CRITICISM OF RECONSTRUCTION “Tran Nummer 11. Deutsche Volkskritik, die Kritik des Wiederaufbaus,” Der Sturm 11, no. 5 (August 1920): 70– 71.
Schwitters replies to a review by Max Strese, feuilleton editor of the Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten, of the exhibition Deutscher Expressionismus (German expressionism), on view at the Mathildenhöhe, Darmstadt, June– September 1920. This exhibition, which consisted of around one thousand works by nearly 150 artists, was one of the most important surveys of contemporary German art in the postwar years. It included work by artists of the Brücke, Blauer Reiter, Novembergruppe, and Der Sturm, as well as representative examples of cubist, futurist, constructivist, and verist tendencies, supplemented by a small selection of works by French artists. Deutscher Expressionismus was widely discussed in the German press, and Strese’s review, which first appeared in the Darmstädter Tageblatt, was reprinted in papers in Leipzig, Magdeburg, and Hannover. Strese singled out Schwitters’s work for censure and instead praised evidence of what he considered to be a welcome return to figuration and classical renewal—though he felt Germany still lagged behind France in this movement toward “reconstruction.”
Mr. Max Streese, evidently a member of the German Party of Popular Criticism, the Party for Artistic Reconstruction, advances with determination backward on his chosen path. This leads him to write a pleasantly reactionary review for the Leipziger Neueste Nachrichten on 5 June 1920, which was reprinted in the Han noversche Anzeiger and other similar newspapers. His review regards the lag in the development of German art to be “unmistakably” a step in the direction toward a reconstruction. Here is how such criticism of reconstruction comes about: Mr. Max Streese attends the exhibition on display in the Mathildenhöhe. He wants to see for himself what this damned expressionism has “shattered” this time around and whether it has slowly “crystallized something,” something that “will help the layman make sense of this necessarily violent shattering.” Mr. Streese, I fear it will not be so easy for you to make sense of expressionism. “The first impression is, of course, bewildering for the senses.” (There’s a powerlessness, vis-à-vis.) Art is surely something 53
that should lift me up from this misery, especially now! “After carefully reviewing the works on view, it cannot be denied that the fermentation phase is passing.” So: Mr. Max Streese’s senses are bewildered. Hallucinating, so to speak. Are the pictures talking? “Crouneonstrict.” Mr. Streese holds his head. It seems to him as if the pictures are continuously voicing the word, “crouneonstrict.” What terrible word is this? It’s probably fermentation. Like revolution.1 Even the croune is strict. Mr. Streese has sparks flying from his ears. Or perhaps that should be “crone”? Crounes become hyenas?2 Correct, the word “crounes” refers to the artists. It is well known, all artists have a feminine element. They mock with outrage, those outrageous mockers! Mr. Streese collects himself. Perhaps calm and reflection will reveal the meaning behind this expressionism. So he considers the fermentation more closely. Crouneonstrict, this is just reconstruction, nothing more than reconstruction.You just need to consider it correctly, consider those left behind. Nothing to get all wound up about. And now Mr. Streese sees “that in the foreseeable future, the expressionist movement will flow along very healthy tracks again.” Apparently, the expressionist movement is a pot. The numerous hangers-on that Mr. Max Streese has already begun to “switch off ”— these hangers-on apparently hang on an electric cable, these hangers-on have filled it up, the pot that is, and now it flows over, straight onto the very healthy rails of reconstruction that run past the pot. These seem to be the rails of an electric freight train, which can be switched on or off, just like hangers-on (confer Brockhaus Encyclopedia). It seems to be very important that expressionism overflows onto these rails. Expressionism, it would seem, is a lubricant. Apparently, these very healthy rails of reconstruction need to be greased every once in a while. And then Mr. Max Streese explains what this reconstruction actually is: “that from this art of expressionism, an art that is profoundly foreign to us (Mr. Streese, expressionism is indeed profoundly foreign to you), a typically German character has emerged.” Hail to thee in victor’s crown,3 moth holes hither and moth holes thither, poor Germany! “Of course, there are extremes in this exhibition, but the paintings of the ‘Sturm group,’ for instance, can undoubtedly be regarded as experiments.” So says a critic of reconstruction with confused senses who himself admits that expressionism is profoundly foreign to him. And now to the worker pictures [Arbeiterbilder]4 by Kurt Schwitters and others: “Schwitters no longer paints but makes a selection from a trash can. . . . These beginnings, thank God, are behind us.” So says a critic of reconstruction with confused senses, for whom expressionism is profoundly foreign. I thank you God that I am not like these sinners and customs officers, adulterers, Sturm artists, expressionists, and Merz-painters.5 (Pay attention, bright fools! Salt-free and rust-free, bright yellow). But I’ll show you! Even if I don’t know what this damn expressionism is all about, I’ll just declare that I have long since put this development behind me. “In the spirit of negation” I will call this reconstruction. Then I will assert that “the great majority of artists advance with determination” and overflows onto very healthy rails (namely, those left behind). On this point, Mr. Max Streese, I cannot
Text 19
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contradict you. The small minority is “croune,” the great majority is “Reconstruction.” To prove that the great majority overflows onto very healthy rails, Mr. Max Streese then presents the “isolated example” of Picasso, who “is almost painting realistically these days.” Mr. Max Streese, do you think you can understand Picasso’s artistic motivation, if you have yet to understand his cubism? If I suddenly were to paint a naturalistic portrait, for instance, as I am doing here in this portrait of your critical personality, you would probably come out and claim that I am no longer faithful to my Merz-painting and now belong to the Party of Reconstruction. Very kind of you, but no thanks. Your reconstruction is a crooked and crumbling old house that you need to prop up from all sides to stop the storm [Sturm] from blowing it down. But no harm, just let it blow down. After all, you’re the Party of Reconstruction.6
Tran Number 11. German Popular Criticism, the Criticism of Reconstruction
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(20) TRAN NO. 12. CRITICISM AS ARTWORK “Tran Nr. 12. Kritik als Kunstwerk,” Die Pille 1, no. 5 (September 1920): 107– 9.
Motto:
On whom God confers this office, His wits HE does at once remove. (Nebel)1
In general, people are quick to assume that a critic’s style and his genre are in complete harmony, that there is a style for tragic critics and one for comic critics. But this is not the case. There are, in fact, only two fundamentally different types of criticism, which are not tragic and comic, but pathetic and humorous. These two poles bracket all types of style. Some are subcategories; others coincide completely, making them just two names for one and the same thing. Of course, the style of a critic is dependent only on the internal necessity of a tragic or comic character. What frequently happens is that critics, who exit on a purely tragic note, are not in tune with the pathetic, but the comedic tone. (Each servant girl has her exit, each critic has his entrance.)2 Most of the other participants are quite colorless, and many of the ladies and gentlemen of this critical society offer unintended criticism. Thus, despite the tragedy, these gentlemen are not conceivable in any other way onstage or in criticism than with humor. You just need to recall what the great Nordic brooder Ibsen said about these questions. He touched on these issues clearly enough in a letter to Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, about his Doll’s House, which, contrary to popular opinion, he considered a drama rather than a spectacle. More important than a dry disputation of all the possible types of style is, of course, the question: How does a style affect criticism, or what is its relation to criticism? What consequences does the style of a manuscript have? A critic should never feel compelled to answer this question immediately. It requires the concentrated study of the given text and, what is more, outstanding general knowledge. However, it seems more valuable to establish that criticism has not sufficiently focused on overall style. Certainly, the well-known, important critics are doing extraordinary work in this area, too.Yet in too many cases, we can observe that minor, inferior critics often pursue a completely inappropriate style; or, what is even more embarrassing for eye and mind, is that the style changes throughout the
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criticism. Nothing appears more dilettantish, nothing can tear a work apart more than when two, fundamentally distinct types of style alternate. Just think of someone droning on in sluggish and ponderous phrases, offering forceful and accurate, yet oppressive commentary in response to a scintillating, jovial comedy, consisting almost entirely of situational humor. You will quickly realize how elementary a mistake such commentary is. And while it is a bore, and while the action of the performance is set in glaring contrast to the action of the play, in a review that tolerates only the pathetic element, this commentary is even repellant. Hence, style must be developed clearly and perfectly, especially in criticism. Only when nothing misses its target can you recognize a good critic. One of the most damning critiques for a critic will always be that his style changed within a review, or even that it missed its target to begin with. But it is precisely here that there is still too much transgression. Here there still remains much to be said. 14 August 1920 Correction: A comma must precede an infinitive clause.
Tran No. 12. Criticism as Artwork
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(21) TRAN NUMBER 13. THE PRIVATE SCOURING CLOTH: CONTRIBUTION TO A PHENOMENOLOGY OF CRITICAL ENJOYMENT 1
“Tran Nummer 13. Das Privatscheuertuch: Beiträge zur Phaenomenologie des kritischen Genusses,” Der Sturm 11, no. 7/8 (October 1920): 114– 16.
Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub (1884– 1963) was an active critic for the Frankfurter Zeitung and Das Kunstblatt and a curator at the Städtische Kunsthalle in Mannheim, where he would later become director and famously organize the exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity, 1925). Schwitters replies to his review of the Deutscher Expressionismus exhibition (see text 19), where Hartlaub distinguished between a first generation of expressionists, whose work could claim a metaphysical connection to nature, and a second generation, consisting mainly of derivative Sturm artists trafficking in empty abstractions. Schwitters’s second subtitle refers to Moritz Geiger, Beiträge zur Phänomenologie des ästhetischen Genusses [Contribution to a phenomenology of aesthetic enjoyment] (Halle: Niemayer, 1913), and in all but the last three parenthetical asides, he inserts lines taken from one installment of the epic expressionist war poem “Zuginsfeld,” by Otto Nebel (Der Sturm 11, no. 5 [August 1920]: 72–77).
“At this critical juncture, when all the recently established criteria” of the critic G. F. Hartlaub “threaten to become problematic again, we (we— G. F. Hartlaub) enter a large exhibition in Darmstadt.” The Lords most high went to church to pray to the Highest. (Dignity with wire edge.) First we “rush in to dissect” the “matter of a survey,” in slices, a bit like a Beutelwurst.2 We (— G. F. Hartlaub) look over here and over there, over this and over that, until we have overlooked pretty much everything. (The Messrs. Critics keep a logbook, to tear off.) Mr. G. F. Hartlaub thereby automatically creates a kind of cross-section: “A color romance, a voluptuous art of colored dreams, which consistently indulges in unrestrained secrets” and “a kind of clairvoyance attuned to a semi-soulful-fluvial,
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auratic quality appears to have become common property,” so much a common property that even Mr. G. F. Hartlaub now recognizes these things. (The next moment an undermaster gallops.) “We descend into sensory-supersensory color maelstroms, emotional and mental forms,[”] as Mr. G. F. Hartlaub loses his sense of sight and sound, and his ears begin to water. “But it is alarming how quickly this loss, this formless eulogizing, this mixture of theory, mystical indulgence takes its revenge.” Finally! Then why do you do this, Mr. G. F. Hartlaub? I, too, am quite alarmed by how you lose yourself, by your formal eulogizing, this mixture of theory and indulgence in your criticism. Well, you’re the one to call this kind of thing a “cosmic vortex,” no? (We must be victorious!) And it’s you who believes that this “threatens to dissolve the unity of the creative personality to a nearly pathological degree.” (Here I sense that you’re becoming bitter!) At this juncture it does indeed appear as if the unity of the creative personality of Mr. G. F. Hartlaub has dissolved to a nearly pathological degree. It’s a shame that it is in precisely this dissolved state of the cosmic vortex that he is spun before the “sophisticated symphonies and compositions” of Muche, Bauer, and many others “in the vein of the woefully underrepresented Kandinsky,” as well as my own paintings: (Human beings are cosmic trifles, confer Nebel) “or this Schwitters, who is revered and reviled far beyond his just desserts, who, with craftsman-like wit, turns Picasso’s cubism into old junk.” We are all overlooked in a single sentence. Poor man! (man— Hartlaub) How can one comprehend something if one has no comprehension? Too bad, if only we had a painting in a chamber music format in the exhibition, since this seems to be a criterium for Mr. G. F. Hartlaub for musical art. (A wise man builds you artists up.) It’s a good thing Paul Klee possesses this musical format or else he would have long since fallen with the overlooked. (The horse is ridden by the devil.) Here Mr. G. F. Hartlaub goes “back to the object”! (A lame horse is led away.) Unfortunately, he makes a small mistake here, namely in the sequence of development. But with such a great critic this does not matter. (Lest the goods go out the hatch, be ye nimble, shoot the latch.) If I understand you correctly, Mr. G. F. Hartlaub, you take Nolde, etc. to be a setback for our latest paintings. Mr. G. F. Hartlaub, it is you, I believe, who is a setback for the Mr. Critic yet to be born. (A final pat of butter anoints the mushrooms well.) “There is certainly greater humility, and it is more fitting to our wistful indecision, that we not cling to legends and dogmas, myths and mysteries, but rather, momentarily and with supersensory feeling, live out our lives in noncommittal fairy-tales and dreams.” Poor man, such wistful indecision must really be something quite terrible! Mr. G. F. Hartlaub, go ahead and noncommittally live out your life in your supersensory dreams, but beware that such noncommittal dreams do not become “gradually sterile.” Perhaps there is hope that you will somehow manage to find a way to vault nimbly or even vault your way out of the cosmic cul-de-sac of theoretical, mystical criticism— that is, from the
Tran Number 13. The Private Scouring Cloth
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now sterile, cosmic, voluptuous, feudal, semi-soulful, fluvio-auratic maelstrom to rejoin reality. Leave it to the artists to judge for themselves whether pure painting is a cul-de-sac. I assert: “Pure painting is not a dead-end street, even if all the street urchins leave it for dead.” (Read the documents by Jacques, the famous restroom attendant, on science and hair growth). Critics are cosmic pettiness.
Text 21
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(22) TRAN NO. 14. DR. FROG STARVES THE INTELLECT “Tran Nr. 14. Herr Dr. Frosch hungert den Geist aus,” Die Pille 1, no. 8 (October 1920): 179– 81.
Schwitters replies to the article “Dada” by the playwright and theater critic Hans Waldemar Fischer, published in the Welt am Montag (20 September 1920) and reprinted in the Hannover paper Freie Meinung. Writing under the pseudonym “Dr. Frosch” (Dr. Frog), Fischer argued that Dada was a symptom of a general cultural decline, charging it with trivializing literature in the venal pursuit of financial gain. He explicitly rejected the collage technique of Dada poetry and of Schwitters’s visual art, in particular. Schwitters launches his attack from Fischer’s recommendation that enlightened intellectuals “calmly starve out Dada” through neglect.
One day Dr. Frog had an idea. He saw the intellect “with his own eyes” and “vowed to better himself.” So Mr. Frog decided to “calmly starve” the intellect. Then Mr. Frog said, quite reasonably, that you need only write any old nonsense for your article to be printed in every “fraudulent rag”1 in the province. I read Dr. Frog’s article in the Freie Meinung, Hannover, published on 9 October 1920, which also makes mention of MERZ, my own special brand. You need only write any old nonsense. “The trick is so terribly simple that even the mentally deficient can comprehend it. And it would seem that the majority employing this trick are mentally deficient.” Even Mr. Frog has understood this terribly simple trick. Mr. Frog is, by the way, a Dadaist, insofar as his definition of Dadaism is correct: “It is the art of being the talk of the town among all the cultured philistines without having to expend any mental effort.” Indeed, Dadaism does not seem to have caused Mr. Frog much mental effort. (Naïveté is polemics with a milk bottle.) My hope is that now Mr. Frog will also be the talk of the town among all the cultured philistines. (It’s said that a frog in the stomach is supposed to be unhealthy.) I imagine when Dr. Frog heard the intellect with his own eyes, he cracked a smile to both ears and then erupted in a kind of angry howl. Then Dr. Frog became introspective and wrote the article “Dada” for the W. a. M. It would be better if Mr. Frog became ’spective. (Naïveté is polemics with a milk bottle.) “Far be it from me to show a Dadaist tenderness.” Including Dr. Frog himself, for I only show tenderness to Anna Blume. Thou thee thee thine, I thine, thou mine— we? (That, by the way, is beside the point.)2 But my heart forces me to help Dr. Frog, as Dr. Frog has 61
such beautiful principles: “These days, there are attempts everywhere to disrupt meetings and presentations with rowdy violence. Since it is generally less intelligent people who use these methods, we must fight the methods themselves.” Bravo! (Naïveté is polemics with a milk bottle.) I will light a tallow candle in your name, Dr. Frog.3 Look at yourself “blindly” in a mirror. Have you never disrupted any presentations or meetings with rowdy violence? (Naïveté is polemics with a milk bottle.) Or can you call an article that was written to starve the intellect “blindly” anything other than rowdy violence? (Naïveté is polemics with a milk bottle.) This milk bottle, that milk bottle, the milk bottle, bottle milk. Unfortunately, the article “Dada” in the Welt a. M. by Dr. Frog is written with such an affectionate lack of understanding for what is intellectual in modern art that I do not feel obligated to reply to nonsense with any seriousness. Evidently, all Dr. Frog saw was how the intellectual cleared his throat and spat. Once again, Dr. Frog hopped past the intellect. Anyway, the intellect does not need Dr. Frog to mention it. (Even on the body you cannot make out the entrails from the outside.)
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(23) TRAN NUMBER 16. LIFE ON BLIND FEET “Tran Nummer 16. Das Leben auf blindem Fuße,” Der Sturm 11, no. 11/12 (December 1920): 152– 53.
Paul Westheim (1886– 1963) was an arts editor for the Frankfurter Zeitung, where he regularly published criticism from 1904 to 1924. In 1917, he founded the monthly magazine Das Kunstblatt, which became one of the most influential modern art journals in Weimar Germany. In the years 1919– 21, Westheim was embroiled in an exceedingly personal and polemical exchange with Sturm director Herwarth Walden, as the two men competed for readers, argued for their superior abilities to identify new talent, and attempted to claim the true legacy of expressionism. Their public controversy, which was fought just as fiercely by partisan proxies in the pages of Das Kunstblatt and Der Sturm, centered on Westheim’s assertions that there had been a precipitous drop in quality in the artists championed by Walden in the postwar years. In this connection, Westheim singled out Schwitters for his most withering reviews, dismissing Merz as a fashionable gimmick and charging the artist with being a mere epigone of Picasso. Other critics writing for Das Kunstblatt reiterated these judgments, most notably the gallerist and champion of cubism Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, whose disparaging article “Die Merzmalerei” (Merz-Painting) appeared in November 1919. This is the first of four replies to Westheim that Schwitters published in Der Sturm (see also text 33, text 61, and text 65).
Mr. P. W., I assume his name is Paul Westheim, writes in an article, “Art in Berlin,” published in the Frankfurter Zeitung on 25 November 1920: “In just a few years, won’t it be embarrassing to be reminded of Bauer, Wauer, Nell Walden, Schwitters, Nebel?” My greatly esteemed and little-valued Mr. Westheim! You are a typical example of a critic. Critics have no judgment. Nor do you. Accordingly, critics always judge incorrectly. As do you. Critics know they make incorrect judgments, and to make sure they are not always making fools of themselves, they conform to the judgments of others. As do you. It does not matter to you whether someone is an artist, but whether or not, after a few years, he has managed to assert himself against you critics. We artists are more secure in our judgment. Ever since I first encountered you, for instance, I knew straight away that it is embarrassing to be reminded of your 63
incompetence. And in a few years? Whether you write or you don’t write, whether you rant and rave or embarrass yourself with false praise, nothing will save you. The art that you do not acknowledge, this art has judged you. Out on the street, a man cries: “Peat, peat!” Even this man cannot halt the development in art, no matter how loudly he shouts. And there are other similarities between you and the peat peddler. I hope that in just a few years you will not be embarrassed to remember me. The peat peddler always stays true to himself with his shouting, just as you do with your criticism. The peat peddler sells a product that doesn’t keep him warm; you write on “modern” art. (To be human is to suffer.) Just so that you understand me correctly: your reviews remain essentially the same. Whether you write for or against expressionism, you are fighting art. (Can you fight with a wooden sword?) But with all due enmity, you accept our wooden sword against art, what “now” no longer “may” be reviled, because the majority of critics, as incapable of judgment as you, have, by some inexcusable oversight, accepted it. (After all, nobody wants to embarrass themselves.) You write against art, I have to tell you, because you cannot stand the greatness of art. Why would you write against the Sturm? The Sturm is rigorous. Herwarth Walden does not reject what he has venerated and does not venerate what he must reject. This embarrasses you. Do you follow me? Herwarth Walden seeks veneration, not supplication. This deeply embarrasses you. Herwarth Walden fights for art; you fight against art.You are now hoping, just as you finished art, i.e., hoped to manage to finish it, you will one day finish the Sturm. But you will be finished, are already finished, not with but rather by the Sturm, just finished, completely finished. (The just must suffer greatly.) The peat peddler outside has long gone. Now there is another peddler hawking his wares. This other calls out: “Rabbit skins, rabbit skins!” What does art care? Have you no rabbit skins for sale, Mr. Westheim? I send you my humble greetings, Your very devoted, Kurt Schwitters
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(24) KURT SCHWITTERS Autobiographical statement presented by Otto Nebel in Sturm- Bilderbücher IV: Kurt Schwitters (Berlin: Verlag Der Sturm, [1920]).
Otto Nebel (1892– 1973) was a Berlin painter and poet and a frequent contributor to Der Sturm. His words frame an autobiographical statement provided by Schwitters, and together they served as an introduction to a book of Schwitters’s poems and rubber-stamp drawings, published by Der Sturm in its series of illustrated artists’ monographs.
There are neither prefaces nor postscripts to art. It remains an inexplicable miracle that is either experienced or killed off. Words can describe the character of an artist and indicate the inevitability of his artistic expression. Familiarity with the artist can remove any initial aversion to his new form of expression. With an understanding of the originality and logical evolution of Merz art, invented by Kurt Schwitters, those intellectual obstacles that made the artist a public nuisance for nearly all journalists and their posse— the intellectual, inartistic general public— become insubstantial. Background, early years, and development as told by Kurt Schwitters himself. “Grandparents Beckemeyer, Hannover. Master carpenter. Very bourgeois, simple. Grandfather, an epileptic. Grandmother knew how to turn pennies into pounds. Frugal. Only five children. My mother Henriette also earned an income early on. From age thirteen she worked as a seamstress at a fashionable clothing shop, where she became manager at seventeen. Highly gifted musically, bad teeth. Her own fashion shop at twenty-one.” “Grandfather Schwitters, master shoemaker in East Friesland (cobbler confer Servaes),1 very irascible. Grandmother Schwitters early †. Second wife. So my father had a stepmother. Five siblings. My father: typhoid fever, apprentice, clerk in a fashionable clothing shop. Tasked especially with window dressing. 1886 his own store in Hannover, bad teeth.” “I myself * 20 June 1887, Hannover, Veilchenstrasse. (The Violet Country.) My wet nurse’s milk was too thick and insufficient because she fed me beyond the legally permitted term. The wet nurse was punished. And so I experienced the wickedness of the world firsthand: melancholy was my basic character trait. Save for extensive travel to all kinds of places, lived in Hannover until 1909. (Revon).2 I 65
called myself Kuwitter, wet myself, and was locked in the bathroom. I started school at Easter ’94, Realgymnasium I. Hannover. A talented pupil, so to speak. Except in drawing and writing, earned grades 4 and 5.3 I had a lot of fun at school; I cannot say otherwise. The village of Isernhagen first made my acquaintance in ’98. My first stay in the countryside. I had a small garden there. Roses, strawberries, an artificial mountain, a constructed pond. In fall 1901, village boys destroyed my garden before my eyes. The agitation set off St. Vitus’s Dance.4 Sick two years, completely unable to work. My interests changed because of the illness. I discovered my love for art. Initially, I composed rhyming couplets in the manner of music-hall comedians. During a full moon one autumn night I noticed the clear, cold moon. From then on I composed poetry in a lyrical, sentimental manner. Then music seemed to me to be the art. I learned to read music and played music all afternoon. In 1906 I saw my first moonlit landscape in Isernhagen and began to paint. 100 watercolor landscapes by moonlight, painted from nature. Lit by stearin candles. I decided to become a painter. Usual parental opposition: first the Maturum,5 then by all means. Attended evening art classes at the College of Applied Arts and slowly became academic. Easter ’08 Abitur exam. As we were strolling about with top hats, my classmate Harmening called out: ‘Don’t let melancholy Schwitters take the lead or our procession will look like a funeral procession.’” “’08 to ’09 College of Applied Arts Hannover. 10 June ’08, engagement to Helma Fischer, ’09 to ’14 Academy of Art, Dresden. Studied under Bantzer, Kühl, Emanuel Hegenbarth.6 Meanwhile, the academy in Berlin rejected me as untalented. The secretary (?) comforted me, pointing out that I was still young, I had the Maturum, and I could still study; I just didn’t have what it took to paint. The professors had been unanimous in their opinion. The Hannover Art Society rejected my paintings for the first time in 1911. In 1910, on a solitary walk through Bohemian Switzerland in winter, I saw the eternal laws of nature.7 I realized that only a complete grasp of these laws could bring about art. Since then I have painted abstract works. On 5 October 1915 I married Helma Fischer, and since then I have lived in Hannover, Waldhausenstrasse 5 II. From 12 March 1917 to 19 June 1917 I was a soldier with the R.I.R. 73 in Hannover.8 Between then and the start of the revolution, I worked as a mechanical draftsman at the Wülfel steel mill, which was the next best practical job I could get. There I came to love the wheel and also recognized that machines are abstractions of the human spirit. Since then I have loved combining abstract painting and machinery into a Gesamtkunstwerk. I contacted Der Sturm asking for an exhibition, because I noticed that Sturm exhibited only true artworks. First Sturm exhibition of my paintings in June 1918. Only abstract oil paintings. Pure culture of the genre of oil painting. End of 1918 I realized that all values only exist in relation to one another and that restrictions to a single material were lopsided and petty. From this insight I developed Merz, initially as the sum of individual artistic genres, Merz-painting, Merz-poetry. The Merz-theater pushes further, past different artistic genres to their fusion into the Gesamtkunstwerk. My latest aspiration
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is to unite art and non-art into the Merz-Total World Image [MerzGesamtweltbild ]. Quotations from poetry, kitschy pictures as parts of paintings, the assimilation of intentionally kitschy and intentionally bad elements into the artwork, etc.” Pictures are mental entities, since art happens in the mind. Even painting. The material construct activates a mental experience-picture. But only for the person who is artistically receptive. A pictorial experience can evoke a picture. But only for the person who is artistically sensitive. Painters are seized by color-sound [Farb klang]. In the picture, the provisional mental experience becomes real. In the picture it becomes reality. Nothing else is possible. Picture-reality is not yet pictureeffect. The material remains a medium for expression. But all material media make works of art possible. They just need very effective forming. All material media can be vehicles for color-forms. All materials have color-sound. All materials can become picture-sound [Bildklang]. Kurt Schwitters has achieved this with his Merzconstructions. Merz-pictures are artistic constructions made of different materials. Enumerating all the possible materials can be left to the intellectuals. Eschewing such enumeration leads to the heart of a Merz-picture. In it, the pictorial elements lose their material significance. In it, they acquire artistic relationships. Firstly, among themselves. Secondly, in relation to the whole. Thirdly, for receptive minds. Seeing eyes feel the sound [Klang]. Power to all color tones. Sound of all forms by virtue of all lines. Sound of all forms by virtue of all colors. Forces of all color forms. Force of all planar forms. Force of all spatial forms. Sound of all forces. Play of all sounds. Merz-art. Drawings are pictures in black and white. Merz-drawings are Merz-pictures in black and white. In Merz-pictures and drawings text loses its conceptual meaning. Text is a manifestation of form in Merz-paintings and drawings, the graphic means to shape a surface. Numbers and letters remain purely pictorial. Their conceptual meaning is of no artistic significance. Text is inherently the graphic trace of a wordsound. In the Merz-picture, text becomes the wordless sound of pure lines. Conceptual meaning is merzed out.9 Let whatever displeases be permitted. Let every resource be permitted. Let every artistic medium be experienced. This is art that makes us free, which surmounts all doubt. The origin originates art alone. Amen. Otto Nebel
Kurt Schwitters
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(25) TRAN NUMBER 17. THE FETTERED PAUL MADSACK “Tran Nummer 17. Der gefesselte Paul Madsack,” Die Pille 1, no. 17 (December 1920): 400. Reprinted in Der Sturm 12, no. 1 (January 1921): 24.
Schwitters replies to a review of his Sturm-Bilderbuch (text 24) by the painter and critic Paul Madsack, published in the Hannoverscher Anzeiger. Madsack was the older brother of another Hannoverian critic, Erich Madsack (text 13).
The Hannoverscher Anzeiger from 19 December 1920 quotes a remark by Goethe about Luther: “We scarcely know what we owe to Luther, and the Reformation in general. We are freed from the fetters of spiritual narrow-mindedness.”1 Directly underneath, pck. (Paul Madsack) writes about my Sturmbilderbuch No. IV: Kurt Schwitters: “I am trying to think of anyone who would buy, let alone read, this book without being disappointed.” Think no more, Mr. pck. (Paul Madsack), I will tell you: “Whoever is freed from spiritual narrow-mindedness” (adapted from Goethe).
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(26) MERZ (WRITTEN FOR THE ARARAT, 19 DECEMBER 1920) “MERZ (Für den “Ararat” geschrieben 19. Dezember 1920),” Der Ararat 2, no. 1 (January 1921): 3– 9.
“MERZ (Written for the Ararat, 19 December 1920)” is one of Schwitters’s most ambitious statements about his art and life. It ranges from his childhood and years as a student at the Royal Saxon Academy of Art in Dresden to his embrace of abstraction and collage. He deliberately uses pedantic, even tortured prose to review the academic painting techniques he had abandoned, shifting to concise, declarative statements to introduce Merz to his readers. He discusses his work in a variety of media— painting, poetry, sculpture, architecture, and, especially, theater— as well as his relationship to Dada and his position within its competing factions. This text is the most familiar of Schwitters’s critical writings for Englishlanguage readers. Ever since it appeared in a translation by Ralph Manheim in Robert Motherwell’s watershed anthology The Dada Painters and Poets (New York: Wittenborn, 1951), it has served to represent the artist’s aesthetic theory within subsequent art historical accounts of the interwar European avant-gardes.
I was born on 20 July 1887 in Hannover. As a child I had a small garden with roses and strawberries. When I graduated from the Realgymnasium I in Hannover, I went on to study painting technique with Bantzer, Kühl, and Hegenbarth in Dresden.1 I painted Still Life with Communion Chalice in Bantzer’s studio.2 The selection of my works currently on view at Hans Goltz, Munich, Briennerstraße 8,3 aims to show how I moved from the deliberate, most precise imitation of nature using oil paint, brush, and canvas, to arrive at the rigorous handling of exclusively artistic materials in Merz construction. Moreover, this selection traces a continuous development that leads from these naturalistic studies to the Merz abstractions. To paint from nature is to translate a three-dimensional body onto a twodimensional plane. You can learn to do this if you are healthy and not color-blind. Oil paint, canvas, and brush serve as both material and tool.You can copy the effects of natural impressions with the appropriate distribution of oil paint on the canvas. Under favorable circumstances, you can do this so precisely that the painting and the model become indistinguishable. For instance, start with a white canvas primed for oil paint and then trace, say, with charcoal, the most evident vectors of the natural form you want to depict. Only the first vector can be drawn fairly arbi-
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trarily, all the subsequent vectors must reflect the angle to the first vector found in the natural model. By continually comparing the representation with the model, you can correlate the respective vectors in relation to one another so that those of the representation match those manifested in the appearance of the model. You set down vectors on the canvas intuitively and then gauge and check the accuracy of your intuition by comparing the estimated angle of any given vector to the plumb line in nature and to the plumb line in the representation, respectively. Based on this procedure, and in accordance with the appearance of the proportions between the elements of the natural model, you draw the relationship between the different sizes of picture’s elements onto the canvas. Ideally, you do this with imaginary lines that circumscribe these different elements. You randomly choose the size of the first part, unless your aim is to render the “natural size” of a given part, like that of a head, for instance. In that case, you locate an imaginary plane that corresponds to the picture plane in nature. Using a pair of compasses, you measure an imaginary line that runs parallel to this plane and then transfer this measurement into your representation of this first part. The relationship between all other parts is then determined intuitively on the picture plane in relation to this first part, with all the proportions between the respective parts of the image being assessed against the respective parts of the model. You check the intuitive arrangement that relates the individual parts of the picture through measurement.You do this by holding the picture at a sufficient distance until the size of the first part of the reproduction exactly coincides with that of the model when you compare both. To check a random measurement, you hold the handle of a paintbrush at arm’s length and in the direction of the measurement in nature. Now bring the brush handle to coincide with the object being measured in such a manner that the end of the paintbrush and one end of the measured object coincide. Then place your thumb against the handle of the brush so that the contact point of your thumbnail to the brush handle covers the other end of the measured object. If you hold this measurement, obtained with the brush handle, at arm’s length in front of the corresponding measurement in the image, you can determine, with photographic precision, if your senses have deceived you. If this recording is “correct,” you can fill in these sections of the image using color that corresponds to nature. It is most expedient to begin with a clearly discernible color that covers a large swath, such as a somewhat refracted blue, perhaps. You can assess how matt this expanse is, and you can mute its brilliance by using a complementary color— for ultramarine you can use a light ochre, for instance. By adding white, you can lighten color; with black, you can make it darker. You can learn all of this. To check the correctness of your picture, it is best to take it from the easel and hold it directly next to the imaginary picture plane in nature. When you then step back to your original vantage point, you can compare the color in the picture with that in nature. By softening overly bright color tones and adding ones that are still missing, you can make the color tones in the picture
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match as closely as possible the color tones in nature. Once one color tone is correct, return the picture back to the easel and adjust the other colors according to your intuition. Then, you can test the results of your intuition again by directly placing the picture next to the model and comparing each color tone to that found in nature. If you are patient and adjust all the large and small outlines, shapes, and color tones against each other and in accordance with those in nature, you will achieve an exact reproduction of nature. You can learn this. You can teach this. To avoid being too deceived by your “intuition,” you can analyze nature itself through the study of anatomy and perspective, and you can understand your materials by studying color theory. That’s the academy! I beg the reader’s pardon for my detailed description of how to paint a copy from nature. I had to do this to show that this is painstaking work, that it can be learned, that it is fundamentally a process of verification and coordination, and that it leaves the artistic work of creativity to atrophy. It was essential for me to learn this process of coordination, and I gradually came to realize that coordinating the individual parts of the image in relation to one another is not a means to an end— that is, a process of verification— but is, in fact, the very aim of art itself. The path to this insight was not a short one. To understand something requires work, and understanding goes only so far before a fog begins to shroud the horizon. And only from a point beyond this fog can you once again achieve greater insight. And I believe there is no end. The academy can no longer help you. There is no way to verify your insights. First I managed to free myself from the literal reproduction of all detail. I was content to capture the effects of light with intensity in sketch-like paintings (impressionism). Passionately enamored of nature (love is subjective), I emphasized the main movements by exaggerating them, the forms by restricting myself to the essential elements and their outlines, and the color tones by splitting them into complementary colors. The personal recording of nature now seemed to me to be what was most important. The image would become the mediator between myself and the beholder. I had impressions; I painted an image accordingly; the image had expression. You could write a catechism of expressive means if it weren’t such a pointless thing to do— as pointless as the intention of achieving expression in an artwork. Each line, color, form has a specific expression. Every combination of lines, colors, and forms has a specific expression. Expression can be achieved only through a particular configuration; it is not something that can be translated. You cannot capture the expression of an image in words, just as you cannot paint the expression of a word, such as the word “and,” for instance.4 Nevertheless, expression is so essential for an image that it is worth striving for consistently. Any intention to reproduce natural forms will reduce the force of the consistency necessary to bring out a given expression. For my part I gave up repro-
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ducing natural elements and instead painted only with pictorial elements. These are my abstractions. I assessed the different elements of an image against each other, just as I had at the academy, but now the goal was not the reproduction of nature— the goal was expression. Currently I find that even this striving for expression in the artwork is detrimental for art. Art is a primordial concept [Urbegriff ], as exalted as the deity, as inexplicable as life, indefinable and purposeless. The work of art emerges from the artistic devaluation [Abwerten] of its elements. All I know is how I make the work. All I know is my material, from which I make my selection. I do not know to what end. The material is as insignificant as I am myself. What is significant is the forming [das Formen]. Because the material is insignificant, I use any material whatsoever, as the image demands. By coordinating a wide range of diverse materials in relation to one another, I gain an advantage over oil-only painting. Now, in addition to evaluating color against color, line against line, form against form, etc., I am also evaluating material against material, for instance wood against burlap. I call the worldview that engendered this method of artistic formation “Merz.” The word “Merz” had no meaning when I gave it form. Now it has the meaning I attached to it. The meaning of the concept “Merz” changes with the changing understanding of those who continue to work in the spirit of this concept. Merz wants freedom from any restraint, so that it can give form with artistic intent. Freedom does not mean dissolution; rather, it is the result of strict artistic discipline. Merz also means tolerance for all restrictions imposed for artistic reasons. Any artist must have the right to put together a picture using blotting paper alone, for instance— just as long as he is able to make pictures. The reproduction of natural elements is not necessary for a work of art. However, inherently inartistic depictions of nature can be parts of a picture, provided they are evaluated against all the other parts of the picture. At first I also occupied myself with other arts, for example, poetry. The elements of poetry are letters, syllables, words, sentences. Evaluating these elements against each other makes poetry. Sense is necessary only when it is also evaluated as a factor. I evaluate sense against nonsense. I prefer nonsense, but that is a purely personal matter. I feel sorry for nonsense, because it has so rarely been treated artistically in the past. That is why I love nonsense. At this point I must mention Dadaism, which, like me, cultivates nonsense. There are two groups of Dadaists, the Core- and the Husk-Dadas,5 with the latter residing in Germany, for the most part. Initially there were just the Core-Dadaists before the Husk-Dadaists under their leader Huelsenbeck split away from the original core, peeling off parts of the core in the process. This peeling away was accompanied by loud howls, continuous singing of the Marseillaise, by doling out kicks with the elbows— a tactic Huelsenbeck employs to this day. Under Huelsenbeck, Dada became a political concern.6 The famous manifesto of the revolutionary Ger-
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man Central Council for Dada calls for radical communism as a Dadaist demand. In his 1920 history of Dada, published by Steegemann, Huelsenbeck writes: “Dada is a German Bolshevik matter.”7 The aforementioned manifesto by the Central Council also calls for “the most brutal struggle against expressionism.”8 Moreover, in his history of Dada, Huelsenbeck writes: “A severe beating must be administered to art.” And in the introduction to the recently published DadaAlmanach, Huelsenbeck notes: “Dada creates a kind of Anti-Culture Propaganda.”9 Hence, Husk-Dadaism is politically oriented— against art and against culture. Now, I am tolerant and grant everyone their own view of the world, but I must mention that such views are alien to Merz. On principle, Merz aspires only to art, for no one can serve two masters. However, as Huelsenbeck himself admits, “the understanding of Dada by Dadaists varies greatly.” And so, Tristan Tzara, the leader of the Core-Dadaists, writes in his “Dada Manifesto” of 1918: “Everyone makes their art their own way” and, furthermore, that “Dada is the emblem of abstraction.”10 I must mention that Merz shares a deep artistic friendship with this version of Core-Dadaism as well as with the art of the Core-Dadaists Hans Arp (whom I especially love), Picabia, RibémontDessaignes, and Archipenko. Husk-Dada, in Huelsenbeck’s own words, “has made itself God’s buffoon.”11 Core-Dadaism, meanwhile, upholds the good, old traditions of abstract art. Husk-Dada: “foresees its end and laughs about it,”12 whereas Core-Dadaism will live as long as art lives. Merz too aspires to art and is the enemy of kitsch, even of intentional kitsch, even when it calls itself Dadaism under Huelsenbeck’s leadership. Whoever lacks the ability to judge art should not be allowed to write about art: “quod licet jovi non licet bovi.”13 Merz fundamentally and energetically rejects the inconsistent and dilettantish views of Mr. Richard Huelsenbeck on art, while it officially endorses the views of Tristan Tzara mentioned above. Here I still need to clarify a misunderstanding that could arise from my friendship with some of the Core-Dadaists. You could think that I consider myself a Dadaist, not least because the word “dada” is written on the cover of my Anna Blume poetry anthology, Verlag Paul Steegemann.14 On the same cover there is a windmill, a head, a locomotive running backward, and a man drawn suspended in midair. This means nothing more than the fact that in the world inhabited by Anna Blume, where people walk on their heads, where windmills turn by themselves, and where locomotives run backward, Dada also exists. To ensure I am not misunderstood, I wrote “Antidada” on the cover of my Cathedral.15 This does not mean that I am against Dadaism, but that this world also contains a current that runs counter to Dadaism. Locomotives run from behind and from the front. Why shouldn’t a locomotive run backward once in a while? As long as I paint, I also model. Currently I am making Merz-sculptures: Lust galgen and Kultpumpe.16 The Merz-sculptures, like the Merz-pictures, are assembled
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from various materials. They were conceived as sculptures in the round and have any number of viewpoints. Haus Merz was my first Merz-architecture.17 In Zweemann, issue 8– 10, Spengemann writes: “In Haus Merz I see the Cathedral: The Cathedral. Not the church building, no— the edifice that serves as the expression of the true spiritual intuition of what raises us to infinity: absolute art. This cathedral cannot be used. Its interior space is so completely filled with wheels that there is no room for people inside . . . this is absolute architecture, which has only an artistic meaning.”18 It was an artistic necessity for me to engage with different arts. I was not driven by any urge to expand the area of my activity, but by the aspiration not to be a specialist of a single art, but rather to be an artist. My goal is the Merz-Gesamtkunstwerk, which will join all the arts into an artistic unity. At first I married the individual arts together. I pasted poems from words and sentences in such a way that the resulting rhythm produced a drawing. Conversely, I pasted pictures and drawings that contained sentences meant to be read. I nailed pictures in a manner that created a sculptural effect alongside the painterly pictorial effect. I did this to blur the boundaries between the different arts. The Merz-Gesamtkunstwerk, however, is the Merz-theater, which I have so far been able to work out only on a theoretical level. The first publication about it can be found in SturmBühne, issue 8:19 “The Merztheater exists to stage Merz-performances. The Merz-performance is an abstract work of art. A play or an opera is normally based on a written text that stands separate and apart from the theater and exists as a well-rounded work. Stage set, music, and performance merely illustrate this text, which itself merely illustrates a plot. In contrast to plays or operas, all the elements of a Merz-performance intertwine inseparably. This cannot be written, read, or heard but can be experienced only in a theater. Theater productions previously distinguished between stage set, text, and score. Each element was treated separately and could also be enjoyed separately. The Merz-theater recognizes only the fusion of all elements into a Gesamtwerk. Materials for the stage set include all solid, liquid, and gaseous bodies, such as white walls, human beings, barbed wire, jets of water, blue distance, light cones. Use surfaces that can contract or dissolve as fabric, and surfaces with the folds of falling curtains, that can shrink or expand. Allow things to rotate and move about, lines to expand into surfaces. Slide elements into the stage set and remove others. Any sound or noise that the violin, drum, trombone, sewing machine, tick-tock clock, water jet, etc. can produce is material for the score. All experiences that stimulate the mind and the senses are material for the poetic work. Do not use materials according to their relationships as objects, but only according to the logic of the work of art. As the intensity increases with which the artwork demolishes the objective rational relationships that connect objects, the possibilities for artistic composition increase. Just as you would evaluate word against word in poetry, evaluate element against element, material against material. Think of the stage set as a kind of Merzpicture. The elements that make up the picture shift and change, and the picture
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plays itself out. The movement in the picture is silent or set to sounds or music. I demand the Merz-theater. Where is the experimental theater?20 Arrange immense surfaces, grasp their conceptual infinity, coat them in color, move them threateningly, and warp their smooth modesty. Snap and turbulate finite pieces and twist perforating bits of nothingness infinitely together. Paste over smoothing surfaces. Use wire to draw motion lines, actual movement climbs the actual rope of wire mesh. Cross flaming lines, creeping lines, surfacing lines. Let lines fight each other and caress each other with requited tenderness. Points should become stars in between, dance pirouettes, and manifest each other as lines. Bend the lines, crack and crinkle corners chokingly churn about a point. In a churning storm of waves, a line rushes by, made tangible with wire. Roll balls of swirling air making contact. Intersecting surfaces disjoin each other. Crates cant upward, straight and skewed and painted. Folding top hats sink cases strangle crates. Trace drawn lines draft varnishing a net. Nets envelop constricting Saint Anthony’s suffering. Let nets break in waves and dissolve as lines, contract as surfaces. Net the nets. Let veils fly, folds softly fall, let cotton wool drip and water spray. Shore up air soft and white with thousand-lumen arc lights. Then take wheels and axles, shore them up and let them sing (giant tree water course). Axles dance balls roll barrels mid-wheel. Cogwheels sense teeth, find a sewing machine that yawns. Turned up or bent double, the sewing machine beheads itself, feet up. Take a dentist’s drill, a meat grinder, a tram track scraper, omnibuses and automobiles, bicycles, tandems with their tires and their wartime spares, and deform them. Take lights and deform them in the most brutal way. Have locomotives crash into each other, have curtains and drapes dance the cobweb gossamer with the window-frame and shatter whimpering glass. Have steam boilers explode to produce the railway smoke. Gather up petticoats and other similar things, shoes and false hair, even ice skates, and throw them in the right place, where they belong and of course always at the right time. If you like, take mantraps, automatic firing devices, infernal machines, fish-shaped pans, and the funnel, everything in an artistically deformed state, of course. Tubes are highly recommended. In short, take everything from the hairnet of the noblewoman to the propeller of the SS Imperator, always according to the proportions that the work demands. People can also be used. People can be tied to the stage sets. People can also appear onstage in an active role, even in their everyday guise, speak on two legs, even in rational sentences. Now start marrying these materials together. Join, e.g., the oilcloth and the housing development joint-stock company in matrimony, allow the lamp cleaner to have a relationship with the marriage of Anna Blume and concert pitch A. Feed the sphere to the plane and have a twenty-two-thousand-lumen
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arc light destroy a cracked corner. Have people walk on their hands and wear a hat on their feet, like Anna Blume. (Cataracts.) Foam will be sprayed. And now begins the ember of musical saturation. Organs behind the stage sing and say: “fütt, fütt.” The sewing machine rattles away ahead. A person in some stage set says: “bah.” Another suddenly appears and says: “I am stupid.” (Reproduction prohibited.) A clergyman kneels backward in between and calls and prays loudly: “O, merciful one, swarm scatter gaze Hallelujah boy oh boy married water drip.” A water pipe drips with unchecked monotony. Eight. Kettledrums and flutes flash death, and a tram conductor’s whistle shines brightly. A stream of ice-cold water runs into a pot off the back of the man on one of the stage sets. He accompanies it, singing C-sharp, D, D-sharp, E-flat, the entire “Internationale.” A gas flame has been lit under the pot to boil the water, and a melody of violins oscillates purely and with girlish tenderness. A veil bridges breadths. The center cooks embers deeply red. There is a faint rustling. Long sighs swell, violin, and expire. Light darkens stage, even the sewing machine goes dark. Meanwhile, Franz Rolan, the actor and theater director, has expressed interest in this publication; Rolan has pursued similar ideas, such as making the theater independent from the playwright in order to allow the performance to develop its artistic form from the available materials of the theater: stage, scenery, color, light, actors, director, painter, and audience. Now we have fundamentally reworked the idea of the Merz-theater together in terms of its practical application, on a theoretical level for the moment. It has become a substantial manuscript and will soon be ready for printing.21 Perhaps one day, we will have an opportunity to witness the creation of the Merz-Gesamtkunstwerk too. We cannot create it ourselves for we too would be mere parts, indeed no more than material. Kurt Schwitters22
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(27) TRAN NO. 15. THE AVERAGE PHENOMENON WITH CLEAR EYES “Tran Nr. 15. Die Durchschnittserscheinung mit hellen Augen,” Die Pille 2, no. 2 (January 1921): 54– 56.
Schwitters takes aim at a book review by the critic Alois Vogedes of the anthology Der weiße Reiter [The white rider] (Dusseldorf: A. Bagel, 1920), written for the Hannoversche Volkszeitung (15 August 1920). This paper represented the views of the Catholic Center Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei, DZP), and it frequently published negative criticism of Schwitters’s art and poetry. In his review, Vogedes compared the various “isms” of the avant-garde to the numerous revolutionary factions shaping postwar German politics, and he referred to Merz as a negative counterexample to the work of the White Rider. Founded in 1919 by Karl Gabriel Pfeill (1889– 1942) and heavily influenced by the Blue Rider, this group of artists sought to fuse expressionism with Catholicism in the service of cultural renewal.
Mr. Alois Vogedes, from Hannover, writes about my art: These days we often hear, particularly in Catholic circles, that modern artistic endeavors are little more than ‘snobbish follies, deception, or utter profiteering.’ This is absolutely false. There may be individual cases where this is true. Here I am thinking of Kurt Schwitters’s Anna Blume and other such Dadaist stuttering, as well as the Merz-paintings. I am perfectly aware that such phenomena seriously damage the greater cause, but our legal system does not consider this sufficient grounds for the mental asylum and this is unfortunate for the new art that will forge its way. I read between the lines and delight in Mr. Alois Vogedes’s unintended appreciation for my art. First, Mr. Vogedes considers me an individual case among what he calls modern artistic endeavors. That is, there is modern art and unmodern art, according to Vogedes, that is. And Mr. Alois Vogedes counts the “Dadaists, futurists, cubists, expressionists, and impressionists” as “modern” art, that is. Mr. Vogedes, when were you last in an art exhibition with “clear eyes”? We first need to examine what humans in general consider to be spirit [Geist]. 77
If we were living in an age of general mental enfeeblement, the average person, this pleasant skat-playing type, would be the spirit of our age. If we were living in an age of geniuses, then an imaginary being that is endlessly good and endlessly smart or endlessly stupid and endlessly fiendish would be that spirit. The spirit is always the individual phenomenon that has qualities that stimulate the masses. I really am not vain, but I see with “clear eyes,” like Mr. Vogedes. Reading between the lines, “—— individual cases—— seriously damage the greater cause,” I find that Mr. Vogedes acknowledges me as the guiding spirit. I acknowledge his acknowledgement by politely blushing deep red. And now I continue reading with “clear eyes” between the lines: The spirit that prevails in this battle will control the future, and— it alone will control it. But it is precisely the upstanding middle class that frequently shrugs and turns away from this movement, with no more than a pitying smile for these Sturmers-und-Drangers. These are shining prospects for the spirit, indeed. So it seems that I alone will rule the future! Agreed, Mr. Vogedes, but not without your cooperation. You will ready my path, you shall be Minister of Clear Eyes. Poor Mr. Vogedes, the average phenomenon is evidently opposed to the individual phenomenon. So you really fear the sinister influence of the individual phenomenon on the average phenomenon? And this is why you want to stick the individual phenomenon in a mental asylum. What a shame, our legal system does not consider this sufficient grounds for the mental asylum. But do you still believe that you can actually eliminate influences on average phenomena with mental asylums? Read the history books with clear eyes and see whether crucifix, pyre, or mental asylum ever managed to eliminate the influence exerted by the respective idea being crucified. Moreover, I want to remind you that love is the idea of Christianity. I begin again at the beginning. Mr. Alois Vogedes is absolutely convinced that Anna Blume and Merz seriously damage the greater cause. What is the greater cause in this case? Answer: The “Art” of the “White Rider.” Now, according to one poet associated with the White Rider, the art of the White Rider consciously reclaims the leading spiritual strata of society for Catholicism. This cannot be art, as art is instinctive and purposeless; instinctive and purposeless as understood by the average person. So whoever harms the greater cause, i.e., the art of the White Rider, benefits art. And I blush a deep purple at the idea that Mr. Vogedes fears I could benefit art. Mr. Vogedes is fearful with clear eyes. Rabbits should sleep with their eyes open. The poets of the White Rider write: We realize, when we call for a crusade against darkness, we must first lead the charge within our hearts.
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So, did you indeed lead the charge within your heart before you led the crusade against my art? I quote: It is not from any currently dominant art or artistic movement, no matter what kind, that the great art of the future will emerge. But are you not aware, Mr. Vogedes, that it is precisely Merz that offers liberation from every artistic movement? I quote: You are aware: a moral renewal without Catholicism is nothing more than a piecemeal solution, even an absurdity. At this point, I would remind you of Christ’s parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.1 So, to conclude, dear Mr. Vogedes, I offer you my hand in reconciliation. Do not write about art again, and then I will not need to write about things that concern the Catholic Church. After all, why should we each write about things we know nothing about?
Tran No. 15. The Average Phenomenon with Clear Eyes
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(28) WHY I AM DISSATISFIED WITH OIL PAINTING “Miképen vagyok elégedetlen az olajfestészettel,” MA 6, no. 3 (1 January 1921): 29– 30. Translated from Hungarian by John Batki.
The Hungarian avant-garde periodical MA (Today; 1916– 25) was founded and edited by the writer and artist Lajos Kassák (1887– 1967). From 1919 it was published in Vienna following the collapse of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic and the exile of many of the artists affiliated with Kassák’s Activist circle. Kassák likely came in contact with Schwitters’s art through his connection with Der Sturm. This issue of MA also included the poem “An Anna Blume,” an article on the Merz-theater (included in text 26), reproductions of three Merz-pictures, and the essay “Kurt Schwitters, a Merzfestő” (Kurt Schwitters, the Merz-painter) by Christof Spengemann. Schwitters later contributed to Kassák and László Moholy-Nagy’s Buch neuer Künstler (Book of new artists, 1922), and he continued to publish in MA until 1923.
The journal MA has asked me to write about why I am dissatisfied with current art. I am not critical because I make Merz-pictures. Tolerance lies at the heart of Merz art. Why should someone else who starts out from different premises not arrive at different results? Why should anyone not be free to use paint to make pictures on canvas? Quite the contrary. The use of hitherto unconventional materials in unusual ways in Merz-painting shows precisely just how irrelevant the material itself is from the standpoint of the work of art. This is why you cannot dictate or forbid what materials or content an artist can use. From my point of view, there is nothing objectionable about oil painting if the result is art— that is, if it is self-evident for the artist who made the work. The main thing is the execution. I have absolutely no quarrel to pick with oil painting as such. However, I am unhappy with the ubiquitous spread of oil painting. I see in this a lack of concern with important matters, such as the materials used to create form. The great differences between people make it unlikely that brushstrokes of oil on canvas are the only materials all artists want to use to express their experiences. I find nothing masterly in this restriction. Why limit ourselves in this way when we have the entire world of our senses at our disposal? The only real restraint should be the will of the artist as he follows his inner dictates at any given time. 80
(29) TRAN 18 “Tran 18,” Die Pille 2, no. 6 (February 1921): 166– 67.
In summer 1920, the Galerie Ernst Arnold in Dresden mounted an exhibition of work by Schwitters, Willi Baumeister, and Oskar Schlemmer. Here Schwitters replies to a dismissive review, written by Felix Zimmermann for the conservative newspaper Dresdner Nachrichten (“In der Galerie Arnold,” 19 July 1920). In his review, Zimmermann referred to the activities of Paul F. Schmidt (1878– 1955), who had been appointed director of the Stadtmuseum Dresden in 1919. Schmidt quickly founded a department dedicated to contemporary art; in 1920, he acquired Schwitters’s L Merzpicture L 3 (The Merzpicture.) (1919; CR 436, see fig. 5 and text 55) and, in the following year, Ring Picture (1920/21; CR 611). These activities led the extreme right faction in the municipal government to charge Schmidt with being a “Kunstbolschewist” (Art-Bolshevist), and in 1924 he was removed from his position. Both of Schwitters’s assemblages were later confiscated in 1935 for the series of Entartete Kunst (Degenerate art) exhibitions that toured Nazi Germany; they were subsequently lost.
to the dresden critic , mixed with impressions from the bernaer fochelwiehsse . 1 ( come and geeet it , come and earrrn your i . c . 1 st class heeere .) 2
First off, F.Z., Dresdner Nachrichten, 19 July 1920. (No blanks! Every throw’s a winner!) Dr. Felix Zimmermann is a relativist. As he sees it . . . it would seem to him . . . you never know. (Selina will reveal your darkest secrets.) Allow me, Dr., to file your criticism under the ideas of an artistically organized trash heap (this is your idea, by the way, not mine). (Everywhere you look, the small puppeteers are the people’s choice.) You are just a relativist. (Honestly, Else, I pity you.) You write, relatively favorably: Dr. Schmidt’s devotees of the future were faced with these bizarre products of this new artistic will, and their empathetic explanations attracted more doubters and scoffers than willing followers, whereas they demand contemplative, critical examination to ascertain objectively the value of such extreme formal developments.” F.Z.3 Faced with your relativity, every throw’s a winner. So, please: “Faced with these bizarre products.” You are calling my products bizarre.You consider my products to 81
be bizarre. You have evidently not yet seen my kind of products face to face. (A pour of fruit wine at the Jolly Roger Tavern.) And this despite my extensive advertising! Nor am I the only one to make such products behind your back. It’s a pity that you didn’t turn your head even once. (Classics in all price ranges.) Perhaps I can enlighten you about what goes on behind your back. — But wait! Don’t turn around! Don’t disturb the development! I implore you! God praises what is good. Long trousers spoil the character. Your face wants to function like the head of Medusa, as you talk behind my back: “Up to and including the production of Merz-pictures and similar outrageous swindles.”4 I hope the room starts to swirl behind your back.5 So, sit down, I’ll enlighten you. There was a colleague of mine who lived around 1500 called Leonardo da Vinci; you may have heard of him. They say he adopted this bizarre practice of gluing parts of a picture. Picasso and Braque invented cubism behind your back in the year 1910. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Have you ever seen a cubist painting? According to Daniel Henry [Kahnweiler], these two cubists found new resources in the most diverse materials such as “strips of affixed colored paper, enamel paint, sawdust, oil cloth, glass,” etc.6 All this behind your back. Today, were you to turn your face, you would be astonished to see just how much the manufacture of such products and similarly outrageous swindles have grown. (Wide-ranging guarantee, the best material, beautiful form, clear sound, exquisite welding, and proper tempering.) To name just a few of the most famous manufacturers in the arena of bizarre, glued and nailed artworks, here a few names: Tristan Tzara, Arnold Topp, Oskar Fischer, Francis Picabia, Hans Arp, Marcel Janco, Dadamax Ernst, Alfred Grünwald, alias Baargeld, Heinrich Hörle, Angelica Hörle, Marta Räderscheid [sic], Josef Kuron, Hans Citroen, Raoul Hausmann, Walther Mehring, Sophie Täuber, Alexander Archipenko, Otto Dix— this last one lives behind your back in Dresden. And yet you write: “Faced with these bizarre products.” I would say, faced with my tutorial, your expression rather misses the mark. You should have written: “Faced with my ignorance when it comes to art.” Moreover: “met . . . more doubters than willing followers,” which in proper English means nothing other than: “I wasn’t able to follow Dr. Schmidt’s explanations, and so I began to doubt and scoff.” And so, the last section of your sentence then reads: “and it demands contemplative, critical examination to ascertain objectively the value of my criticism.” Which is what I’ve done here. So, Dr. Felix Zimmermann, quietly stay seated and critically review the entire corrected sentence three times, until you know it by heart: “1. When faced with my ignorance . . . began to doubt and scoff . . . contemplative, critical examination . . . ascertain the value of my criticism.” 2. Repeat the entire sentence. 3. Do the same once again. — Well — Thank you. — You can go home now. (Eeeeeels — Eels, Eels, Eels, Eeeeeels, get ’em here, just five marks when you’re done for the day!) “You never know” — When faced with my ignorance — More ed’cation! —
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(30) EVENING READING Unpublished typescript with additions in shorthand, “Leseabend” (ca. February 1921).
Schwitters staged his first public recital of poetry and prose at the Haus der Kaufmannschaft in Dresden on 19 February 1921, marking the start of his career as a touring performer that generated considerable publicity for Merz throughout Germany and internationally in the years to come. The program in Dresden included readings of his literary works “Die Zwiebel” (The onion) and “Ursachen und Beginn der großen glorreichen Revolution in Revon” (Causes and beginning of the great, glorious revolution in Revon), as well as a selection from “Merz” (text 26). At the same location, on 19 January 1920, Johannes Baader, Raoul Hausmann, and Richard Huelsenbeck had held a “Dada-Soirée,” which provoked a large, rowdy crowd to riot and prompted a raid by the police.
My Dear Ladies and Gentlemen! As I stand before you tonight to read from my work on the very spot where, one year ago, the Dadaists died a martyr’s death for their mischief, I know that I am taking an enormous risk. After all, I am generally taken to be a Dadaist. To rule out the possibility of any misunderstanding on this score, I must emphasize at the outset that what I am doing tonight is neither Dadaism nor mischief, but Merz and a serious artistic undertaking. Accordingly, I must ask the audience to remain an audience for this event, and that you do not actively participate in it. But if the audience rolls out of its role like it did last year, I must stress that I am not willing to behave like the Dadaists. If that should happen, I will simply wait for the audience to settle down to continue my reading. If there are people in the audience tonight intent on making mischief, I ask them, in the interest of everyone else, to please wait for the end of my reading. Your attitude, dear listeners, will decide if tonight will be a pleasurable evening. First off, let me say that I have made a change to my program. My answer to my Dresden critics, the teacher Felix Zimmermann and Richard Stiller, are not suitable for public reading. Because they were printed in Hannover’s weekly paper Die Pille, I will just point out that Die Pille is available at the box office. My answer to Mr. Richard Stiller will not appear until the next issue, though.1 Because critics are all fairly similar, I will read out “What Art Is” as a general treatise on criticism.2 With the permission of the esteemed audience, the evening program will be as follows: By way of introduction, I will begin with a few words on my understanding of poetry. [typescript ends] 83
(31) MY VIEWS ON THE VALUE OF CRITICISM (FOR THE ARARAT ) “Meine Ansicht über den Wert der Kritik (Für den Ararat),” Der Ararat 2, no. 5 (May 1921): 177– 78.
Der Ararat published this text by Schwitters as a postscript to a feature in its April 1921 issue, “Über den Wert der Kritik (Eine Rundfrage an die Künstler)” (On the value of criticism [an artists’ questionnaire]), which assembled comments from twelve contemporary German artists, including Max Beckmann, Otto Gleichmann, Alexander Kanoldt, Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin, Max Pechstein, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. These responses followed a dossier of French criticism and excerpts by authors such as Goethe, Alfred Kerr, and Oscar Wilde.
In order to judge the value of criticism, we must first consider the purpose of criticism. Should it mediate between artists and viewers, provide artists with an impartial judgment on their work with the intention to offer instruction and support, or should it relate the value of a given work under critical discussion to some party line: that is, should criticism mediate, instruct, or organize? I think organizing or instructing is unacceptable in criticism, because the artist should not be dependent on influences that do not come from his art itself. Hence, this only leaves mediation as the goal of criticism. In order to mediate, the critic must know the work of art— know it in depth. He must appreciate the language of the work of art and be sufficiently tolerant to read it only how it wants to be read. His knowledge of the nature of art and of artworks must be so encompassing as to allow him to actually recognize what is typical of the work being reviewed. Moreover, in order to be understood, the critic must take the reader’s education into account, and, finally, he himself must be sufficiently creative to mediate between the work of art and the viewer. How he does this is up to him. In this respect, he is the artist, and so we should not impose any regulations on him. I myself am fond of criticism that is itself a work of art, that is to say, a work that uses language to create something analogous to the work under review. I see a practical value in criticism only when the reader not only reads the criticism, but also goes out and looks at the work. From my experience, you can understand a work only through contemplation and the practice of looking at artworks, possibly also through reflection, but never through rational reasoning. So the best critic is the one who nurtures the reader’s sensitivity to the power of the work by encouraging him to make his own efforts and to allow it to have its effect on him. 84
That said, I advise the art-loving layman to work on his own artistic abilities. He should remain critical of criticism. He should scrutinize criticism by examining the works in question. A good review must withstand being compared to the work being reviewed. And above all, the layman should make contemplation the basis for his reflections on art.
My Views on the Value of Criticism
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(32) CLEANLINESS (FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW IT YET) “Sauberkeit (Für Leute, die es noch nicht wissen),” Die Pille 2, no. 18 (May 1921): 77.
I love hygienic cleanliness. Oil paint reeks of rancid fat. Tempera stinks of rotten eggs. Charcoal and graphite are the greasiest filth, which is immediately apparent from their black color. I love hygienic cleanliness and hygienic painting. I call this “MERZ.” Merz-painting uses the most delicate materials, such as clean rye flour paste, disinfected scraps of cloth and paper, thoroughly washed wood, nonalcoholic iron fittings, and the like. Merz-painting is completely germ-free. The only germ actually transmittable by Merz is the rabies germ. Merz caught this germ a while ago, through no fault of my own, from the bites of rabid critics. Since then the germ has been transmitted to each esteemed, right honorable critic who has lately sunk his teeth into Merz. Merz does not bite, but the esteemed critics do. Because critics have overbite, like bulldogs. I sincerely regret that all criticism in Germany— with the exception of a few strong personalities— has become rabid from Merz-bites.
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(33) TRAN 19 “Tran 19,” Der Sturm 12, no. 8 (August 1921): 137– 38. Reprinted with the title “Tran 19. Bä sagt das Schaf (Herrn Paul Westheim gewidmet)” (Tran 19. Baaah says the sheep [Dedicated to Mr. Paul Westheim]), in the second and enlarged edition of Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1922), 77– 82.
In his second reply to Paul Westheim (see text 23), Schwitters cheerfully takes up the critic’s invitation to his readers to respond to his remarks at the end of a review of recent exhibitions in Berlin in Das Kunstblatt 5, no. 6 (June 1921): 192: “Munch, Valori Plastici, Braß, Fiori and also the disarray [Zerfahrenheit] of Schwitters (who is once again also on view in Berlin, who has begun to install music boxes in his pictures— perhaps because he, too, senses how academic this manner has already become): now, what is actually the art of this age? Perhaps someone has the single, comprehensive formula for all these developments? R.S.V.P.” Schwitters attacks Westheim’s use of Zerfahrenheit, which implies disorganization or absentmindedness. He takes the word apart in an extended play on the root, zerfahren, which he variously treats as a verb (to disarray), noun (disarray), and adjective (disarrayed). In the process, he inverts the meaning Westheim intended and tests the destructive power of his Merz technique on the material of language.
My disarray of Paul Westheim, in an attempt to extract aromatic, nonalcoholic juices. (An axe in the house will disintegrate a joiner’s labor.)1 Dear Mr. Westheim! (Everyone embarrass themselves, as best they can.) Firstly, I am not the one who is disarrayed, but you. (Gasping for breath, the frog yawns to the center.) I array; you disarray and are disarrayed. (And if it’s a boy, look after him please.) I know exactly which road I must take (People find drinking water palatable only in a boiling state); you do not. (To prepare the leather for shoe glue, the section being repaired must be cleaned of dirt.) Please take a moment and reflect (beer makes you lazy, stupid, and indolent), if indeed you can reflect (the last carriages are at the back), what disarray actually means. (Whenever I see that ox, I am reminded of my Christian.) The prefix “dis” is generally used to mean apart. (With the smallest event, o grief-stricken soul, your sorrow will fade and leave whence it came.):2 “dissect, disjoint, disfigure, disintegrate, disarray, etc.” (That’s a lot of suffering!) Please reflect (for sick birds, all you need are Spratt’s tried and tested Dog Biscuits!), if indeed you can reflect (the biggest grouch is crying with laughter.), which of the two of us is riven apart, you or me. (Only dry leather can 87
be glued.) Whether I make you the object or the subject of the verb to disarray (the illness of one has a detrimental effect on the health of the other), both are correct (many are sick without realizing it.), you disarray art (the managing board of the Panther Beauty Contest will pay 10,000 marks to whomever can prove that Tohrah the Panther is wearing an artistic fur on her body) and are disarrayed by events you do not control. (Wanted: Capitalists to exploit a patent.) But art cannot be disarrayed (Holy is the cloak of Saint Wilgefortis)3 and rises up against the Kunstblatt, like a sword. (Attention: Dog bites, ring the bell!) And now I ask you politely but urgently (a skinnery is the same as the removal of animal corpses) not to hold me responsible for the fact that you (Industrial Cooperative, System Dust Cover) want to disarray my art. (Hotel and Restaurant Satisfaction). What is more, you call my art a “manner.” (The rabies outbreak among the dogs of Berlin promises good business for the makers of muzzles and canine sporting equipment for years to come.) I understand a manner to mean working according to a dead formula without an inner drive. (Items such as suspenders, belts, martinets, wristlets, so-called legwarmers would all give a great deal of pleasure.) Given this definition, I would assert (there is no compulsion to drink, you may smoke) that the way you put together the Kunstblatt (Workmanlike adjustment here) is a manner. (It is well known, the peat peddler also sells a product that doesn’t warm him.)4 I, in turn, will prove (peat, peat, rabbit skins!) that Merz, of all things (Anna Blume had a child with Bender.) cannot be a manner because it has freed itself (I’m not buying what he’s selling.) from every manner. (Coal is bread!) But I will not even attempt the attempt (red orange yellow green blue indigo purple); my efforts would be pointless (What is illuminating gas made of?) since you do not even understand my proof. (Consult, compare, consider, find out the truth and honey.) Consult my tears5 and other Merz publications if you want to educate yourself. (They include all ages, the ailing, lame, and crippled, the speechless, the mentally disturbed, and even the blind and deaf-mute.) Then you ask: “What is actually the art of this age?” (Wanted: for the purchase of a prime business, 50 grand from a benefactor.) The question characterizes you, Mr. Westheim. (Elegant Everclean Clothing.) You yourself do not know the answer. (Let the critic’s first virtue be modesty.)6 A critic should be confident in his knowledge (Women’s Trumpeter Corps); an overconfident critic could perhaps be called disarrayed. (res severa verum gaudium.)7 You yourself supply the proof of your disarray, Mr. Westheim (We are all Schiller’s heirs), when you request the comprehensive formula (:) (Didn’t you say formula?) that explains all the becoming of our age (The first carriages are at the front.): “Munch, Valori Plastici, Brass, Fiori as well as the disarray of Schwitters.” (not every day is Sunday,) This disarrayed Schwitters is now even incorporating music boxes into his pictures! (and you can’t have wine every day) perhaps he will notice himself, how academic his manner is gradually becoming. (but every day you should be sweet to me!) N.B. “academic.” With this you probably mean: “ready for the Kunstblatt?” (It is well
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known, a sheep is a stupid animal.) You cannot honestly believe, Mr. Westheim, that I would ever collaborate with a publication hostile to art? (This raises the sole question: is a sum of sheep, that is, a herd of sheep, more stupid or more intelligent than a single sheep?) Munch, Valori Plastici, Brass, Fiori and disarrayed Schwitters, the selection is arbitrary, coincidental. (Women are not allowed to smoke.) This selection is as coincidental as the way an arbitrary Kunstblatt is put together. (Roses have legs.) Coincidentally, these gentlemen exhibited at the same time. (Spartacus Municipality). But how could you assume that your coincidental selection is not characteristic for the new becoming of our age. (“Baah” says the sheep.) Shoe glue is highly volatile and inflammable. (He who watches over you does not sleep!) But I will tell you the single comprehensive formula for all the becoming in art. (New in Europe!) Mr. Westheim, don’t faint! (The House of Innocence, a sensational play in five acts.) Don’t faint, Mr. Westheim (the last carriages are at the front), if I briefly tell you the formula (Fatty leathers can be completely cleaned only using a fat solvent solution.): The comprehensive formula for all the becoming in art is (special exhibition of German sheep dogs in conjunction with the presentation of excellent expressionists) is nothing other than honesty. Don’t believe everything; don’t believe a single person; don’t believe everyone; just wait, soon everything will have a goal. (Nursing Days provided: 166,943.) To maintain fashionable ladies’ handbags, we must make allowances for this decisive branch of our leather production (all leather can be glued, whether old or new.), but we can use only well-dried material. (Harry, I’ve got a ticket; I’ll have it punched twice![ )] Winners are always right. With loyal German greetings, your highly disarrayed Kurt Schwitters July 1921
Tran 19
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2 Kurt Schwitters, Schloß und Kathedrale mit Hofbrunnen (Castle and Cathedral with Courtyard Well), 1920/1922, CR 774; and Carl Krayl, Glashaus von oben (Glass house from above), n.d. Reproduced in Frühlicht: Eine Folge für die Verwirklichung des neuen Baugedankens 1, no. 3 (1922): 87. Courtesy Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (84-B31231).
(34) CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL WITH COURTYARD FOUNTAIN “Schloss und Kathedrale mit Hofbrunnen von K. Schwitters,” Frühlicht: Eine Folge für die Verwirklichung des neuen Baugedankens 1, no. 3 (1922): 87.
Frühlicht was edited by Bruno Taut (1880– 1938), who was the city architect of Magdeburg at the time this issue was published (see text 57). On the same page as Schwitters’s statement, he reproduced a drawing by his chief associate, Carl Krayl (1890– 1947), who had been a fellow member of the visionary “Gläserne Kette” (Crystal Chain) group in 1919– 20.
When my wife picked up the model from the photographer, she had to carry it without a cover, because the tips on the pine stump representing the Gothic cathedral were already very brittle. On the tram, passengers eyed the model with curiosity. Finally, the conductor summoned the courage to ask what it was supposed to be. My wife answered evasively that it was a castle, a church, and a fountain that her son had nailed together. The conductor replied that he had thought as much, that it was very nice, and that it demonstrated a very healthy imagination. Had my wife told him that I, a grown-up artist, had nailed a cork from a medicine bottle and stumps of beech and pine to a sloping board to create the impression of a castle-like complex on a mountainside, which an architect could use to refresh his imagination, the conductor would probably still have said that he had thought as much, but that it was evidence of a fevered imagination. Wrongly so. I demand a Merz-architecture. This demand is twofold: 1. A Merz model for architecture. 2. A merzful deployment of architecture for new form-creation [Gestaltung]. The Merz model for architecture applies an architectonic sensibility to any and all materials in order to achieve an effect that architecture can imitate. The use of such random materials enriches the imagination. When that is the case, the imagination works rhythmically with already existing rhythms. Transposing this model onto representational materials and constructive possibilities alike involves a process of thorough reworking. The model provides the stimulation. Of all the arts, architecture is actually the one most attuned to the idea of Merz. It is well known that Merz means using old, available materials for the new work of art. Because the materials for building houses are so cumbersome, architecture had no choice but to constantly reuse what was old and incorporate it into new designs. This resulted in infinitely rich and beautiful buildings, because it was not 91
the style of the old materials that guided architects but rather the idea of the new Gesamtkunstwerk. This is how our cities, for example, should be reworked. By carefully tearing down the most disruptive elements, by incorporating ugly and beautiful buildings alike into an overarching rhythm, and by appropriately distributing accents, a large city could be converted into an enormous Merz-artwork. Indeed, the will to turn a major city into a Merz-artwork could even be demonstrated by painting the entire city of Berlin in keeping with the plan of a Merz-architect, which would freely paint out entire neighborhoods and would accentuate, in light and color, some important centers that obviously do not coincide with major transportation hubs. Perhaps we will not live to witness the merzing of Berlin in its entirety; but the merzing of some areas would indeed be an artistic necessity.
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(35) TRAN 21. SPEECH AT THE GRAVE OF LEO REIN (IN THE BERLINER BÖRSENZEITUNG 547 ON 27 NOVEMBER 1921) “Tran 21. Rede am Grabe Leo Reins (in der Berliner Börsenzeitung 547 v[on] 27.11.21),” Der Sturm 13, no. 1 (January 1922): 8.
Schwitters replies to a “eulogy for Dada” penned by the theater and literature critic Leo Rein in the Berliner Börsenzeitung (“Grabrede auf Dada,” 27 November 1921). Rein proclaimed that Dada had lost its purpose with the end of the war and Germany’s failed socialist revolution, and he singled out Schwitters’s poetry and work in collage as particularly symptomatic of its decline. Here Schwitters colors his prose with words expressed in dialect (impossible to approximate in translation). He takes up the critic’s pedantic commentary on the illogical grammar of “An Anna Blume,” and he puns on his name— Leo is a lion and Rein longs for a time that is more pure (rein). This is his only published reply to Rein, who, two years earlier, had published a negative review of Anna Blume: Dichtungen (“Der Poet hat ein Vogel” [The poet is off his rocker], Neue Berliner Zeitung, 15 January 1920).
I begin with the claim that the critic Mr. Leo Rein is dead. Critics are either dead or Dadaists. I claim Mr. Rein is both, because this works so well. His speech lacks warmth, lacks meat; it rattles like a bag of bones. But though he may be dead, his name lives on, and it’s a sign of better times ahead, that the lion rattles on to times that are more pure, times without the laughable Merz-painting and without the repulsive Anna Blume. The voice loses head crooked the legs. No, Mr. Rein, you can’t read every name backward. For instance, your name would read as Snieroel. If only it were actually smear oil! I’m a detective, got it? Suicide? Sadly, yes. The lion bit his own tail behind him until he felled down dead.1 (Less common imperfect tense of “fall.”) Now he lies there, wailing and moaning. (So what if the grumpy bear gets me all wet?) Then he’ll get a beating. I’m a pastor, and I resist Leo’s way of life, especially at the end of his life, his speech by the grave of my art. Why do you universalize your meaning? (Meanness in the universe.) Who gives you the right, for example, to call something Dada93
ism that is objectively MERZ and not dada? I mean my art. Unless you’re on solid ground, run along and find another line of work. I’ll give you a solid grounding one of these days! MERZ famously means tolerance when it comes to everything that’s inessential, like material, motif, over and against the demand for consistent formation in the service of expression. Proceeding from this fundamental principle, I ask you: who gives you the right to call a work of art nonsense simply because its motif is nonsense? (Dead critic, can you actually hear?) You dismiss my artworks because you’re not on solid ground, because of the fact that you confuse the motif with the formation. Art is never nonsense. Art is logic. Aha, now you’re amazed! But you confuse the terms and don’t understand your confusion. De mortuis nil nisi bene, in English: Don’t sneeze on a dead man’s bones. I’m not sneezing on your bones, dead man, you hear? I’m not sneezing on your bones when I claim that the father of your thought and of your graveside speech was your wish that Merz be dead. Do you know what this means? (I guess it’s been a long time since you heard the sound of your own wailing!) Just so you can hear that I can still sneeze, please take a few steps back. I’m sure you’re familiar with the usual backward movement of the gentlemen of the press. The toilet’s all yours. To maintain public health, you are urgently asked not to spit on public ground. The critics’ eyes may be opened on both sides only with the permission of all their fellow travelers. But first, learn your declination: hate, hat, hut. Yours, most humbly, Schwitters
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(36) TRAGEDY. TRAN NO. 22, AGAINST DR. WEYGANDT, PHD AND MD “Tragödie / Tran No. 22, gegen Herrn Dr. phil. et med. Weygandt,” Der Sturm 13, no. 5 (May 1922): 72– 80.
Wilhelm Weygandt (1870– 1939) was professor of psychiatry at the University of Hamburg and director of the city’s Friedrichsberg mental asylum. He also wrote articles for the popular press that drew causal connections between mental illness and abstract art. In January 1921, he delivered a slide lecture in Hamburg on the topic “Kunst und Wahnsinn” (Art and madness), which he later published in the Berlin illustrated weekly Die Woche (4 June 1921). Weygandt pursued this topic further in an essay “Kunst und Krankheit” (Art and illness) in the journal Germania (27 November 1921), where he took aim at Dada in particular. In this text, he singled out works by Schwitters, such as Merzpicture 10 A / L Merzpicture L 4 (Construction for Noble Ladies.) (1919; CR 431), L Merzpicture L 3 (The Merzpicture.) (1919; CR 436, see fig. 5), and “An Anna Blume.” The scourge of the contemporary moment, Weygandt argued, was “not madness, but degeneracy” (nicht Irrsinn, sondern Entartung). By regularly comparing photographs of people with mental and physical impairments to reproductions of avant-garde artworks, Weygandt anticipated a strategy of visual argumentation that would become central to the Nazi defamation of “degenerate art.” Indeed, he would later supply photographs of patients to the ideologue Paul Schultze-Naumburg for his infamous book Kunst und Rasse (Art and race, 1928). In this retort, Schwitters adopts the familiar technique of interpolating his argument with quotations from his adversary’s articles, lines of poetry, slogans from advertisements, and snippets from the press— in this case, a report titled “Ein Frühlingsabend am Rhein” (A spring evening on the banks of the Rhine). At the same time, he combines word, image, and graphic design as materials into a significant whole. Schwitters thereby takes the literary montage so characteristic for his “Tran” genre into new territory, which he would develop in the typographic experimentation for his own journal, Merz, established in January 1923. (We reproduce Schwitters’s original design in full on the facing pages of this translation to convey the importance of the visual presentation of the text for its arguments.)
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When judging the work made by others You should always seek out what is best But make it your primary duty, To find fault in your own efforts first. Marie Beeg.1
Exceptional Offer! Direct dockside purchase Cuts out the middleman I offer
Tran At an unrivaled price. First off, I call my Tran, “The water glass in the fly,” with reference to Marie Beeg. (Flies have short legs.) I am in the midst of fighting against the reaction.
“A spring evening on the banks of the Rhine” The popular press of our opponents, the opponents of modern art, fight with dirty methods, counting on man’s stupidity and vanity. Dr. Weygandt, PhD and MD of Hamburg, for instance, occasionally writes confusing articles about recent art that purport to be scientifically serious but are not. Of course, the plebs delight in being called upon to em-
Notice posted ploy their common sense. They don’t realize, of course, that their common sense is not the organ with which to recognize art. The plebs take such delight in the medical doctor’s clear demonstration of the similarity between modern artists and the mentally ill that the plebs immediately replace similarity with identity. There is a spring festival underway in a Rhenish town. The plebs are too stupid to turn the invitation down outright. How can a doctor write about art, whose knowledge of the matter is at best secondary? The glee club Union, on their travels down the Rhine, received an invitation to participate in the festival on account of their personal relationship with the master of ceremonies. It is superfluous and misleading for Dr. Weygandt to include PhD and MD next to his name.
Tragedy. Tran No. 22, against Dr. Weygandt, PhD and MD
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The titles PhD and MD do not grant any authority to voice critical judgments about artistic matters. “SYNDÉTICON” es el nombre registrado y protegido por la ley.2
“Bond Strength” Legally protected, in powdered form, for leather, cloth, carton, etc. Grade-A Quality (excellent stringiness) plentiful. If the PhD does indeed refer to a degree in art history, then Mr. Weygandt has disarmed himself with his title. Bond strength, excellent stringiness, is not something the art historian has. All their book learning has made art historians so narrow-minded that, with the best will in the world, they cannot comprehend, just by looking, by pulling strings, syndeticalistically, the nature of recent art. By the time they arrived at the lavishly decorated fairground, it was already merrily bustling away. Dr. Weygandt, PhD and MD, knows that he has no arguments that can stand up to the art of the young, aside from his own personal aversion, which he carefully tries to hide. This allows him to spread accusations without proof, draw parallel lines without a ruler, and fail to notice how crooked his lines have become. An artist’s band plays its enticing tunes as couples revolve about the dance floor. Bowers of wine grapes invite you to linger, and, contrary to the poet’s admonition: “Willst thou preserve heart and faith, never travel to the Rhine, And never drink in Rhenish bowers a single drop of wine,”3 you gladly take up the offer, as everything exudes joy and jubilation. For example, it is a pointless accusation to write: “For these young devotees of art, this disdain for technique is certainly attractive, too, since it makes the laborious task of learning the skills of craftsmanship seem superfluous.” I hope that my offended colleagues will also comment on this as I do. I can speak only for myself and say that I in no way disdain the so-called technique of faithful copying. I even paint carefully naturalistic portraits, but you cannot call such nature studies art. The portrait is a scientific account of what somebody looks like, and it is something an inartistic person— even a doctor, for all I care— can do just as well as I can. But it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a Dr. PhD and MD to understand anything about art. temporarily
sold out.
After a warm introduction by the festival organizer, the head of the glee club acknowledges the friendly welcome and invites the glee club to present a few songs.
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Is there a choice? Quite simply:
Because Merz-pictures— are exceptionally durable. Finally, we can also debate whether it is art or imitation that requires greater, purely technical skill.
Because Merz-pictures— are therefore cheaper to maintain. First, I want to write about art. We distinguish between form and content when discussing an artwork. The form of the work addresses the senses, the content the soul. A person has five senses and we know the sensory organs. (Oh thou, beloved of my twenty-seven senses!)4 But as to what the soul is, we cannot say with certainty.
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Because Merz-pictures— spare body and nerves. This is why, above all else, the artwork must be formed artistically. The sensually manifest form of the artwork must be artistic. Artistic form does not take into consideration anything apart from its own specific rhythm. Why are people specifically asking about Merz-pictures? It is irrelevant whether form represents something or not. Form derives from the use of formal means. The means of painting are primer, color, light, line, etc. So why are Merz-pictures so popular and sought-after? Artistic will uses these means to create the work of art through rhythmic evaluation. Rhythm is the relationships among all sensually manifest parts of the work. For artistic logic, rational logic is alien and hostile.
The best way to achieve this is to keep your body as uniformly warm as possible. Only someone who does not see the artistic logic of an artwork, however, will notice its lack of rational logic. For anyone who recognizes artistic logic, rational logic is irrelevant. A compromise, wherein now reason, now rhythmic sensation take charge would prove detrimental to both. Put rational logic where it belongs, in science. (2 × 2 = 5.) At this point, a toast from the golden cup is made in honor of the Union. In the meantime, traveling singers have arrived at the fairgrounds, enlivening the festivities with their performances.
This is why you must focus on getting rid of this cold as quickly as possible. The means of poetry are sound, syllable, word, sentence, paragraph. In the rhythmic evaluation of these means, it is important to make sure nothing is too much and nothing is too little, so that there is a unity of expression. After all, expression is the result of the formal means, and not of rational reflections.
To attain a uniform body temperature, take frequent baths at home. Now to you, Mr. Weygandt! I’ll tell it to you straight, you don’t care at all about formal construction. So are Merz-pictures something special? For you, understanding the content is paramount. So are Merz-pictures better than ordinary paragraphs? If you can’t understand it, you freely claim that the artists are, at the very least, akin to the mentally ill.
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Because Merz-pictures— confer an elegant and elastic bearing. You confuse the main issue with what is secondary. The dance continues. 2 × 2 = 6. The disregard for rational logic disturbs you so much that you cannot see artistic logic. 2 × 2 = 7. Indeed, now you’re dumbfounded. 2 × 2 = 8.
Because Merz-pictures – turn the roughest road into a carpet. 2 × 2 = 10. Evening falls quietly and the luminous rays of the setting sun bathe the landscape in golden light. Because you do not see artistic logic, the lack of rational logic disturbs you.
Tragedy. Tran No. 22, against Dr. Weygandt, PhD and MD
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A bell sounds in the distance and the dance ends. Everyone devoutly listens to the solemn strains of the Ave Maria. But since you cannot see artistic logic, you cannot tell that there is a difference, a basic but very important difference, between works by mentally ill people and artistic works— namely, that the works of mentally ill people fundamentally lack artistic logic, just like a mild flu, colds, coughs, etc.
All in all: Because Merz-pictures have so many benefits, they are indispensable for young and old. Additional information readily available upon request.
GAS-WORKS 6 ounces of gloves
by Emma in an Indian costume. By Express Delivery. Exprès. T H AT O N E boldly into the rotting meat of uma ☛
See reverse!
☚
Of course, this is only a theoretical distinction, as there are, relatively speaking, just as many artists among the mentally ill as there are among normal people. Indeed, the number may be even greater, since normal human logic, such as your own, Dr. PhD and MD, does not disturb the relationships that the mentally ill have to art. Convince yourself of these benefits, but expressly demand that your cobbler give you MERZ, not least for the sake of quality, as there are also low-quality, gasfired water heaters. Is there a choice? When you write, for instance, that I was inspired to create something that exhibits a disturbing similarity to works made by schizophrenics, then someone could just as rightly assert that you have demonstrated a lack of artistic judgment that certainly exhibits a disturbing similarity to the, well, you are the one intimately acquainted with the names of mental illnesses. Perhaps you are getting old? Our upright and recumbent gas-fired water heaters effortlessly supply sufficient hot water for a full bath at any desired temperature in 15 to 25 minutes. However, this someone would be ignoring the fact that you are certainly not stupid. You only pretend to be disinterested, in order to, well, in order to undermine, in order to undermine art.
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Following this brief celebration, the merry bustle of the festival resumed. Or are you brazenly claiming that you did not want to undermine? Take another hot bath! 2 × 2 = 125 degrees. Or perhaps you really are disinterested and only pretend that you know something about art? 2 × 2 = 150°. Possibly. However, you then present yourself as intelligent, in order to, well in order to undermine, in order to undermine art. 2 × 2 = 300 degrees Réaumur,5 full bath in 5 minutes. Shall I tell you what 2 × 2 is? Four, my dear sir, four, four four, sometimes also five, depending on whether you are a Dr. med. or a Dr. phil. El SYNDÉTICON se endurece en el frio; pero en temperatura caliente adquiere su antiguo estado liquido.6 If it is not your intention to undermine, why don’t you submit your supposedly scientific-seeming remarks to scientific journals rather than the daily press, where they will be read by a public wholly uneducated in scientific matters? Dancing couples, singers, male and female, delight everyone with their art and earn praise from the festival goers?
Taken daily for a cold, they have an exceptionally great effect
on the body.
You know perfectly well that, while this mass of semi-educated readers is sluggish, there is the danger, from your point of view of course, that some individuals nevertheless might begin to understand what art actually is. This should and must be prevented. 2 × 2 = 4. working capital is immediately disbursed to all companies in all branches .
No advance payments. Strictly real and discrete. On condition of good information.
You trust in the German people’s belief in authority and publish a seemingly scientific essay for the people, not for science. Up front are the authoritative titles MD and PhD. It is important for you to undermine, it is unimportant to be correct. I will attempt to prove my claim. I do not want to decide whether you understand your logical errors or not, that is, whether you set out consciously to write incorrect statements or if this is due to a lack of artistic judgment.
Tragedy. Tran No. 22, against Dr. Weygandt, PhD and MD
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against colds amazing effect !
This has no bearing on the final result.
BRAUN. A name you can trust! Here I could pick out any number of sentences to show you that they contain misleading claims and are written in order to undermine. 1.) We would miss our mark, were we to deliver an immediate diagnosis of lunacy based on the striking and, to the philistine viewer, baffling creations by the most modern artists.
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Can you really defend this sentence? Doesn’t it just make you laugh, when it’s served up on its own, inwardly? I assume you don’t mean to be childish, but this claim is just as foolish were someone to write, say: “A doctor in the auditorium watching an actor playing a mentally ill character does not need to examine the actor for mental illness immediately. He can certainly wait out the end of the scene.” So this is the extent of your wisdom. This truism is not even worth uttering unless you want to give the appearance that it really is necessary to examine the artist for mental illness.
BLOND is the fashion! The artist need not be mentally ill, but he may indeed be mentally ill if he abandons rational logic in favor of artistic logic in the work of art. So this is the extent of your great wisdom. I tell you: An artist could have a stomach ache, but he doesn’t necessarily need to have a stomach ache when he paints. Would you consider it worth your while to establish scientifically the disturbing similarity between the work of artists and the work of people who suffer stomach ailments? I offer you this suggestion free of charge. The legends of the Rhine come alive in word and song, and enchant all who hear them. “The grapes and the mirth, they never release you Of reason and mind, the Lorelei will rob you!”7 The least you could do is laugh, Dr. PhDMD I really find your assertions just too amusing.
NOTA BENE, I suffer from a stomach ailment. Dear Dr. Weygandt! In the opening section of your review in Germania, you write Morning Edition Berlin, 27 Nov. 1921: “Modern Art or Madness? By Prof. Dr. W. Weygandt, PhD and MD. Art and Illness, two seemingly irreconcilable opposites!”
“As you travel the world far and wide, the greatest wealth is a friend by your side.”
“As you travel the world far and wide, the greatest friend is wealth by your side.”
I am informed!
These are the opening lines. You hold the plebs in the palm of your foot, and it’s clear what you want them to think. Why “seemingly” and why the misleading title?
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Why don’t you go and work through your essay in the manner clearly demonstrated here? I really don’t have any more time, I still have more replies to write to critics. O-Ha! The seizure of materials has led to the shutdown of wicker basket production. All the stock has been sold. “The scent of white lilac hangs in the room and blissful love pervades it all.” “The scent of white lilac hangs in the room, The sweet smell of love eternal.” Sample for inspection upon request.
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Finally, I just want to draw your attention to the following phrases: The Swiss landscape by Paul Klee, with its ¾ dozen animal shapes in mindless repetition against a backdrop of squares made up of poorly drawn fir trees and a Swiss flag flying overhead, is thus remarkably similar to the drawings of a feeble-minded catatonic who, when asked to draw what was on his mind, scrawled the sheet of paper full of equally clumsy, sheeplike animals in mind-numbing repetition.” Dammit, I have won!
and
“As is well known, Schwitters drew inspiration for his poetic creations from a childish inscription on a wooden board, ‘Anna Blume has a screw loose,’ which have a disturbing similarity to works made by schizophrenics.”
Do you intend to undermine or not? If you value your family’s health, hurry and order of the detailed brochure on Merz. I do not want to repeat myself sheeplike. There will be no official banquet, but the eminently renowned master of ceremonies will have food prepared. (Minced meat fillet.) You can enjoy an informal, simple supper between 8 and 9 pm. If you suffer from gastric and digestive ailments, there will be delicious, easy to digest, and nutritious food. I could write a conclusion but I will refrain in favor of the next Tran. EL SYNDÉTICON también se puede mezclar con agua de colonia cuando esté muy espeso.8 The dancing then resumed with gusto, and great celebration and true Rhenish cheer dominated the festival well into the night. I just want to show you a picture from the old days, a picture from the good old days, do you enjoy cheese ?
a picture from the nice old days,
Banger Firecrackers ( lilliputian ammunition ) absolutely safe !
Tragedy. Tran No. 22, against Dr. Weygandt, PhD and MD
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a picture from the beautiful old days, new !
new !
marmor krieger without blotting paper . 9
a picture from the hallowed old days,
The Kaiser’s hall, with “life-like” wax mannequins of men from days of yore a picture from the old days never to return,
This gives them immeasurable advantages a picture from the old days, when you felt so good, so that you don’t feel so sad:
Tragedy. Tran No. 22, against Dr. Weygandt, PhD and MD
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The trumpets crash, and the merry hum Of the double-bass increases, Until the dance to an end has come, And then the music ceases.10 You raise the question: “What is Lempe?” And provide the answer: “A typo, it should be Lampe!” Et quand tu songes la lune se couche, Il ne se couche, il ne fait qu’ainsi.11 Tibi cadaver cognosco cogito, ergo pingo.12
Tragedy. Tran No. 22, against Dr. Weygandt, PhD and MD
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(37) i (A MANIFESTO) “i (Ein Manifest),” Der Sturm 13, no. 5 (May 1922): 80.
Schwitters began making “i-drawings” in 1920. Unlike Merz-drawings (collages), which reconfigure pieces of found materials into integrated abstract compositions, i-drawings posit the found fragment itself as the whole. The acts of cutting and composing, fragmentation and synthesis, thereby collapse into a single gesture. Schwitters published this manifesto on the occasion of his first exhibition of these works in May 1922 at the Galerie Der Sturm.
Every child today knows what Merz is. But what is i? i is the middle vowel of the alphabet and a term for what happens when Merz intensely grasps artistic form. Merz makes use of large, existing complexes that can be treated as material to form a work of art in order to reduce the path from the intuition to the visualization of the artistic idea as much as possible, thereby avoiding loss of heat from friction. i sets this path to = zero. Idea, material, and artwork are identical. i grasps the artwork in nature. Here the act of artistic form-creation is the recognition of rhythm and expression in a part of nature. Hence, there is no loss through friction, i.e., there is no possible disruptive interference during creation. I demand i, not as the only art form, but as a special form. The first i-drawings are on view in my exhibition at Der Sturm in May [19]22. For all the esteemed art critics, I hasten to add that, of course, a far greater ability is required to cut an artwork out from artistically unformed nature than to assemble an artwork out of one’s own artistic rules using any given material. Material for art is arbitrary; it just needs to be formed for an artwork to emerge. However, the material for i is far from arbitrary, since not all nature forms itself as a work of art within a cutout. Thus i is a special form. But above all, you must be rigorous. Does an art critic have what it takes to understand this?
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(38) TRAN NO. 26 “Tran Nr 26,” Elementar: Die Blume Anna; Die neue Anna Blume (Berlin: Verlag der Sturm, 1922), 5– 6.
Motto: The path to perfection and to all progress lies in continuous self-criticism, not to be confused with art criticism.1 Introduction Tran No. 26 To All Critics Let the first virtue of every critic be modesty. With modesty, like the artist who faces his work, let the critic face his criticism. With modesty, let him wait and allow the work to affect him. With modesty, let him listen for the voice of God in the work of art. With modesty, let him also listen for the voice of God as it speaks through the artist from the work of art. Let the first virtue of every critic be modesty. With modesty, like a virgin approaching the altar, let the critic approach the work of art. Not so close as to tread upon the work, just before it, and there to stand with modesty. Here he is not the master; here he is merely a critic, a modest critic, a critic who must moderate himself, a critic who must moderate with insight. Let he, the artist, through whose works the deity speaks, be his master, be the master of the modest critic. And with modesty, let the critic approach the work, approach the artwork, for here he stands vis-à-vis eternity. With piety, let Mr. Critic fold his inky fingers in prayer. For here he is merely a soul, not a master, a soul, not a critic, a soul, merely a critic, a soul, who heeds the words of the prophet, like an ear. Lest his ear be pulled. With modesty, let his eye see, his ear listen, his hand touch. Let the first virtue of every critic be modesty. Kurt Schwitters Einbeck, 5 July 1922
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(39) TRAN 23 “Tran 23,” Der Sturm 13, no. 9 (September 1922): 136– 37.
Schwitters responds to a review of the large survey exhibition dedicated to the work of Hans Thoma (1839– 1924) at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin by the critic Oskar Bie (“Deutsche Malerei” [German painting], Hannoverscher Anzeiger, 19 March 1922). Although Bie never specifically wrote about Schwitters’s work, his general antagonism to avant-garde art had already elicited Herwarth Walden’s censure five years earlier (“Preßfühler” [Press-antennae], Der Sturm 8, no. 1 [April 1917]: 2– 3). Here Schwitters ridicules Bie’s jingoistic attitudes and florid prose. The subtitle of this text, “BLUmen” (FLOWers), refers to the etymological root of Floskel (cliché) in the Latin word flosculus (little flower). Schwitters takes up Bie’s emphasis on Stofflichkeit (materiality) by stressing the similarity of this word to Stoffelichkeit (i.e., Stoffeligkeit, crudeness).
FLOWers (The critic vis-à-vis absolute materiality) Mr. Oskar Bie is a delightful humorist. In a review of the Thoma exhibition (headline: Deutsche Malerei) at the Kronprinzenpalais, he writes: “Now, at home, I sit before this pure materiality, as both my temperament and my notes look on in embarrassment.” I am not sentimental, but this rare confession moves me. Such confessions are really very rare. Mr. Bie writes: “It is truly refreshing to have the permission to indulge in material for once. Very few friends of the arts ever admit that they would succumb to this charm.” I did not quite understand: to the charm of which materiality would most friends of the “arts” succumb? (A friend of the arts is not a friend of material.) You cannot speak of such crudeness with friends of the “arts,” much less with the Messrs. Critics. That would perhaps overstate the point. Everyone as best he can. And if one of them writes sentimental nonsense instead of a review, well then, it is sentimental nonsense, but they are not being crude. To assume, then, that most friends of the arts would, without admitting as much, succumb to their own crudeness or the crudeness of the Messrs. Critics— to make such an assumption would be to draw an incorrect conclusion, to make an incorrect argument. All that is meant here is the materiality of the work of art. Mr. Bie speaks about material charm, and this, I suppose, rules out the error of an incorrect argupretation. Gaily frolicking goats leading the way. (“I am in no way sentimental.”) 124
Without a trace of sentimentality, Mr. Bie defines what this means as follows: “these charming red roofs in the greenery, these plump, ascending clouds, this agreeably heaving sea, these meadows and farmsteads, this brown earth, these fairy-tale waterfalls, these animal herds, with gaily frolicking goats leading the way.” Behind them the critics, heaving agreeably. Dear Mr. Bie! I cannot follow your logic here. Did you actually see the charm of materiality in Thoma’s pictures? You are mistaken; you mean something else. Just to be clear, I am not saying anything about or even against Thoma’s paintings; they’re irrelevant to me here. You do not mean the charm of the materiality of the pictures that you saw, but rather the charm of nature depicted in these pictures. Justifiably, I admit. An agreeably heaving sea, with gaily frolicking goats leading the way, must be absolutely charming. And German. In France, the sea heaves disagreeably; in England the goats frolic miserably. You write: “German art really is just matter-offact art [sachliche Kunst].” Then you must agree with me that German criticism really is just matter-of-fact criticism. Unfortunately, your criticism is not German; it is not matter-of-fact. You are, of course, correct in your claim that no critic is matterof-fact. This is merely the result of the power that these gentlemen imagine they have. But in the end you just harm your criticism and yourself, but not art, which you perhaps hope to damage. Critics mostly cut out their own tongues when they want to be cutting. As for you, Mr. Bie, you allow the “material to affect you to the point where you forget about art.” You admit this. But what am I, as an artist, to say to this? Should I sit quietly and watch while a critic forgets art? Should I call the writing of a critic who has forgotten about art matter-of-fact, German criticism? Though you “cry tears of emotion,” art comes up short. Criticize, critic, don’t cry! Even German critics shouldn’t cry. They are not sentimental— the gaily frolicking, agreeable schoolmasters lead the way; the miserable, limping goats follow behind. You speak of “Thoma’s blessed Lord,” who is “very familiar and patriarchal.” “He sits with Thoma and smokes his pipe with him.” Indeed, the familiarity of this blessed Lord, Thoma’s special edition, is delightful. But where does this leave art, if you are “not” sentimental? (The gaily smoking pipe leading the way.) Why not, just for once, just for fun, judge the actual works by the artists themselves, not the material charm of the nature depicted therein— real, simple, matter-of-fact. I maintain, you cannot do it.
Absolute Material
Tran 23
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Dear Mr. Bie! You love material charm. So I suggest you visit the exhibition at “Der Sturm,” Berlin W 9, Potsdamer Str. 134a. And there, have a look at my Merzpictures, Franz Müller’s Wire Springtime, for instance.1 Don’t be distracted by the fact that I am sentimental. You will be delighted. The Merz-pictures there will present you with the most internally consistent formation of diverse materiality in a single picture. They will make you forget good, old Thoma, not that I am saying anything against him. Your strong German inclination will find satisfaction, too. I assure you, all the materials and material scraps I used are authentically German, collected from German trash heaps. And since you cannot see the formation anyway, you will have the opportunity to marvel at all the treasures one can find on German trash heaps. I look forward to your review. You will write: “these charming strands of red hair on this moldy wig, these plump, ascending bits of string, these agreeably heaving dentures, these graters and funnels, this brown packing paper, this fairy-tale barbed wire, these herds of bacilli, all of them dry cleaned, with gaily frolicking bedbugs leading the way!” Don’t you think? And with German bedbugs, every drop of blood is German. Write an article for the Berliner Tageblatt: “Kurt Schwitters’s German Bedbugs,” this fits the program quite nicely. You will agree that Sturm is “a sweet calm, a native oasis, in the midst of this storm [Sturm] of expressionistic and futuristic affectations that we must let pass.” This sentence of yours is not pretty, but it befits the storm quite well. Go there, I promise you, “your eyes will have a chuckle.” There is no “pandering to technical exaltations,” “and the dear angels never forget that they are children.”
Text 39
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(40) INTRODUCTION TO TRAN NO. 30: AUGUSTE BOLTE “Einleitung,” in Tran Nr. 30: Auguste Bolte (Berlin: Verlag Der Sturm, 1923), 9– 10. Reprinted with variations and without the last paragraph as “Tran 24 / die Schwanenjungfrau” [Tran 24. The swan maiden], Der Sturm 15, no. 1 (March 1924): 42. In Der Sturm, this text was credited to the fictional character Franz Müller (see text 8) and was published with an engraving of a collage as the “allegory for art criticism,” which more closely matches the image described in the text.
empty
turns to mush. (Ernst Lehmann)1 The Swan Maiden
Tran 24
Whatever you chew
Allegory for art criticism The author has created an allegory for nice a-art c-criticism. It is a true-to-life copy of a cross section taken from reviews found in the daily newspapers. The daily press that writes on art, the daily art press as it were, wears a child’s dress. Pure and chaste, she wears a pinafore with dainty needlecraft, not to be confused with crafty needling. Legs, she has none. Sold out, so to speak. So what does she have to stand on? On her hands. But they were sold out with the arms, so to speak. So what does she have to grab with? With her head. But then again, the head is nothing more than a clothes hanger. This is what the daily art press has to hang on. So what does she have to think with? To this end, the author gave her a spare replacement head, like the ones found on the busts of ancient Egyptian kings in their burial chambers in the pyramids.2 The head takes on the characteristic, peculiar barking expression of the art critic, spectacles on the nose, and a headscarf in place of a missing intellect. The nose is red. Whoever has troubles also needs liquor. But why is this an introduction? My dear sir, criticism must first be bribed for it to write really good reviews of my book. Whoever wants a smooth ride has to grease some palms. 127
(41) THE SELF-OVERCOMING OF DADA “De Zelfoverwinning van Dada,” De Haagische Post (20 January 1923); pasted in the notebook 8 uur, a collection of clippings, ephemera, and notes from the Dada Tour of Holland with Vilmos Huszár and Theo and Nelly van Doesburg (January– April 1923). Translated from Dutch by Michael White.
There are things in life for which we lack the organs of understanding. These things relate not to temporal concepts but to originary ones, such as life, divinity, art. These are unbounded and perhaps, in their unboundedness, identical. The artist of the past pictured a piece of nature as faithfully as possible. Such a representation is spatially and temporally bounded and therefore lacks the unboundedness of art. The artist turned into himself and expressed in his artwork a part of his world experience. This experience was, however, accidental; it was situated and temporal, and the artwork born of it likewise missed the unboundedness of art. These artists called themselves expressionists, took themselves too seriously and art not seriously enough. In their ecstasy, they see the world askew, not correctly, as it is. They represent the world as they see it, namely, askew. But . . . what is Art anyway? One cannot define Art, because it is an originary concept. What one can say, however, is that where something other than art dominates, there is not-art. Where the imitation of nature dominates, there is not-art. Where suggestive expression dominates, there is likewise not-art. Instead there is “impressionism” or “expressionism.” I honestly confess that in my personal development, I myself took the former and then the latter seriously as a specific aesthetic. “Das Bessere ist des Guten Feind,” so says a German proverb.1 Art is hostile to impressionism and expressionism. In the work of art, every detail is a conscious part of the whole. Each part relates to another, and all parts mutually connect to each other. One cannot add or remove any part without damaging the balance of the whole and thereby destroying the artwork. The work restricts itself in and to itself, and to nothing beyond itself. That is to say, the work constructs itself from its own parts. The consistent work is the one that is most defined, the strictest. The most important artists of our age are those who produce or strive for this. I am here recalling the artists of the Dutch “Stijl” group, who have produced the strictest and strongest artwork of our age. But . . . what is Dada then? Dada is no special “artistic expression” but a “life 128
expression.” One is accustomed to identify the manifestations of so-called Dadaists with “Dada.” Dada is more. Dada is the essence of our age. There was a classical antiquity, a Gothic age, a Renaissance, a modern Biedermeier age, and our age is called Dada. Our entire age is called Dada. The Dadaists, however, are not “Dada.” They have overcome Dadaism. The Dadaist is a mirror bearer. He holds a mirror up to the age, and the age sees itself in it. And the age sees that it is Dada. Dada is not at all humorous, as most visitors to dada soirées take it to be. Dada is also not mystical or transcendental. Dada is the face of our age. Dada is the noise in the machine. Dada is the bourgeois card game for a tenth of a “Pfennig.” It is Dada whenever someone takes the D-train over the heath to go rowing in a romantic ditch.2 Dada is someone riding a horse in his house. Dada is the exchange rate, smuggling, “Schiebertum,”3 the German conscience, Caruso on the gramophone, the aeroplane, and the angler who fishes enthusiastically for twelve hours without catching a single stickleback. Dada draws out all the great tensions of our age to their greatest common denominator. The greatest common denominator is: nonsense. Dada is not nonsense— but the essence of our age is nonsense. The appearance of this nonsense through Dada is not art, even less Politics or Socialism, but the moralizing of reformers. You can see that it is very true what an artist (Picabia) claims: Dada is nothing.4 From an artistic standpoint this is very true but not clear, at least not clear enough. Dada is the moral seriousness of our age. And the public thus falls about laughing. Dada does as well. The public does not understand it: Dada. Many understand Dada and revile the Dadaists. They have seen it from their viewpoint, equally so. It is unpleasant to look continually in the mirror. But don’t be embarrassed. We are all humans, and Dada is human. Dada is like the blossoming fruit tree that draws its food from rotting leaves, has long been hollow inside, and blossoms and fruits until it falls over. Dada is not Art, but an artist can construct his work from Dada, just like any other material. The Dadaist artist conquers large and small tensions because he balances them out in his work. He dematerializes rubbish because he uses it in his work. The Dadaist can be artist, academic, or complete idiot. In our age there are only Dadaists. Dada is our age. The dadaist reformer shows the age as it is. The Dadaist artist shows the age the way to the future. He unites in himself the contrasts: Dada and Construction.5 Consistent strictness is the only means to free ourselves from the chaos. Thus the Dadaist artist overcomes himself through Dada. Through internal consistency he is elevated above the compromised nonsense that he makes conscious. Only strict construction frees us from chaotic savagery. To that end, abstraction was simply a precondition. It is only playful and misses the seriousness of Dada and of construction. We are living at the end of an old and the beginning of a new age. The transition is Dada. If we want to take part in the Construction of a new age, then we are obliged to begin with the simplest means. We have to unite in ourselves: simplicity and consistency and a grammat-
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ical doctrine of construction for the creation of art. “De Stijl” has begun with this, an important pioneering work. This expresses a little bit of what Dada is, why the Dadaist movement arose and what it wants in the world in the immediate future. The Dutch public does not understand how the Dadaists make their work. Every artist exaggerates. He proclaims what is characteristic and creates a caricature in the tensions of our age. Art is always forming or re-forming,6 but never imitation, copying. The dadaist artist transforms the world reality, somewhat like the cubist, in as much as he repeats parts, removes parts or places them over each other. How does a Dadaist poem come into being? The Dadaist uses propositions only as motifs. They can be taken seriously or not. Through his propositions, the Dadaist counts on roused feelings of sympathy and antipathy. By tuning these feelings against each other, tones and dissonants arise, and through the arrangement of these two values, poetic movement.
Text 41
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(42) [INTRODUCTION TO MERZ 1. HOLLAND DADA] Published in Merz 1. Holland Dada (January 1923): 1.
There are enough journals. But to date there have not been any that advocate the MERZ-IDEA exclusively. To meet this urgent need, I have therefore decided to publish the JOURNAL MERZ which will appear four times annually. Please send manuscripts and clichés that promote the spirit of the MERZ-IDEA to my address. I offer no guarantees. Please send orders and subscription requests to my address; texts in all languages of the world as required. I am devoting MERZ 1 to DADAISM IN HOLLAND.
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(43) DADAISM IN HOLLAND “Dadaismus in Holland,” Merz 1. Holland Dada (January 1923): 3– 11.
DADA in Holland is a novelty. Only one Dutchman, I. K. BONSET, is a Dadaist.1 (He lives in Vienna.) And a single Dutch woman, PETRO VAN DOESBURG, is a Dadaist. (She lives in Weimar.) And then I know a Dutch pseudo-Dadaist, but he is not a Dadaist. Holland, however,
HOLLAND IS DADA Our appearance in Holland resembled a mighty victory march. All Holland is now dada, because it was always already dada. Our audience senses that it is DADA, and they all believe that they must shriek dada, shout dada, lisp dada, sing dada, howl dada, scold dada. We are the standardbearers of the Dadaist movement in Holland, and no sooner did one of us take to the podium than the dormant Dadaist instincts in our audiences awoke and we were greeted with Dadaist wailing and gnashing of teeth. But we are the Dadaist house band, and we’ll give you your marching orders.
DADA COMPLET We will give them a terrifying Menetekel,2 we will spill the spiegelgassicdadaistic spirit of the great URDADAS:3 hans arp and TRISTAN TZARA, and above every head there burns a bluish flame that reflects the clearly legible name PRA.4 We lead the charge, we perform DADA, het publiek fait DADA.5 We wake, wake, wake. DADA awakes. We wake the dormant Dadaism of the masses. We are prophets. We teased out sounds of Dadaist beauty from our throng of spectators as from a flute. Like an ocean. Like a goat without horns. Even the chief of police, acting not as a member of the audience today but as the representative of state order against dadaist order, is rattled by the force of dada. A smile quivers across his bureaucratic faces as I say: “DADA is the moral gravity of our time!” Like horns without prophets. His smile flashed for just a brief moment, but we noticed it, we, the standard-bearers of the Dadaist movement in the Netherlands. Would you allow me to introduce ourselves? Kijk eens, wij sijn6 Kurt Schwitters, 132
not dada, but MERZ;Theo van Doesburg, not dada, but Stijl; Petro van Doesburg, you won’t believe it, calls herself dada; and Huszar, not dada, but Stijl. Astonished, you’ll ask: “Why don’t Dadaists come to present dada to us?” Kijk eens, this is precisely the Geraffineerde van onze Kultuur.7 A Dadaist, simply by being a Dadaist, cannot wake the slumbering Dadaism in an audience and artistically purify it. Begrijp U dat? 8 And all the udders toll.9 Kijk eens, as we see it, the current age is dada, nothing other than dada. There has been a classical antiquity, a Gothic Middle Ages, a Renaissance, a Biedermeier era, and a Dadamodernity. Our age is called dada. We live in the dada age. We live through the age dada. Nothing is as characteristic of our age as dada. After all, our culture is dada. No age has had tensions as enormous as ours. No age has lacked style more than ours. DADA is the AFFIRMATION of STYLELESSNESS. Dada is the style of our age, which has no style. Begrijp U dat? So, you say, Holland can’t be dada, because Holland is not as styleless as Germany. Well? But you’re mistaken. Holland is also dada, and our audience even tries to prove that Holland is far more dadaistic than Germany. It’s just that Holland is still sleeping, while Germany already knows how styleless it is. When, for instance, I pass the lyrical windmills in the first-class compartment of the D-train while some lad wheels a cart full of dung below and the mail travels through the air above, then we have an enormous tension. I send a telegram to my new impresario in North America from the moving train while a small dog barks at the moon. Just now a dogcart runs over an automobile. You see, that is dada. I have a child’s popgun, for instance. I can load the pistol by pulling out the cork stopper and fire 300 shots a second, and in [Den] Helder there are big cannons. And intellectual tensions? Here anarchists, socialists, monarchists, impressionists, expressionists, Dadaists live peacefully side by side as members of the same community, just like everywhere else. And beauty, that is to say, art? Where do you see traces of it? Kijk eens, houses, for example, are there to be lived in. Houses are not advertising columns. However, the empty gable is the underwear of the house.10 And here, just as in Berlin, the underwear of houses are painted with advertisements. Is this supposed to be beautiful? Or what? It is dada if somebody wears Dadaist advertisements in his underwear. Or are we to believe the house is a Janssen Meat Pie, which is what I must believe, if it expressly says so on the gable. Don’t you think it’s crazy to call houses, which we all know are not made of meat the way we are, to call such houses built of steel and stone, Janssen Meat Pies? I think it’s idiotic. A house is not a Janssen Meat Pie, and whoever writes on a house that it is a Janssen Meat Pie is either very deluded or he is taking us for fools. But I’ll tell you something, your houses are dada for the most part, but they are very rarely Janssen Meat Pies. Advertisements are a sign of our times. Our times are functional and practical or unfunctional and impractical, as you wish. Don’t you think? Our times allow advertisements to proliferate, even at the expense of beauty. Added to this, we have kitsch, intentional and unintentional. In Amsterdam I saw a dining room decorated to look like an artificial limestone cave using bits of old stalactites. Astonished, I asked myself: “Why?” Is a
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limestone cave considered stylish in Amsterdam? It is? Then I must be right to think that the style of Amsterdam is stylelessness. But this is dada. Like in Berlin. And if it has to be a limestone cave, why must it be magnified with these gigantic mirrors into infinity? The small room in Amsterdam that says: “All the world is an infinite dining room in the form of a limestone cave,” this small room is dada complet. And when this limestone cave has flowers and leaves entwine and drip and mirror to the point where you think you are seated in an infinite oriental lime-dine-stone-grotto, then you have dada garni. A dada hors d’oeuvre varié, so to speak.11 Or do you think the Bad Ems water bottle on the roof of a house in The Hague is stylish? I doubt it is even a bottle at all, since it is far too large to be one. And what a waste to put so much precious seltzer water on a roof rather than on the table. I’m sorry, but I, for one, consider this to be advertisement. If you want to see what good and functional architecture looks like, take lijn drie12 to the terminus and look at the Papaverhof and the Kliemopstraat.13 An oasis in a desert of ill-conceived architecture. These are houses that, conscious of their purpose, have grown from their material and their times, just as a flower grows and blossoms. Flowers are always beautiful. Have you ever seen a violet advertising the Zoological Garden?14 We, the standard-bearers of the Dadaist movement, are now holding up a mirror to our age, so that our age clearly sees its tensions. I remind you of the song: “And when you think the moon is setting, it’s not setting, it just seems that way.”15 I will now explain why it is that we, who are not Dadaists, are the ones most qualified to be the standard-bearers of the Dadaist movement. Chance brought us here together. As can happen. But there is no such thing as chance. A door may close [zufallen], but even this is not chance [Zufall], but the deliberate action of the door. Nothing is chance. We found ourselves in a common task, once we had found ourselves. Our audience gave the movement direction. We reflected and echoed our noisy audience, boisterous in its Dadaist enthusiasm. And now you see why we don’t want Dadaism. The mirror that indignantly turns away and misreflects your worthy face, this mirror does not want you, it wants the opposite. And we want style. We mirror dada because we want style. This is why we are the standard-bearers of the Dadaist movement. For the love of style we throw all our weight behind the Dadaist movement. Our arrival in Holland resembled an immense, unprecedented triumphal march. At the time when the French were occupying the Ruhr with cannons and tanks, we were occupying artistic Holland with dada.16 The newspapers were publishing endless dada articles and short pieces on the Ruhr and reparations. But whereas the French encountered great resistance in the Ruhr, dada triumphed in Holland without resistance. However, the enormous resistance from our audience is dada and is therefore invalidated. This resistance is “our” weaponry. The press, more enlightened than the masses, realized this and joined our side with flags flying.They resist us by giving open expression to their enthusiasm for the Dadaist movement. Within 24 hours, all Holland had learned the word “dada.” Everyone knows it now; everyone
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knows one nuance of the word, how to shout it out stupidly, as stupidly as possible. This is an enormous success. The modern, cultivated person, seemingly so dignified in all respects, suddenly recognizes how stupid he can be and how stupid he actually is, deep within his soul. This is an enormous success. For the cultivated person now suddenly sees that his great culture is perhaps not quite as great as it looks. There was a powerful moment in Utrecht when the audience suddenly stopped being an audience. A movement like swarming worms surged over the corpse of this different audience. The worms crawled up onstage (het toneel).17 A man with a top hat and a frock coat read a manifesto. A massive old laurel wreath from the cemetery, rusted and weathered, was donated for dada. A complete groenten stall established itself op het toneel.18 We were able to light a cigarette and stand back to watch as our audience went to work in our place. It was a glorious moment. We had proven our point. We hope that our attempts to highlight the enormous stylelessness in our culture will awaken a strong will and a great longing for style in the foreseeable future. This is when our most important work will begin. We will turn against dada and fight only for style. Our work to this end started long ago, even before we recognized dada and its significance. We are trying to reach this goal in different ways. Style is the result of collective work. Is there such a thing? The journal “De Stijl” has existed for 7 years, edited by Th. v. Doesburg. There you can convince yourself of the work and success of the Stijl artists. I am reprinting a poem by I. K. Bonset from Stijl here:19
Now I turn to my subject: the importance of the Merz idea in the world. If you hold a different opinion, that’s irrelevant for Merz, but MERZ and only Merz is qualified to reshape the entire world into an immense artwork, someday, in an as yet unforeseeable moment in the future. You ask: “Why?” Kijk eens, MERZ takes into account all existing conditions, and that is its significance, in both practical and ideal terms. When it comes to its material, Merz is as tolerant as possible:
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And even if the work’s a fright MERZ will make it look all right. Merz even takes into account materials and complexes in the artwork that it itself cannot survey and judge. But if we ever want to shape the entire world as an artwork one day, we will have to reckon with the possibility that there are massive complexes in the world that are unknown to us or that we cannot control because they are beyond our command. But from the standpoint of
____________________MERZ_____________________ this is irrelevant. All that is important for the artwork is that all parts relate to one another, that they are evaluated against each other. Even unknown quantities can be evaluated too. The great secret of Merz lies in the evaluation of unknown quantities. Thus, Merz controls what cannot be controlled. And so, Merz is greater than Merz. In the union of a known and an unknown quantity, the secret lies in the fact that when you change the known quantity, you also change the unknown one. This is because the sum of the known and the unknown quantities always stays the same, must always stay the same, and indeed in a state of absolute equilibrium. Kijk eens, if you have mills, you can also pump the land below sea level dry. (Proof: Holland.) For the moment MERZ is preparing preliminary studies for the collective formation of the world, for the general style. These preliminary studies are the Merzpictures. The only thing that is important for painting is tone, couleur. The only material for this is color.20 Everything in an image is the result of color. Light and dark are values of couleur. Lines demarcate the boundaries of different couleurs. Therefore, nothing is important in a picture apart from the evaluation of colors. Everything that is unimportant distracts from the coherence of what is important. Accordingly, a coherent picture must be abstract. Only evaluation of color. How that color is physically produced is irrelevant for the picture. All that matters is that the equilibrium characteristic of the work of art results from the evaluation of all colors against each other. Any approach is valid, so long as it serves this purpose. Whether the artist recognizes the color tones that he himself has used in the picture is irrelevant as long as equilibrium has been achieved. Whatever meaning the materials used may have had prior to their use in the artwork is irrelevant, so long as it has received its artistic significance in the artwork through evaluation alone. Accordingly, I first began to construct pictures using materials conveniently at hand, like tram tickets, cloakroom tickets, pieces of wood, wire, string, bent wheels, tissue paper, tin cans, glass fragments, etc. These objects are inserted into the picture as they are, or altered, as the picture requires. In their mutual evaluation, they lose their individual character, their specific poison [Eigengift], they become dematerialized and hence material for the picture. The picture is an artwork that rests
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in itself. It cannot relate to anything beyond itself. A coherent artwork can never relate to anything beyond itself without losing its relationship to art. Only the inverse is possible, that someone from the outside relates to the artwork: the beholder. The material of poetry is letter, syllable, word, sentence, paragraph. Words and sentences in poetry are nothing more than parts. Their relationship to each other differs from that found in everyday language, which has a different purpose: to express something. Poetry wrests words from their existing context, de-formulates [entformelt] them, and inserts them into a new artistic context; they become formparts of poetry, nothing more. I don’t want to go any further here into the blurring of the boundaries between the arts, such as between poetry and painting. I will have to write a long treatise about this, in MERZ 2 or 3 perhaps. There are no individual arts; they have been artificially separated from each other. There is only art. But Merz is the general work of art, not a specialty. Architecture is the most all-inclusive work of art. It contains all the arts. MERZ does not want to build; MERZ wants to rebuild.
the task of merz in the world is: to equalize opposites and to allocate points of focus
Even today architecture pays too little attention to habitability; it does not pay sufficient attention to the fact that people alter a room by their presence. A person entering a room that is well balanced will disrupt the artistic equilibrium. MERZ alone can and must take into account subsequent chance occurrences. I will write more about this in a future issue of Merz. For the moment, all I am suggesting is that you could, for instance, develop weights that are switched on and off mechanically when someone enters a room, thereby including this person in the overall equilibrium. However, you can manage without mechanisms, if not quite so well. The point is to establish an intensive relationship between people and space. This is achieved by incorporating paths of movement into the architecture. This is an entirely new idea that will eliminate [ausmerzen] what makes houses uninhabitable. I will be discussing this in greater detail later. But I can already tell you that experiments have been conducted in absolute secrecy with white mice living in Merz-pictures constructed specially for them. For the time being, the paths of the mice are being studied. However, there are Merz-pictures in the offing that will mechanically balance out the movements of the mice. Certain contacts trigger different lighting, mechanically, in relation to the movement of the mice. Such a mechanical room is the only coherent space, which has been shaped artistically and is nevertheless inhabitable. KURT SCHWITTERS Dadaism in Holland
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3 Vilmos Huszár, Mechanische Dansfiguur (Mechanical Dancing Figure), 1920. Reproduced in Merz 1. Holland Dada (January 1923): 13. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/ Werner.
(44) [EDITORIAL NOTE TO VILMOS HUSZÁR, MECHANISCHE DANSFIGUUR] Published in Merz 1. Holland Dada (January 1923): 13.
Following the example of this figure, it is possible to devise an abstract subdivision of walls that move mechanically according to the distribution of weight in the room as people enter. In this way, the mechanical room would counterbalance the human being. Ed. [The Editor]
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(45) STYLE Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Stil,” from the notebook 8 uur, a collection of clippings, ephemera, and notes from the Dada Tour of Holland with Vilmos Huszár and Theo and Nelly van Doesburg (January– April 1923).
If we want to establish the foundations of a style, it goes without saying that we must begin by examining the foundations of art, just as the group of Stijl artists did. They examined what a picture would look like that was as internally coherent as possible (Doesburg), what was required to build a house that was as coherent as possible, that was artistic in its balancing of masses and colors, that was easily built from material, and that shaped this material through form-creation [Gestaltung]. The Stijl artist deliberately places his work in opposition to surroundings that lack artistry and style. This establishes a distinction that is good and bad. It is good, because it enables artistic values to mature; it is bad, because it does not afford an opportunity to implement a specific style coherently. You cannot build a residential district that has style in a city if 9⁄ 10 of the same city lacks style (I am choosing an especially favorable case). That would be an abuse of the term style. The insolence of Stijl-works within surroundings without style has various reasons. First of all, we do not proceed from a sufficiently general foundation. But the mistake is to believe that style can and must coincide with coherent art. However, coherent art is inconceivable because all art is bound to its material and to time. (Temporal and spatial attitude.) All artworks clearly distinguish the purely artistic element from the temporal element. However, artworks of any age evince the purely artistic element. What muddies it is the temporal element. Style, too, is a muddying of the individual artwork. Still, it is better and more enjoyable to live in a time of style than to be surrounded by individual works of art that contradict each other, though they themselves may be more coherent and beautiful than those with style. For us, style is even a practical question. Now I say: you cannot deduce style from the rules of art; instead, it must result from a more or less voluntary agreement. A focus on the simplest forms and colors, the selection of certain forms and colors while entirely avoiding other forms and colors— this could lead to style. Were we to sacrifice all detailing in the everyday object and balance the object in itself, were we to limit ourselves to the three primary colors (red, blue, yellow, in addition to white, black, and gray, and avoid all other colors such as green, purple, orange, or avoid any nuances apart from primary colors), and were we to apply all three colors in the case of larger objects while maintaining sterility in the room, any changes in our living rooms would produce favorable constellations of their own accord instead of the common monstrosities that now surround us everywhere. This would create a style. 140
(46) i “i,” Merz 2. Nummer i (April 1923): 17– 21.
A year after his first exhibition of i-drawings at Der Sturm, Schwitters dedicated the second issue of his journal Merz to this “special form of Merz.” In this opening text, he deploys a complex program of graphic design, poetry, and photography to demonstrate and develop ideas that he had briefly introduced in his i-manifesto from 1922 (text 37). Whenever the letter i stands alone to represent this particular concept, Schwitters always prints it in a different bold typeface. He occasionally applies this treatment when the letter appears in “ich,” German for the subject “I”— a move that stresses his preoccupation with artistic subjectivity and intent. Furthermore, he uses this same type to highlight the letters a through z in progression throughout, thereby transforming the entire text into an alphabet poem, similar to those he had published in Elementar: Die Blume Anna; Die neue Anna Blume (Berlin: Verlag der Sturm, 1922). As the order of the alphabet comes into view, however, Schwitters begins to undermine it. With especially important words or transitions, he graphically “stutters” before moving on in the alphabetic sequence (e.g., when “kurt” is followed closely by “künstler” [artist]). Elsewhere, he changes typeface and size entirely, to highlight the mirror reversal of the letters p and q, for instance, or to stress the final x y z. Schwitters also exaggerates spacing and uses sansserif and cursive typefaces for emphasis, and he draws his reader’s attention to the margins of the page by incorporating the title, epigraph, and page numbers into his dense typographic play. Indeed, Schwitters turns the letter i into a kind of trademark, constructing it out of geometric shapes when it serves as the title of the text and when we find it at the beginning and end of the sentence, “I am the artist of i.” This construction replicates the cursive script he learned as a schoolboy. Schwitters first published this i-logo, together with a children’s rhyme articulating how it ought to be read aloud, “Rauf, runter, rauf, Pünktchen drauf” (Up, down, up, little dot on top), as his first “i-Gedicht” (i-Poem) in Elementar. (We reproduce Schwitters’s original design in full on the facing pages of this translation to convey the importance of the visual presentation of the text for its arguments.)
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/i/ (“assis sur l’horizon, les autres vont chanter.” PIERRE REVERDY.)1
i doubt that the poet here was thinking of i; nevertheless, he has characterized much of the nature of i in 2 verses. This entire affair becomes wholly i when I (who am not Pierre Reverdy but rather Kurt Schwitters), when I (although I doubt that Pierre Reverdy was thinking of i let alone had an inkling of i when he wrote these two famous lines that express much, but not yet all, that i means in the world), when I interpret these two verses (which, so far as I know, do not characterize i), as being, in a certain sense, characteristic of i, assis sur l’horizon les autres vont chanter. For me, i is the recognition that the other autres, by being assis sur l’horizon, that is, located at a distance at which I can no longer see them nor they me, create a work that I experience as an artwork, as chanter. The chanson des autres is i for me. However, Reverdy’s lines only describe a special form of i. Because it is irrelevant for i whether des autres also experience their work as artwork or not. But the term “chanter” conveys the sense that these Others experienced their work as artwork. By contrast, all that is important for i is that I recognize this work of the autres as artwork, that I recognize art in the work of the autres. What is important for i is not that it is also something for me, but that it is something through me, even though it was the Others who made it, through my recognition, through my stamping it as an artwork, through my recognition.
/i/ am the artist of /i/ Kurt Schwitters is the artist of the work of autres. i am the artist, who, through an act of delimitation, turned the song of others (which might be very bad) into an artwork.
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To avoid any confusion, I will quote the much-discussed saying of Alois Schenzinger:2 “An artwork becomes an artwork only through the beholder.” This is not i, though it does contain a spark of i-spirit. Schenzinger’s words place the emphasis on “beholder,” in Reverdy’s words, on “les autres.” Someone could follow Schenzinger in thinking that just anybody could come and say: “Here is I,” simply because the emphasis is on any arbitrary beholder. mais: maar:
4 Kurt Schwitters, i-Bild [1] (i-Picture [1]) and i-Bild [2] (i-Picture [2]), 1923. Reproduced in Merz 2. Nummer i (April 1923): 18. CR 1177 and 1178. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner. [left:] “Photographs by Dr. Reijs” / [right:] “Two i-Pictures”
Only if the beholder is an artist can he recognize whether the work of the autres is art or not. The work is more significant than the beholder. What is important is that the work of the autres provides the beholder with the opportunity for artistic interpretation based on its inherent rhythm. Then again, Schenzinger fortunately avoids Reverdy’s mistake with the word “chanter”: it is unimportant whether the autres consciously intended to make an artwork or not. Accordingly, the truth about i lies between Reverdy and Schenzinger.
what then is i ? The sign i is called “I.” It is a small “I” from the German alphabet that accompanies this article from a to z.3 It is the I that we already have in the English word “will,” as in the combination “I will,” but it is not the “I.” This i is the middle vowel of the German alphabet.
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This is the first letter children learn in school. The class sings in chorus: “Up, down, up, little dot on top.” i is the first letter, i is the simplest letter, i is the most simpleminded letter. I have chosen this letter to describe a special genre of artwork, whose formcreation seems to be as simple as the most simple-minded letter i. These artworks are rigorous in the sense that they emerge in the artist at the moment of artistic intuition. Here intuition and creation of the artwork are the same.
qqqqqqq The artist recognizes that within the world of appearances surrounding him he need only delimit and tear out a single detail from its context to produce a work of art, i.e., a rhythm that other artistically minded individuals can also experience as a work of art.
Indecent i-Poem Ladies’ shirts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ladies’ pantaloons, French design Ladies’ pantaloons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Excellent nightgowns for ladies Ladies’ combinations . . . . . . Gentlemen’s shirts, heavy coarse linen (from a Dutch newspaper.)4 Go ahead and read the indecent i-poem. I recognized that a gentleman’s shirt, when listed amid a compilation of ladies’ underwear, suddenly seems indecent, even if it is made of coarse linen, and that this sequence of words, which had a life of their own as they stood there without any indication of the price (the real reason the entire thing was written), that this sequence contained an artistic rhythm. Assis sur l’horizon, les autres vont chanter. The garment shop is les autres. The price list in the newspaper corresponds to vont chanter. i corresponds to the act of cutting off the prices and recognizing the rhythm and the indecency.
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20 p ppppppppp pornographic i-poem The Go This bleater is Friendly and placid And she will With her horns
| | | | |
The line indicates where I cut this harmless poem from a children’s picture book in half lengthwise. Goat thus becomes Go.5 And she will With her horns
| not get too sore, | she butts you more.6
The sole act of the artist in terms of i is de-formulation [Entformelung] through the demarcation of a rhythm. A doctor friend of mine took photographs of rotating bodies and x-rays with the intention of using these for some scientific purpose unknown to me. I am publishing 2 of these here as i-images, see above. The author of these artworks is no longer the doctor, but rather I, who recognized their artistic content. I am also the artistic creator of the Hague tram ticket, at least its right-hand corner. Cut a square from its right-hand corner and you have an i-drawing. Now, if you think it is easy to make an i, you are mistaken. It is far more difficult than composing an artwork by evaluating various parts,
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because the world of appearances resists being art and it is rare to find a situation where all you need to do is grasp something to create a work of art.
x y z MERZ is all-inclusive, i is a special form of MERZ. i is the decadence of Merz.
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(47) WAR “KRIEG,” Merz 2. Nummer i (April 1923): 22.
The War Section will publish slogans suited to demonstrating how our lack of culture can persist, even in the absence of war. Suggestions are sincerely welcome. Intelligent contributions will be published. There is still time. We remain in the midst of deepest peace. As yet, war can be avoided! Poem:1 Patience, you little–– In the lovely quiet–– It is still much too–– It is still much too–– Still I pass you But I’ll remember the And with the approach of I will come and get you, my– There are no values worth defending. Our enemies are just like us. We should not fight them; we should fight our mistakes. The enemy’s right to live is greater than your right to kill him. Anna Blume is the same from behind as from the front A— N— N— A.You should never kill a human being, even in war, especially not your enemy. Dada and Merz are related through opposition. In spite of this, we want to feel that we are all members of a great nation, of humanity. When you get a chill, you should drink dried oak leaves.2 Whoever loves his fatherland shall love the world. Whoever loves the world loves his fatherland. There is no human law that could force human beings to wage war against each other. After all, we don’t have locomotives crash into each other.3 United we fight, united we win, we all have just one enemy:
THE MOON Build ladders and clamber onto the roof of the moon, but leave the roofs of humanity intact. That is global patriotism. And what, then, is global nationalism? Verzoeke dit aandachtig te lezen alvorens dit in de prullemand te werpen.4
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(48) WAR Unpublished typescript, “Krieg” (Amsterdam, April 1923).
War is the greatest disgrace that humanity has experienced and can experience. It is a grandiose expression of humanity’s lack of self-control and of personal or universal notions of power. Accordingly, it is unthinkable that a truly democratic people can wage war. But is there such a thing as a democratic people? War is the ruthless mirror that humanity holds up to itself. There it sees the image of its passions reflected. It holds nothing sacred anymore, and evil reigns over all that is good. Even the church and art place themselves in the service of war, i.e., of a political party, as dictated by the state. But because church and art support both sides, they bless friend and foe alike. The church should ostracize war and make it impossible. Art, however, has nothing to do with anything outside art, war included. But if art were to set itself consistently next to the evil things of the world, it might still have a positive influence on culture. War overturns the most basic concepts of good and evil. All the ideals that people have outlined to define their constructed idea of “nation” cannot withstand universal human logic. Here I mean ideals such as fatherland, love of the fatherland, bravery, national honor, national authority, loyalty, subordination, communal hatred, family, and many others. Take note of the following hierarchy: individual, home [Heimat], fatherland, world. It is obvious and natural that individuals generally love themselves best. We call this egoism. And it is well known that everyone possesses this quality but keeps it concealed because it is considered bad. The next larger complex is home. This ties each person to those who live and reside closest to them and binds the entire community into a greater unity. In general, love of home is considered good, when it [typescript ends]
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(49) MANIFESTO PROLETARIAN ART “Manifest Proletkunst,” Merz 2. Nummer i (April 1923): 24– 25.
This manifesto makes explicit reference to the theory of Proletkult (proletarskaya kultura, i.e., proletarian culture) developed in the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution by Aleksandr Bogdanov (1873– 1928) and Anatoly Lunacharsky (1875– 1933). Although the German government attempted to censor information on the Soviet republic in the press, translations of works by Bogdanov (Die Kunst und das Proletariat [Art and the proletariat]) and Lunacharsky (Die Kulturaufgaben der Arbeiterklasse [The cultural tasks of the working class]) were available in 1919. While their ideas gained traction in leftist expressionist circles, their reception among Dadaists was more ambivalent. For example, in a deeply ironic article from 1921, Schwitters’s friend and Berlin Dadaist Raoul Hausmann argued that Proletkult advocated a fundamentally conservative proletarian art that affirmed ideal humanist values at the expense of any true subversion of bourgeois norms.1 By the time Schwitters and his peers signed this manifesto, Soviet authorities were expressing increasing resistance to abstract and avant-garde art, and the organizational autonomy of Proletkult itself had dissolved in the wake of efforts to centralize public education and culture.
There is no such thing as an art aimed at a specific class of people, and if it did exist, it would have absolutely no importance for life. We ask those who want to create proletarian art: “What is proletarian art?” Is it art made by proletarians themselves? Or art that serves only the proletariat? Or art that is supposed to arouse proletarian (revolutionary) instincts? There is no such thing as art made by proletarians, because the moment a proletarian creates art he is no longer a proletarian, but an artist. An artist is neither a proletarian nor a bourgeois, and whatever he creates belongs neither to the proletariat nor to the bourgeoisie, but rather to everyone. Art is an intellectual function of man that aims to liberate him from the chaos of life (tragedy). Though art is free in the use of its resources, it is bound by its own laws, and its laws alone. The moment a work becomes a work of art, it is removed far beyond the class distinctions that divide the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. But if art were to serve the proletariat exclusively— leaving aside the fact that bourgeois taste has infected the proletariat— such art would be limited, indeed just as limited as a specifically bourgeois art. Such an art 154
would not be universal. It would grow not out of a sense of belonging to the world at large, but rather out of views that are individual, social, and limited in time and space. And if art were to rouse proletarian instincts tendentiously, it would essentially employ the same means as religious or nationalist art. As banal as this may sound, there is no fundamental difference between a painting of the Red Army led by Trotsky and one of an imperial army led by Napoleon. Whether a painting is supposed to arouse proletarian instincts or patriotic feelings is irrelevant for its value as a work of art. From the standpoint of art, one is as fraudulent as the other. Art should awaken the creative forces in mankind using its own resources and nothing else. Its aim is the mature human being, not a proletarian or a bourgeois. Only small talents, with their lack of culture, can make something like proletarian art (i.e., politics in a painted form), because their meager intelligence does not allow them to grasp the bigger picture. The artist, however, renounces the specialized arena of social organization. The art that we want is neither proletarian nor bourgeois, for it develops forces strong enough to influence all culture rather than be influenced by social conditions. The proletariat is a condition that must be overcome; the bourgeoisie is a condition that must be overcome. But by imitating the cult of the bourgeoisie with its own cult of the proletariat [Proletkult], it is the proletariat itself that props up this corrupt culture of the bourgeoisie, without being conscious that this is what it is doing. This is to the detriment of art and to the detriment of culture. With their conservative love for old and obsolete forms of expression and their entirely incomprehensible aversion to the new art, they sustain precisely what they claim to fight: bourgeois culture. Thus bourgeois sentimentality and bourgeois romanticism continue to exist and are even cultivated anew, despite all the intensive efforts by radical artists to destroy them. Communism is, moreover, as much a bourgeois matter as mass socialism, namely capitalism in a new form. The bourgeoisie enlists the communist apparatus, which is an invention not of the proletariat but of the bourgeoisie itself, only as a means to revive their own rotten culture (Russia). This means that the proletarian artist is fighting neither for art nor for a new future life, but for the bourgeoisie. Every proletarian work of art is nothing more than a poster for the bourgeoisie. We, however, are preparing the Gesamtkunstwerk, which is superior to all posters, whether they advertise champagne, Dada, or a communist dictatorship. Théo van Doesburg. Kurt Schwitters. hans arp. Tristan Tzara. Chr. Spengemann The Hague, 6 March 1923
Manifesto Proletarian Art
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(50) FROM THE WORLD: “MERZ” Kurt Schwitters and Franz Rolan, “Aus der Welt: ‘MERZ,’” Der Sturm 14, no. 4 (April 1923): 49– 56; no. 5 (May 1923): 67– 76; no. 6 (June 1923): 95– 96. A heavily abridged version was reprinted under the incorrect title “Stegreiftheater Merz” (Impromptu theater Merz) on pages 26– 38 in the catalogue for the 1924 Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik, Musik und Theaterfest der Stadt Wien (International exhibition of new theater technology, music and theater festival of Vienna), organized by Frederick Kiesler (see text 75).
Franz Rolan-Bubenzer (1872– 1934) was an architect, portrait painter, actor, and theater director active in Hannover. In 1911, he built the Schauburg Theater, which he managed until it went bankrupt after a year. Rolan was a polemical figure in the local theater scene as he jockeyed unsuccessfully to head the city’s main theater and opera house, the Königliches Hoftheater. He became an increasingly vocal critic of modern theater and, ultimately, a committed member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP).
A Dialogue with Interjections from the Audience. Audience: (Lively chatter) Did you hear? He’s calling for the Merz-theater! — Who? — Kurt Schwitters! — (Laughter all around) — Haha! — Anna Blume — Rubbish! — (A woman’s voice:) Who’s Kurt Schwitters? — (Many voices:) — A crazy painter! — An idiot! — (A thin, high-pitched voice:) Anna Blume!! — A crackpot poet! — Dada! — Idiot!! — (Everybody:) Idiot!! Schwitters: I am Kurt Schwitters. I demand the Merz-theater. —
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Audience: Haha! — Idiot! — Shhh! — Quiet! — Phooey: Get out! — Quiet! — A windbag from the front and from behind! — (The thin, high-pitched voice:) A-n-n-a from the front and from behind! — (A phlegmatic voice:) Quiet! Let him speak! — (The thin, high-pitched voice:) — Splendid! Let him give a speech! — Shhh! — (Someone else:) Oh man, what a riot! Shhhh! Quiet! — Dada — Shh! — Shh! — Shh! — — (An inquisitorial flash from an eyeglass. A glowering eye behind the glass squints and an educated, academic voice— legal or medical, you cannot tell— asks:) You demand the Merz-theater? — What plays would it put on? — Schwitters: Merz-performances. Audience: Ha ha ha — Hee hee hee — Ho ho ho — (The thin, high-pitched voice:) Anna Blume! — (The bespectacled voice:) Fine! But what are Merz-performances and who writes them? — Audience: (The thin, high-pitched voice, which can think of nothing new to say, squawks in the highest falsetto:) Anna Blume! — (But it is told to keep quiet:) Shhh! — Schwitters: The Merzer makes Merz-performances with artists who all have equal rights and with materials that all have equal rights. — Audience: (Howling:) What rubbish! — Nonsense! — Call a doctor! —A psychiatrist!! — Merzer? — A word with no meaning, what’s it all mean? — (The bespectacled voice gestures politely in an attempt to calm the audience, all while winking in secret complicity with them:) Quite right: what’s the meaning of this?! — Please, ladies and gentlemen, be quiet, or we’ll never get on! — We want to get to the bottom of this! — (An excitable audience member:) We won’t be made fools of! — (The bespectacled voice, bowing:) Quite right! — (Turning to Schwitters, ironically:) So would you kindly explain — –– Schwitters: Art cannot be explained! — Audience: (The bespectacled voice, losing his train of thought:) Quite right — er — er — no, I wanted to say — (Biting nails in momentary confusion) — indeed — but at least tell us what all this is about! — Schwitters: (In a dry, lecturing tone:) The expression of the individual elements of the Merz-performance must, in their totality, create a previously determined effect, whether positive or negative. And from the materials employed, such as the artists (because the participating artists— poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, and actors— must also be considered as material), stage-props, space, the people involved— Audience: (The bespectacled voice:) Don’t forget the audience — (The phlegmatic voice:) Quite right, we’re here too! — Schwitters: (Calmly picking up where he left off:) . . . and from the materials employed, such as artists, stage-props, space, lights, acoustic effects, and the audience, the inevitable result must be the Gesamtkunstwerk.
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Audience: (The bespectacled voice:) Okay! Fine, but now, if you please: where does the writer fit in with all this? The person who actually has to come up with this whole thing beforehand, independent of all the material that comes in later, given that you want to count the actors as material? Schwitters: The central tenet distinguishing the Merz-performance from traditional plays is this: Away with the writer’s script! If a new artwork is to arise from the totality of this actively creative material, then you cannot cling to the words a writer has set down in advance— in place of the writer, we have the Merzer, the creator of Merz-performances. Audience: ? ? ? — (The excitable audience member:) He wants to do away with playwrights! — Schwitters: Previously, writers have only been able to use words as their means of expression. They used words to put their thoughts to paper. Their feelings, their actions were words. Their art was to create a world that was a self-contained whole made of words written on paper, and their artwork was complete with the final stroke of the pen. This remains a constant, regardless of the genre a writer chooses: whether poem, novel, epic, or drama. Even if it is never performed onstage, a play exists as a complete entity like any of their other artistic creations. The production cannot add or subtract anything; put bluntly — — it is superfluous! But in art, anything superfluous is harmful. There is no fundamental difference between Albert Bassermann performing Hamlet and a schoolgirl declaiming the Song of the Bell, because Hamlet needs Bassermann as much as Schiller’s poem needs the pupil who recites it.1 However, the stage contains forces that can become productive in their own right once they are released. Why does Bassermann have to perform Hamlet? Hamlet doesn’t need him. Any single, compelling gesture performed by a circus clown proves that actors are capable of doing more. What deep, psychological effects are triggered by the wail of a ship’s horn! We need to reassert the equal rights of the materials that we use, we must evaluate each element against the next, and we must fuse them to form a new, indivisible work of art. Audience: (The bespectacled voice:) But, speaking in practical terms, how can you work from a material, audience included, without abandoning the total artistic expression and its formal unity? — (Unrest breaks out in the rest of the audience, so the bespectacled voice turns to calm them:) We demand to hear the evidence! — Schwitters: Art cannot be proved. — Audience: (The bespectacled voice:) But my dear sir, you must be able to offer some proof that your new method can indeed produce an artwork!! — (The excitable member:) Platitudes won’t get us anywhere! — (The bespectacled voice:) So what do you want? — ? — Schwitters: To create! — Only a Merzer completely aware of the task at hand can deliver proof of such a fully contained artwork: a Merzer, who is simultaneously
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a leader, namely, the creator of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and a follower, that is, a member of the audience. It is up to him to guide the forces that emanate from the material of their own accord— ever mindful to treat the participating artists as material too. These forces sustain him, and he gives them direction. As soon as he allows them to follow their own course, the artwork falls apart: because each force simply follows its own path, it cannot know the effects exerted by the other forces. However, if, from the outset, he suppresses any possible independent creativity for the forces he is working with, he turns into an autocrat, a playwright in the traditional sense. This does not result in Merz-theater, it merely serves as the illustration for a previously composed play. Audience: ? — ? — ? — ? — — — Schwitters: (Explaining:) Creative force is essential to artistic creativity. The MerzGesamtkunstwerk gives creative force the best conceivable opportunities to unfold. Each component of the Merz-theater is enlisted as a force, and the whole is creatively formed by the devaluation of the individual parts against each other. Audience: Hoho! — Show us!! — Create, artist, do not talk!2 — (The bespectacled voice:) Quite right! Give us an example! — Schwitters: Fine! (Calls:) Lights out! (Stage and hall darken.) Audience: (The high-pitched voice:) Out with the lights! Out with the knives! Get him! (Laughter:) Haha! (The bespectacled voice:) Quiet! — (An enormous, transparent advertisement appears on the stage):3
Audience: (With instinctive, naive pleasure at the sight of the loud, gaudy colors of the banner:) Ah! — Ah! — (Laughter, giggles from the women) — Er! — er — er — Why? — What’s this all about? — (The phlegmatic voice:) By the way, “aus” takes the dative case!4 — (The excitable voice:) Even the grammar is incorrect! — (A woman’s voice:) Can modern men’s hats really be pressed from women’s hats? — (Another woman’s voice:) Where is this shop anyway? — (The excitable voice:) Rubbish! It’s complete rubbish!! (The thin, high-pitched voice): Anna Blume! — (The bespectacled voice:) Silence, ladies and gentlemen! Don’t you see, it’s a metaphor: New forms are pressed from old ones— er— er— or
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something? — Mr. Schwitters! — Mr. Schwitters!! — Damn it, turn the lights back on! — We can’t see anything! Where are you, anyway? — (The transparent banner disappears) — Lights! — (General calls:) Lights!! — (Stage and auditorium light up) (The bespectacled voice:) Finally! — — Well now, Mr. Schwitters, explain to us— (very rushed:) actually no, you’ll only say: Art cannot be explained— just tell us: What was that all about? — Schwitters: That was an example of a Merz-performance, as requested. — For the sake of clarity I used as little material as possible. Just as the Merz-theater can use any material, it can also exclude any material, such as a logical narrative, for instance. In this case, the narrative of the Merz-theater is abstract. Turning the lights off was itself a creative act, which (smiling), as you surely noticed, automatically exerted a creative influence on the audience and triggered a wide range of emotions. Over a longer duration, this effect could have been increased dramatically to produce emotions ranging from commotion and laughter to uneasiness and rage; and then, if the doors had been locked, these emotions could also have included terror and panic. Now, you could object that switching the lights off is a single action followed by a state of darkness, which can no longer be described as an action. I would reply that every state latently is an action so long as it provokes a desire to change this state. The Merzer must now take this dramatic moment, which turning the lights off automatically produced, and use it to create an effect to the degree he deems artistically necessary. I could have limited my sample production of a Merz-performance to a simple demonstration of light as a material. But I was sure that this would have been completely misunderstood, and though such misunderstandings are completely irrelevant for an artwork, it did not square with my intention here. So I included some additional material for dramatic effect. And because I knew you would request an example, I was prepared. I took a random poster— for the lady who inquired about the shop, let me tell you that this poster does actually exist in a shop on Osterstrasse in Hannover— and I altered it. You witnessed the effect that this additional material created. It created this effect completely on its own, making use of factors that already existed: space, light, and audience. As soon as its effect was exhausted, that is to say, once the audience could no longer think of any more possible interpretations, you yourself demanded an end to the example, and I, in my role as Merzer, complied, because this was in line with my wishes. If this had not been the case, I could have continued to introduce new materials— artists, performers, or dead material, so to speak— as long as I stayed true to the artwork (taking the audience into account as part of the artwork) and to my intentions. Audience: (The bespectacled voice:) So the poster did not have a metaphorical meaning and was not related to your new ideas for a Merz-theater? Schwitters: Why yes! At least it certainly did the moment you started reading your ideas into it.
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Audience: (The bespectacled voice:) I’ll give you that. After all, everybody considers a work of art from their own point of view. — But earlier you said that the Merzperformance could dispense with a logical narrative. If that’s the case, how is it possible for an artwork to come about? — Schwitters: A logical narrative plays no decisive role in the psychological effect. It is merely one of the thousands of artistic resources available; and not only that, but it is one that is so hackneyed that something illogical can elicit far greater effects. The only logic that matters for an artwork is its own, which is the Merzer’s responsibility. And this can be achieved only through the psychological effects triggered by the artwork. Audience: (The bespectacled voice:) You are thinking of psychological effects in Goethe’s sense: “Self-contradiction, when complete, is to the wise as much a mystery as to the fool”?5 Schwitters: The artwork depends solely on creative force; mystery has nothing to do with it. Audience: (The excitable member:) This has turned into a private conversation! Enough! — (The thin, high-pitched voice:) And the old grouse said: Children, let me have a go!6 — (Laughter) — (The phlegmatic voice:) Let them talk. We’ll listen. — (The thin, high-pitched voice:) It doesn’t cost us anything and it’s fun. — (A woman’s voice:) I thought we’d get to see a show! (Another woman:) Yes, indeed! So where is this lady’s hat? (Laughter. Applause:) Lady’s hat!! Schwitters: (Turning to the bespectacled voice:) You see: (shouts:) Gentlemen’s hats pressed from the most fashionable ladies’ hats! Audience: (The bespectacled voice, shouting and gesticulating wildly to the audience:) Shut up, let me speak! (General cry:) Lady’s hat!! — (The bespectacled voice:) This is just nonsense! — (The phlegmatic voice:) I thought that nonsense promotes art! — (Laughter. The thin, high-pitched voice, squeaking with sheer delight:) Hahaha — a — ha! — (The excitable member, in a stentorian voice:) Now it’s my turn! — (He works his way forward through the crowd and turns to Schwitters:) Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Meyer . . .— Schwitters: (Politely:) I’ll allow it. — Audience: (Laughter.) — (The excitable member:) I refuse to tolerate jokes! — You may have a point with what you say about using any and all materials such as space, light, random objects, etc. to create a dramatic effect. But whether this results in an artwork depends on the skill of the leader — let’s call him the Merzer, for all I care. And what (with raised voice:) do you think the actor’s role is if he is not bound to a prescribed text and if, as you say, anybody can be creatively involved however they wish. (Excitedly:) It’ll be just like a Yiddish shul!7 Complete improvisational bedlam, which will never, ever produce a work of art! — Schwitters: You are overlooking the role of the Merzer, who is responsible for the work of art. It is possible, even probable that the collaboration between independently creative artists and materials will create certain situations that will
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disrupt the work’s logic. In such cases, the Merzer must intervene creatively to reestablish the logic of the artwork, just like a painter who uses a color that, on its own, would disrupt the harmony of his painting, in order to reach a specific goal that will ultimately bring the picture together. Audience: (The excitable member:) There we have it! All we get is continuous improvisation! Some materials, provided by the poet, painter, or sculptor, create an initial situation. Then an actor, or even a few, are thrown into this situation and then they merrily improvise away to their creative hearts’ content. And then new materials are added as the other artists see fit. Finally, just when this whole shambles becomes intolerable, the Merzer swoops in to try and sort out this entire mess with some new improvisations. Do you really think this is how an artwork can be created? – Never!! – (Triumphantly turning to the audience:) Never! — Schwitters: You are right! — Audience: (The excitable audience member, astonished:) How so? — Schwitters: Because you want to be right. You come here with a preconceived opinion, and you don’t want to accept any other. It is a question of will. To understand a new idea you must engage it affectionately in order to get to the heart of it. By swallowing a hazelnut, shell and all, you can prove to the audience that it is indigestible. But this proof says more about you than the hazelnut. It is not actually indigestible, merely indigestible to you. Audience: (Some agreement. The phlegmatic voice:) Very good. — Don’t rush anything. — (The bespectacled voice:) I thought — — (The thin, high-pitched voice:) Lady’s hat! — (Laughter.) (The excitable audience member forces himself to remain calm so as not to lose his place:) I’m happy to learn, but you did say I was right! — Schwitters: Because in the end, every work of art owes its value to fortuitous improvisation. You cannot simply calculate the final artwork in advance, even when you start with the most carefully laid plans. Indeed, new improvisations will always help to overcome new and unforeseen difficulties, allowing the artwork to maintain its freshness and originality. Improvisation motivates the portrayal of every artistic intuition or inspiration in an artwork. However, an artist’s improvisation differs from that of a vaudeville actor. He is not using improvisation to seek fleeting effects but pursues an artistic, creative drive. Audience: (The excitable audience member:) But this just brings me back to my first question: How would you describe the actor’s job in your Merz-theater? — Schwitters: The job of the actor in the Merz-theater is completely different from what it was on the traditional stage. There his chief task was to recite the writer’s text, without which the narrative simply couldn’t proceed. The true vocation of the actor, the art of performance itself, became an incidental side effect. And whenever the actor attempted to foreground it, he was criticized for playing the buffoon. In the Merz-theater the situation is reversed: here, the performance
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is the sole concern and the performer merely uses words when his own artistic impulses force them from his lips. His performance actually signifies “plot” not blather. The Merz-theater confronts every performer with a situation that consists of specific factors, and he must be sensitive enough to create his own necessary relationship to the demands dictated by the situation. In the Merz-theater, the actor makes active decisions. He is not merely illustrating the words of some writer. On the traditional stage, the doting mother recites a poignant script that demonstrates her love. Meanwhile the child she addresses either would not be allowed onstage or would merely hang around as some supplemental illustration, one that is often terribly annoying because it distracts attention from the script. In a Merz-performance, the doting mother has no script at her disposal. She must become a “performer” in a very different sense, actively and creatively offering proof of her love with every heartbeat and with every gesture. The child who had previously been supplemental or disruptive is now the center of attention. The prerequisite for the performer’s art is the ability to convey onstage an affectionate, happy, and unselfconscious relationship, like that which must exist between a mother and child. Each word that she speaks must conform to this artistic intention. To be able to work under these conditions while at the same time artistically driving the action forward would require an entirely different kind of artistry than we could ever imagine, given the mere parroting that is characteristic of most of our currently aspiring actresses. Oratory, long the actor’s most important skill, will be reduced to a supporting role within the performing arts, which will now depend entirely on the psyche. Clearly, many actors who focus entirely on oratory will be completely unsuited for the Merz-theater, while others will discover new creative powers once they are released from the author’s script. In turn, the writer will discover completely new possibilities working with these new dramatic forces. Central to the concept of the Merz-theater is the fact that every individual element remains creatively independent within its own sphere and has an absolutely equal claim to use every other element for its own ends. The artwork is the product of a process whereby all the elements devalue each other. To this end, all the individual elements have to be examined carefully, because they must all remain within the boundaries artistically assigned to them: the painter remains creative in his own right and is no longer reduced to a glorified decorator who executes the writer’s stage directions. Instead, he can freely create the set design based on his own sensibility. However, in achieving his desired pictorial effect, he must always respect the freedom of the other elements he uses as available material. Through ceaseless, mutual examination, these various creative forces become stronger. And in this experimental giveand-take, new possibilities arise that the individual could not have been aware of previously, because he could not understand the potential of the sister arts. Audience: (The excitable member:) You mean to say you need rehearsals? — Well that changes everything! —
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Schwitters: A Merz-performance requires more rehearsals than any other work for the stage because it is not produced at a desk but on the stage itself. Any single element with a stronger artistic force can, at any moment, influence and change the design of the entire work according to its intent and ability. An actor could rise above the writer and take what started out as a burlesque and turn it into a tragedy, but only on the strength of the power of his performance; the writer, meanwhile, must take such unexpected abilities into account as he encounters them. The writer is no longer working with dead figures that come to life on paper through his imagination alone. Rather, he is creating with real life itself, and his ideas quickly take on a life of their own, and they, in turn, share in the creative process. And this is why the conscientious selection of suitable forces is also an essential prerequisite for him. He can no longer simply say, “Iago.” He needs a performer who understands what it means to be Iago, not through the writer’s words but through himself. If the writer cannot find a suitable performer, he cannot use Othello on the stage of the Merz-performance— though he could probably produce something else capable of developing artistically from the materials at hand. Audience: (The excitable member, now pensive:) It is possible, with a bit of good will, to understand what you are getting at, but (shaking his head) it’s hardly a clear idea that emerges. Schwitters: The Merz-performance can only be experienced. Just as you cannot explain what an image is to an entity that has never seen an image before, the Merz-performance can be neither transcribed nor described. I am merely offering a suggestion here. The possibilities of the Merz-performance are limitless. While the possibilities open to the traditional written work are infinite, those available to the Merz-Gesamtkunstwerk are infinity raised to the power of infinity. All that is needed for something new to grow is a seed that has potential. It is absurd to try and describe the oak tree by looking at the acorn. Let it grow. Where is the experimental theater? Audience: (The phlegmatic voice:) Oh, please! — I have other objections! — Let’s say you have a carefully rehearsed, contained, and mature Merz-performance. Then, in the actual performance, you add the audience as a new factor. Schwitters: That is correct. — Audience: (The phlegmatic voice:) And that’s just the problem! – As you said yourself, the audience is an additional factor in the Merz-performance and is, as such, either an active or a passive participant in the plot. — — Schwitters: There is no difference between active and passive. Even a passive attitude can play an active role. Audience: (The phlegmatic voice:) Whatever you say. But this kind of audience participation will necessarily derail your entire artwork and at best produce the kind of variety-hall improvisational comedy you just dismissed! —
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Schwitters: In order for the active and passive contributions of the audience to become an artistic element, rehearsals must have already taken them into account. Audience: (The phlegmatic voice:) How so? — Should the audience be part of the rehearsal? — — (Loud laugh.) Schwitters: There you have it. The audience has answered your last question. Indeed, the value of the audience as an artistic element rests on the fact that it can openly and freely engage with the work at hand, that it can become engrossed in the work without being aware of the necessary preparations. The more candid and free of preconceptions the audience is, the more it is engrossed in the work. It is the misfortune of every artistic style that people gradually become accustomed to it. They then walk around like an old nag with blinders, shying away from anything they encounter beyond this style. Artworks that remain and endure can tolerate such misfortune, for it is always possible that opinions can change. But it is intolerable for the Merz-performance, which must be experienced directly. In the end, every artwork needs the audience’s approval. So the Merzer must keep the possibility of a negative audience reaction in mind and reevaluate it as an active factor in the artwork, much as a painter uses shading to heighten the effects of light. Audience: (The phlegmatic voice:) But how? — Schwitters: The problem is not as difficult as it might seem. Every element of the Merz-performance is creatively active within its own boundaries. But beyond these boundaries, each element must accept that the other elements will treat it simply as material at their disposal. A painter can act independently as a painter, but he cannot demand that a performer strike any pose that suits him; instead, he must engage the performer on his or her own terms and build the image starting from the available material. The actor may not meddle with the writer’s work any more than the writer may meddle with the actor’s. Each factor is tied to its own resources. The same goes for the audience. The audience has three resources at its disposal to participate creatively: it can applaud and thereby decide in favor of the artwork, casting a vote “in favor” that invigorates and fires up all the creative forces; it can remain silent, leaving its opinion open to interpretation, thereby suggesting caution or in any case creating a certain level of tension; and finally, it can express displeasure and thereby decide against what is being performed, casting a vote “in opposition,” which must also be used as a creative force. This is because the whole thing can and must be retuned and reevaluated with the inclusion of new material. In a traditional work for the stage, the audience, just like all the other elements, was paralyzed by the writer’s words. The cheers or jeers of the audience could not change anything. Not so with the Merz-performance. In the hands of the Merzer, cheers and jeers become artistic resources for the formative process. Jeers most of all. For though the work of art ultimately strives for the audience’s approval, it should not become a slave to
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the whims of the audience. After all, every new idea will encounter some resistance at first— indeed, the newer it is, the greater the resistance. The Merzer must take this fact into account from the beginning and search for the resources to counteract it, to the extent that the Gesamtkunstwerk requires. It is no more difficult to do this than it is for the professional comedian to pause as the audience roars with laughter. This constant readiness to include and collaborate with the audience gives the work a particular freshness and vivacity that reflects back onto the audience, liberating it from passive spectatorship. Cheers and jeers become important artistic tools, while even previously unremarked dissenting voices can become artistically significant elements with the greatest value for the Gesamtkunstwerk. This is not the case just for the Merzer as the creator of the Gesamtkunstwerk. It goes for all other artists as well – the poet, the painter, the musician, and the actor can all choose to take into account or deliberately ignore the audience’s opposition as an artistic element. Whatever the case may be, the final decision on the value of the Gesamtkunstwerk lies, in turn (bowing slightly:), with the audience. Audience: Bravo! — Bravo! — Bravo! — (A woman’s voice, effusively:) He is brilliant!! (The thin, high-pitched voice:) Three cheers for ANNA BLUME!! (Everyone turns indignantly to the thin, high-pitched voice:) Idiot!! — (They all leave.)
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(51) BANALITIES (3) “Banalitäten (3),” Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 40– 41.
The fourth issue of Merz was dedicated to “banalities.” As i is to Merz, so is banality to Dada. Schwitters published two lists of these hackneyed aphorisms from French, German, and Dutch sources in “Banalitäten (1)” and “Banalitäten (2)” (Merz 4, pp. 34– 35 and 36). He appropriated these snippets of banal speech from expressionist and Dadaist literature, friends and colleagues from Hannover, and works by Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, and Heinrich Heine. For examples, see text 59.
“Blaib hipsch ksunt”! (Saxon dialect.)1 Why am I publishing banalities and writing this article? So as to write the article “dada complet” that has been announced in our pamphlets since the beginning of the year. (See below.)2 In Merz 1, Jan. 1923, I wrote about Dadaism in Holland and the differences between Dadaism and Merz. I defined Dadaism as a way of life, Dada as the face of our times, the Dadaists as the ones who hold up the mirror, and our activity in Holland as an essentially artistic achievement that was obtained by giving form to Dadaist materials. But our activity was not always artistic, such as when we attempted to draw out unformed Dadaism from an audience through provocation, agitation, and placation. However, at such moments we came closest to Ur-Dadaism and complete Dadaism (see below). Essentially, ours was an artistically refined Dadaism, and it related to pure Dadaism as a Maréchal Niel rose relates to a dog rose. I compared Merz to Dadaism in this artistically refined form and came to this conclusion: Whereas Dadaism merely asserts oppositions, Merz balances out oppositions by evaluating them within the artwork. Pure Merz is art, pure Dadaism is non-art, and both are intentionally so. In Merz 2, I then referred to a special form of Merz: “i.” This describes the discovery of an artistic structure in the non-artistic world and the creation of an artwork from this structure through delimitation alone, nothing else. Now, in Merz 4, I continue this logical train of thought. I write about banality. This is the discovery of a non-artistic structure in the non-artistic world and the creation of a dada-work (intentional non-art) from this structure through delimitation alone, nothing else.3 It is no accident that all the Dadaists had a great love for banality, in every form. After all, didn’t Paul Eluard, of Paris, 3 rue Ordener— about whom none other than Tristan Tzara wrote, “Paul Eluard veut réaliser une concentration de mots, cristalisés comme pour le peuple (put briefly, banality in its most banal form), mais dont le sens reste nul”— publish a feuille mensuelle called 167
PROVERBE, which cultivated banalities almost exclusively?4 I recommend these excellent leaflets to all truly dada-minded people. All the banalities cited above up to “Wenn sone Geige . . .”5 are taken from Proverbe. But first, however, I will attempt to illuminate the concept of Dadaism differently, dada for short. De boomen zijn de beenen van het Landschap. (I. K. BONSET)6 K.S.
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(52) DADA COMPLET. 1 “dada complet. 1,” Merz 4. Banaliäten (July 1923): 41.
dada started out as a reaction. If you want to be a carpenter, you need to engage with past things. dada was invented by artists as a reaction to art and to directions that exist in art. Art had developed and developed, had splintered into an infinite number of different directions, and now artists saw no other way out of this development than reaction. Why: that’s irrelevant here. You could say: because the lack of style had become so oppressive that pup pup the dadaistic thunderstorm had to break. Here it is important for me to state: Urdada was
REACTION against ART and REACTION against the LACK OF STYLE. Here I neither need nor want to emphasize that dada is the only style of our age! For me, it is important to assert that dada consciously wanted to be non-art as a reaction to art. Rigorous Dadaism, pure Dadaism, is absolute non-art. But pure Dadaism is still rare, as is the case with all ideals: art, patriotism, pacifism, good, and evil. On our planet, everything is mixed. Only the most capable artist can make dada, because only he can judge what art is. I will examine the rules of non-art more closely in Merz 5 and provide a few examples. (DADA COMPLET, 2.)1 Here I only note that art takes form through the evaluation of parts. Dada destroys artistic form through indiscriminate juxtaposition. As I said, there are few rigorous dadaistic works.
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(53) BANALITIES (4) / [TRISTAN TZARA] “Banalitäten (4),” Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 43.
Not all banalities are Dadaist. First of all, we need to state that it is irrelevant whether the creator of a banality originally considered it banal or not. So when Edschmidt [sic] says, “There have always been young people,”1 this is, intentionally or not, Lord, Lord give me strength, a banality. Moreover, it is so completely inartistic that had Edschmidt not intentionally used it to express something very important in a highly artistic manner it would be a dada-work. However, when I recognize it as dada, it is dada through me: i = dada. And thus, these inadvertently consistent banalities, recognized and intended by Dadaists, offer us very valuable opportunities for drawing distinctions. The Dadaists create dada, the world is dada, and, indeed, i = dada. (cf. dadaholland in Merz 1.) And so we live in an age of i-dada, which the Dadaists, through internal consistency, have transformed into an age of dada. Not all banalities are dada complet, but every banality hides a load of dadaist nonsense. I have merzed banalities: that is, I have created a work of art by comparing and evaluating phrases that are effectively banal. I am well aware that not all the phrases listed above are banalities.2 The reader can make up his own mind. After all “we have something essential within us that can explode green.” (Th. Däubler.)3 As to whether “Lord, Lord give me strength” is banal, I dare not decide, given the explosive charge contained in the phrase. It is most likely expressionism. Lord, Lord, give me your Sturm!4 At any rate, it is a direct order issued by someone who feels powerless, and it is effectively no different than when I say: “Frau Meier, Frau Meier, give me one tenth of a pound of coffee!” At which point, Frau Meier will, in all likelihood, explode green. And thus we have at last also reduced expressionism to its most basic formula: “Spiritual Exchange of Goods,” which is spiritual insofar as its power cannot be checked as easily as the weight of coffee. The upside is that there are no taxes due on this power, so long as it is not electrical energy. “The dear Lord is good to us; he gives rain and sun to make things grow.” (Doris Thatje.)5 Willem, are you here yet? I’m yawning with interest. Rrrrrom! “Aber an den angetanen.”6 My apologies, but this verse is not by me. I now come to Tristan Tzara. In reply to the question, “Quelle est l’attitude qui vous semblerait aujourd’hui la plus sympathique?”7 he wrote in the Journal du Peuple: “Ah! Il-y-a un moyen très subtil, même en écrivant, de détruire le goût pour la littérature, c’est en le combattant par ses propres moyens et dans ses formules.”8 He goes on to draw a very subtle distinction between littérature and poésie. He 170
wants to oppose unformed literature in favor of formed poetry. The best way to battle the bad taste of formless and mindless literature is i-banality. It draws the reader’s attention either to outrageously bad form: “Aber an den angetanen” or to outrageously stupid content: “How much has passed!” (Platen.)9 No one can ask me to read the second verse if I want to understand the first. And when I read: “Kindness to a friend” I am no wiser.10 How much will pass! We know it, we demand it. No eternal permanence.11 Prize Question: Who is more banal, Platen or Schneider:12 “And when this violin’s revved up, does it run any better?”13 Both want to say something intelligent. At least Schneider is saying something new for nonviolinists, albeit in a somewhat boring form. Cet été, les éléphants porteron des moustaches, ET VOUS?14 De pijpen der stoombooten zijn zwart.15
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(54) DADA NEWS “DADA NACHRICHTEN,” Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 44.
Tristan Tzara, Paris, writes: “Tu peux dire à tous nos amis que je suis toujours leur ami. Tzara”1
UNCOVERED SPEUDONYMS. 1. The Ukrainian painter and singer 8 o’clock Segal2 is a speudonym for Abraham Göteborg. The man is a Finn, not to be mistaken for a dog tapeworm. 8 Segal: “Art is communication, nothing more, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither good nor bad, just like life.”3— 2. In the fight for truth and beauty, the editor hastens to inform the public that DE WELEDELGEBOOREN HEER THEO VAN DOESBURG4 never existed. Derived from the name SODGRUBE, it is a poorly unveiled Speudonym for J. K. BONSET (see illustration).5 All the more regrettable is the following account circulated by the newspapers: THEO VAN DOESBURG. Onder auspiciën van den Franschen schilder, Albert Gleizes en den Spaanschen schilder Olazabal is de heer Theo van Doesburg voorgesteld als eerelid van “La Maison de l’amerique latine” en de “Académie Internationale des Beaux Arts” te Parijs.6 It is regrettable how ill-informed the A J D Bo A [Académie Internationale des Beaux Arts] is. Perhaps they actually mean Kurt Schwitters. — An embalmed Buddha sculpture was discovered in the former grave of the former dada-emperor Tuthank-Carmen. (The first MERZ-SCULPTURE known to us).
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(55) WATCH YOUR STEP! “WATCH YOUR STEP!” Merz 6. Imitatoren watch step! (October 1923): 57– 60.
Believe it or not, the word MERZ is nothing other than the second syllable of Commerz.1 See pages 56 to 64 [fig. 5] to see the Merz-picture that established the name. The Städtische Galerie Dresden has now acquired the work.2 The word emerged organically in the act of merzing the picture, not by chance, because nothing is left to chance in the process of artistic evaluation. And that is coherent. At the time, I called it “The Merz-picture” after the legible element. And when I sought a name for my art, when I realized that I was working outside the traditional limits of genre, I called it MERZ after the most typical picture, the Merz-picture. The term Merz was untranslatable, which allowed it to be developed in the direction indicated by the Merz-picture. I worked through a coherent progression to give the term Merz the meaning that it has today, and I presented it to the general public in the journal Merz. Merz begins with the individual and strives for the universal by coherently eliminating all old preconceptions, with respect to the material used, for instance, which in itself is irrelevant for artistic creation, and with respect to the formative process, by creating a new order and by selection. In every individual artistic genre, the material, method, and laws correspond to the very specific formative will of a very specific, continuously changing time. Art lives through the life of the times. As the journal G states: “Just no eternal truths!”3 There is only the truth of our time, just as there were the truths of previous times. Merz is committed to helping find the truth of our time. And so Merz joins in efforts of shared artistic activity, as have been partially realized in Holland (Stijl) and Russia, for instance. Although the term style is hackneyed, it nevertheless best describes the aspirations of those artists who characterize our age. By style I mean the standardization [Normalisierung] of method and the alignment of intention with a shared formative will. Today, the as piration to style is greater than the aspiration to art. A clear distinction must be made between STYLE4 and ARTISTIC FORM-CREATION. Style is the expression of the shared will of many, ideally of all— the democracy of the formative will. But because most people, and even a few artists here and there, are predominantly idiots, and because idiots hold their own convictions dearest, and because agreement from everybody can lead only to a middle ground, style is chiefly a compromise between art and non-art, between play and purpose. Artistic form-creation knows no purpose. The work of art is shaped only by its own methods. The methods of art are clear.
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5 Centerfold for Merz 6. Imitatoren watch step! / Arp 1. Prapoganda und Arp (October 1923): 56, 64. Reproduction of L Merzbild L 3 (Das Merzbild.) (L Merzpicture L 3 [The Merzpicture.]), 1919, CR 436 (lost).
Art is solely the balance achieved through the evaluation of all parts. Only after creative people agree on this principle can a style emerge that is also art. But there are too many idiots. I will not call the highly developed, collective art of the Stijl artists in Holland a style, since their work is not sufficiently general in its scope. However, their art can mark the beginning of a decisive push for a general style. Let me remind you of the extraordinary influence these Stijl artists have had in Germany, especially on the BAUHAUS. MERZ wants the center, wants to mediate, wants to save artistic form-creation as much as possible for a general style. Neither the club of idiots nor the club of geniuses is what Merz wants. Merz wants the club for everyone, the club for standard people to standardize the catarrhs.
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NICOTINES Beautiful nicotines grow In the countryside Because they are country flowers The villages let them grow The farmer devours them How nice if we got them first. Ernst Lehmann.5 18. 12. 22.
MERZ is open to everyone, idiots and geniuses alike. I would remind you of my collection of banalities.6 If everyone strictly fulfilled his own laws in full awareness of the existing laws of art while engaging critically with the expressive forms of other creative artists, he could slowly, through steady work on himself, develop the faculties to be able to help create style. He should criticize others solely with the intent to learn, not to teach or imitate. As the flower grows from the ground in which it is planted, the artist must be rooted in the ground in which he grows. The artist grows toward a collective form-creation out of the conditions in which he lives. Schema for style:
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Schema for Imitation:
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Style is creation using standardized forms according to individual laws. Imitation is the uncritical copying of any forms whatsoever, even standardized forms, for instance, without any laws. Do not be deceived by imitators claiming to strive for style or by imitators attempting to disguise their imitations by slyly cooking up a vegetable soup out of many different predecessors. This soup is not a style; it is a swindle. The imitator is not rooted in any way. Because he is artistically dead, he needs no nourishment. He just lives the way a more or less passable mirror lives when it reflects something that is alive. Because he has no roots, anyone can knock him over. A distinguishing feature that unites all imitators is the fact that they are frequently knocked over. Because imitators do not develop, they cannot help create a style, as they themselves are wasting away. And finally those borrowed, undigested forms that belong to others begin to rot in their bellies as they decompose from within. This is the source of that rotting smell around imitators. Some do wear perfume, but for a delicate nose nothing can outstink the stench of their rotting bowels or stink it to death. Imitators, watch step!7 Now, the imitator will have the gall to claim he sees everything from a high vantage point because he is not emotionally invested in his work, which is why it is precisely HE who is more important than the creative artist himself. However, it is a mistake to assume that the imitator is more impartial than the artist. The imitator remains caught up in external formulas, because he cannot grasp the core. And
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because his observation of other people’s art merely sticks to the surface, his imitation remains merely superficial. THE IMITATOR is a scourge, a PLAGUE. Imitators are unscrupulous villains, dishonorable frauds, maggots and dumb as sheep to boot, racketeers, swine, idiots and insurgents, boom-and-bust athletes, frontline dodgers, and there is no clean insult that is unfit for them. I beg subscribers to expand this list of insults to the best of their ability and taste; my pencil is fuming. The only unsuitable honorary title is “critical person,” not to be confused with “critic.” The critical person judges in order to learn, the critic condemns in order to preach. The artist of our time is the creative and critical person. For only the critical person can attain sufficient internal maturity to be able to prepare for the coming STYLE without imitating. The critical artist will always develop new creative forms specific to the times, whereas the imitator will incessantly repeat exhausted forms of expression, devoid of meaning, devoid of intellectual content, purely decorative. The critical artist is always coherent, the imitator extreme. The artist can be coherent because he has internalized his own laws. The imitator seeks solace in fanatical extremes because he has no laws of his own to follow and is therefore insecure. Coherence is more important than a lack of coherence or extremism. Certainty is more important than veiled insecurity. This leads us to a discussion of the term COHERENCE. The article “dada complet 2,” camisole illustration page 37 in Merz 4, should follow here.8 However, for lack of space, I refer you to the next volume II, 1924. Happy New Year!
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(56) MERZ First published in Pásmo: Revue internationale moderne, no. 4 (Brno, 1924): 1. Reprinted in Contimporanul (Bucharest, 1924): n.p. Translated from the final reprint in Der Sturm 18, no. 3 (June 1927): 43.
Merz is a worldview [Weltanschauung]. Its nature is absolute impartiality, complete disinterestedness. Creation in the spirit of Merz proceeds from this basis. No restrictions, prejudices exist for the artist at any moment of creation. At every stage prior to its completion, the work exists for the artist merely as material for the next stage of its formation. Merz never pursues a set goal independent of the internal coherence of the formative process itself. The material is set; the goal is not. The material contains laws, prescriptions for the artist; the goal does not. Internal coherence guides creation. The basis for judging the quality of an artwork is the degree of coherence achieved in the creative process. If the artist can achieve greater coherence, he is obliged to do so. Inability is no excuse, since every artist must have a minimum of ability. To follow the internal coherence of a colleague’s work is called imitation. Imitators believe their work is as good as the original they copy. Except they are missing the one thing that matters— creative power, the elementary force that drives original artists to create. The public fears nothing so much as elementary force, and it can always sense it. This is because elementary force can disturb the public’s tranquility. So the tendency is to confine or destroy any elementary force. “Beneficent is the fire’s might when tended and tamed by man. But frightful does heaven’s force become when freed of its bonds it walks its own path, Nature’s unbound daughter.”1 For this Christ was crucified, Galileo tortured. The public holds the Imitator in higher regard than the Original, because its delicate instinct senses the lack of any elementary force. By the force of the public’s rejection, by the extent of its outrage, an artist discerns the elementary force of his work. By the degree of affection bestowed on an artist by a large public, an intelligent person can discern the degree of imitation in the work of this artist. The absolute Imitator, the Kitscher, has the largest number of friends in a general public. His works give the general public a sense of well being, of being at home among friends, of contentedness. So rather than strike at the Imitator, it prefers to strike out at the elementary force, beating it to death: “Crucify, crucify!” But this is all a delusion. It may kill the artist, but not the force. Elementary forces never appear in isolation but emerge from their time, here and there. Strike one dead and a hundred more live on. Merz is coherence. Merz is the creation of relationships, preferably between all the things of the world.
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(57) I “i,” Merz 7. Tapsheft (January 1924): 66.
Schwitters revisited his i-concept in this response to the painted architecture of Magdeburg. Bruno Taut held the post of city architect from 1921 to 1924, and one of his chief goals was to transform Magdeburg into a colorful urban environment (see text 34). Even before his bureaucratic appointment, Taut had designed housing estates on the city’s periphery with painted facades, and he subsequently expanded this program into the old city center. By 1922, Magdeburg had an international reputation as a “city of color.” As Schwitters notes, Taut’s efforts to unify the urban fabric through color were unsystematic: some facades were articulated through geometric planes of color, while others were awash in cubo-expressionist-inspired fantasy. In 1923, Taut was able to apply color methodically to a row of buildings on the Große Münzstraße, which provided a template for the unified aesthetic he would develop for the housing estates of Berlin from 1924 to 1932.
First, let me refer you to the article on /i/ in Merz 2, April 1923.1 Here, however, I will be proposing a practical application. /i/ is a more or less artistic complex that, through an act of delimitation, suddenly yields a work of art whose internal rhythm makes it coherent. I would like to suggest here that we should overhaul our major cities from this perspective. The artistic act is always an act of subordination, never superordination. So I welcome the desire to shape cities uniformly, as was the case in Magdeburg, for instance, although it was only partially realized there. After all, it will hardly be possible to unify a large city in this way for some time to come. In Magdeburg, some of the houses were painted in bright and intense colors, some of the moldings and superfluous curlicues were even plastered over, and neighboring houses were painted over according to different principles wherever possible. Though I welcome such a project in theory, I am critical of its execution, not to condemn it but to learn from it. Through no fault of their own, the organizers could not paint entire streets, house by house. Bear in mind, what is still missing is a client, not least because the overall artistic effect only emerges out of the evaluation of what is inessential against what is essential. Public buildings generally indicate certain focal points through their siting, detailed design, and high-quality materials. We should attempt to integrate these centers— such as city halls, churches, marketplaces, or train stations— into their immediate urban environment to create an artistic effect, accentuating them by diminishing the impact of the surround178
ing buildings, not the other way around. This is an act of delimitation in the spirit of /i/, which can unify a cityscape without incurring high costs or wasting much time once the entire city is formally evaluated in the same way as these individual centers. We would use gray colors and simple, neutral forms for the intermediary private houses. It would help if superfluous ornament were removed and perhaps used as grit for the streets. But if bright colors are to be used somewhere, it is advisable to use only those colors that combine to make gray. The particular gray tone a city is tuned to is entirely irrelevant. But it is not possible for each house to have its own tone, as seems to have happened in Magdeburg, if a unity is ever to be achieved. Therefore I suggest that we select only a certain blue, a certain red, and a certain yellow and exclude green, violet, and orange, as in Holland. There are, of course, other ways to do this, but our search for unity forces us to make decisions and choices; we must make a decision, because what we decide is, in itself, irrelevant. But it is absolutely wrong to use green together with a blue-red-yellow color chord, as is so common in Magdeburg, where a single house, for instance, can be painted blue, red, and yellow, and, indeed, in all bright colors. The color green is wrong because it contradicts both the clarity of the primary colors as such and the principle of subordination established by /i/. Here it is important to stress that while I did indeed coin the term /i/ for the sake of clarity, all cultures in all ages have aspired to /i/. We must now discuss how to distribute these painted surfaces on the houses. The Barasch department store, a house painted by Oskar Fischer on the main street of Magdeburg, is primarily an architectural facade, with doors, windows, and wall surfaces.2 Doors and windows are painted uniformly; curved lines and the planes they circumscribe divide the walls like a cubist painting. Regulating architecture in this manner is, of course, out of the question, though we must acknowledge that the rhythm of the paintwork initially proceeds from the lines of the architecture itself. It is of course equally wrong to use color to highlight any one ugly detail or, indeed, any single architectural detail at all, as this is not in the spirit of /i/. When you apply color to a form that already exists, particularly one that was not originally intended to be colorful, it can only serve to de-form this form. It thereby turns this form into material for a higher process of formation, one that assimilates it into a superordinated total form [Gesamtform]. In each individual case, the genius of the painter determines how to apply paint without contradicting the architectural form and without becoming slavishly obedient to the architecture. Once the painter understands /i/ as a newly formulated principle, it can integrate itself into the demands of the architecture in question.
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(58) DADA COMPLET NO. 2. / TRAN 50 “DADA COMPLET Nr. 2. / TRAN 50,” Merz 7. Tapsheft (January 1924): 66– 67.
Here, let me direct you to my article, “dada complet” on p. 41 in issue 4.1 I quote: “Rigorous Dadaism, pure Dadaism, is absolute non-art.” You can also say abstract non-art or abstract un-art. There are people today who claim that Dadaism is dead, although it is not the great majority of the public who make this claim, but rather minor art scholars, art dealers, art collectors, museum directors, artists, and the art critics speaking on their behalf. Only a great art scholar, a philosopher of art, knows that dada can never die. So, what is abstract un-art, what does death mean in the case of Dadaism, why is Dadaism not dead but alive? Before I answer these questions, I include here an open letter to Mr. Kobbe.2 TRAN 50. Mr. F. C. Kobbe, Braunschweig, Landeszeitung. (On the occasion of my Evening Merz-performance at the Braunschweig Operettenhaus on 26 January 1924.) Dear Mr. Kobbe! Allow me to draw your attention to a basic error. You write in your review that Dadaism is a danger not to be underestimated. Would you also call a doctor’s diagnosis of a grave illness a danger that must not be underestimated? A danger to what? The illness? So: it is a remedy whose benefits for the patient cannot be underestimated. Our generation is gravely ill. You, too, for instance. Dadá makes the diagnosis; Dadá is a remedy for our gravely ill generation that cannot be underestimated. Would you care to respond? You will see something new here: the accent on dada. And the importance of this accent is so great that I will allow myself to write about it at length.3 I introduced the accent on the word dada on 30 December 1923. Now you can write it as dáda, dada, or dadá. In the first case, the emphasis falls on the first syllable; in the last, on the final syllable; in the second case, both syllables receive equal emphasis. You don’t see the point? Please read it out aloud: dáda sounds Saxon, trivial; dadá sounds French, something like Berlin, it has élan and a metropolitan air; dada, by contrast, sounds indifferent, like someone who doesn’t know what he wants. And here’s the proof. At our evenings, the stupid mass of the audience— if you’ll pardon the expression— shouted “dáda” at us. You won’t believe how stupid such a mass can be under certain conditions. I have even heard audiences laugh during the most tragic passages in a Shakespearean drama, as if they were attending a dadá performance. Now, you shouldn’t think that laughter is more appropriate for dadá: dadá is the moral gravity of our time.4 And the audience burst out laughing. Just as with 180
Shakespeare. Art critics have always simply written “dada,” without an accent, just to prove that they are as indifferent to dadá as they are to art. But the Dadaists have always made dadá their battle cry. The first people who consciously introduced the term DADA into their activities, the founders of Dadaism in Zurich (Arp, Huelsenbeck, Tzara), already called it “dadá,” properly recognizing the élan latent in this pronunciation. And when the great Huelsenbeck introduced dadá to Germany, he attached great importance to this pronunciation: “dadá.” What is new is my official introduction of the accent for the purpose of clarification. On page 5 of Merz 1 it says: “Our age is called dáda. We live in the dada age. We live through the age dáda. Nothing is as characteristic of our age as dáda. After all, our culture is dáda” and: “Dadá is affirmation of stylelessness. Dadá is the style of our age.”5 I suggest you read the entire article again and insert the accents. I repeat, only briefly: dáda is the face of our age; dadá is the movement that has set out to heal the age by making a diagnosis. Accordingly, dadá is a remedy for the dáda-age that cannot be underestimated, and this is why the bourgeois, utterly indifferent dada-critic considers dadá to be a danger that cannot be underestimated. The infectious bacillus also considers the medical diagnosis, when it is correct, to be a danger that cannot be underestimated. And now, given Kobbe’s opinion, we Dadás can flatter ourselves that our diagnosis is correct. Had we still required proof, it would have been provided by that man who made a ruckus as he left the aforementioned Evening Merz-performance during the revolution [in Revon]6 while slapping his forehead with poignant selfawareness to the general applause of the audience; that is, the man had suddenly realized he was completely crazy, and with this insight, he fled the room in distress. Some people cheered him on the way with calls of “dáda.” There is a fitting French proverb: “Il n’y a pas de sots métiers, il n’y a que de sottes gens.”7 The question of whether Dadaism is dead thereby answers itself. If someone can command such effects, like dadá at that evening performance on 26 January 1924 in Braunschweig, for instance, or anywhere here or there, then this someone is alive. But the audience doesn’t actually believe that dadá is dead, either. No dirge could ever match the din of the audience’s commentary. The naysayers predicting the death of Dadaism are critics and artists, museum directors, art collectors, art dealers, and minor art scholars. You see, this maneuver is so transparent. The wish is father to the thought. We could just as well declare the death of art or art criticism. Dear Lord, make me pious and true, so when Hell’s mouth opens, I don’t slip through. Now our quibbling opponents believe that dadá is dead because rigorous [strenge] art has defeated it. You are wrong, dear naysayers; did you actually defeat it? Were you ever dadá? You cannot defeat a condition you’ve never known. Those people who existed before dadá and who remain pre-dadá have never defeated dadá. “But,” say minor art scholars, “although we may not have defeated dadá ourselves, our age has passed dadá by.” Dadá has, effectively, been trampled to death, flattened completely. Minor art scholars continue to err, as only scholars of art can err. Who would such people be post-dada? Me, for instance. You see, although I am
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Merz, although I live, paint, and write poetry, although I am an opponent of dadá, I must concede that dadá lives, and I will, at times, avail myself of this method. Or perhaps van Doesburg? He is the journal Styl [sic], the most uncompromising art journal in Holland. Nevertheless, he actively promotes Dadaism as the best tool to break up and plow new ground. Or, possibly, minor art scholars are thinking of Hans Richter, the editor of G and the most uncompromising German film artist?8 Richter says: “A modern art journal without dadá is inconceivable.” My dear Messrs. Minor Art Scholars, what say you now? “Dadá is dead because it couldn’t develop any further?” You are wrong as you have always been wrong. Because:
dadá is eternal. Art always needs to be cleansed by some kind of dadá to rid it of the putrefaction when expendable cells die off. This leaves the minor art scholars asking, how can dadá continue to develop? It is a thankless task to make predictions, but my bet is that pure Dadaism will develop in the direction of “abstract non-art.” I will add a few suggestions for pure Dadaists about what they should do in the future if they want to stay healthy. For instance, at the beginning of a dadá presentation, a Dadaist should stand onstage just counting steadily, starting with one and proceeding upward, ignoring the audience reaction. Or he could simply leave the stage empty, open the curtains, and leave the audience to face an empty stage. The effects will be extraordinary and an inspiration to many. Where there are several Dadaists involved, place a table with a cup onstage. As the Dadaists walk past the cup in a steady stream, they say, monotonously, one at a time: “This is a fork.” Once the last Dadaist has passed the cup the first starts again, always repeating the same statement without interruption, monotonously and with great regularity, and so on. This gives you some idea what abstract un-art will be and what educational value it can have. Merz
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(59) DADAISTS “Dadaisten,” Merz 7. Tapsheft (January 1924): 68.
In the struggle to disseminate Dadaism, the journal Merz provides the names and statements of a few Dadaists, some of whom believe themselves to be free of dada. 1. ENGAU, engineer in Laubegast, creator of the Bismarck Memorial Garden,1 “which has stones, posters, reliefs, busts, and other tributes in the form of memorial stones arranged historically so that we can walk from one stone to the next as if through centuries. The dedications on the plaques infuse them with life and poetry. The stones speak . . .” Mr. Engau offers us an entirely dadaist picture consisting of a real old nail, ca. 25 cm long, and a signature. At least I believe it is by Engau since it hangs in the honorary guesthouse. I am including a facsimile:2
2. CARL BOBE, cultural pioneer, Friedensstadt in the Teutoburg forest, World Organizer and Dictator of World Order.3 Bobe writes: “The copper statue of Hermann the Cheruscan warrior chief, which Bandel erected in the Teutoburg forest, spiritually consummates the great turn to peace.4 In paradise on earth, 21 April 1922, the 107th birthday of the German spiritual hero Bismarck. Spiritual workers of all nations! All resistance has been broken. To provide the aforementioned proof, I avail myself of this propitious opportunity to invite my colleagues, primarily from the timber industry, to attend the furniture fair, although I specifically want to emphasize that all progressively inclined spiritual workers are welcome. Informal gettogethers in the mountain lodge, too. I have the great honor to have been declared a lunatic and a threat to public safety. Cultural pioneer Carl Bobe.” 3. Johannes BAAADER, Supreme Dada, President of the Intertelluric Supreme Dadaist League of Nations, Telephone Steinplatz 18:5 183
8 statements by Johannes BAAADER. Humans are angels and live in heaven. They and all the bodies that surround them are cosmic accumulations of the most powerful order. Their chemical and physical transformations are magical processes, more mysterious and greater than either the destruction or the creation of any world amid the stars. Any intellectual and spiritual proclamation or perception is a thing more miraculous than any of the thousand and one tales included in the Arabian Nights, however incredible. All the comings and goings of all humans and bodies exist for the amusement of heavenly diversion, as a supreme kind of play that is witnessed and experienced in as many different ways as there are conscious units confronting these events. A conscious unit refers not only to a human being but also to all the orders of earthly form of which he consists and in whose midst he lives as an angel. Death is a children’s fairy tale, and faith in God was the rule of the game for human consciousness at a time when people did not know that earth is a piece of heaven, just like everything else. World-consciousness does not need a god. BAAADER. 4. ALPHA-BE-TICK,6 the Spirit of Writing, Hannover. I quote from the German Paper for the Placation of the Parties from December 1917, called the Official Brain Orientation: “A five-line claim, which has 69 materials for compliance by the Spirit, specifically: 41 for an effect on strength, 25 for the association of materials, and 3 for the Office of the Brain on the Spirit: it’s just that disgrace created the War 4 for pride! and the War created the Peace 2 for duty; the Spirit, in spiriting, must create 3 for the Office of the Brain, since criticism owes it 5 for happiness 1 for life, which delights it. 5 lines, each with 11 syllables— make up 55 for regret— of materials! If the numeral 5 stands for happiness, then the number 11 also stands for the enjoyment of the Spirit!” 5. DANNY GÜRTLER, the King of Bohème,7 who appeared onstage with a children’s trumpet and spoke: “I walk with my head held high, like a stag whose antlers raise to the sky! Let he who derides the world more audaciously than me be crowned King in my stead.” They called him the last romantic. But he is a Dadaist, perhaps even the first. On 1 March 1905, Das kleine Journal, Dresden, commented: “and pleasurable goose bumps shiver all over the little ladies.” Der KONZENT. I am publishing a collection of banalities by great contemporaries and great forerunners with this title to show how lively dada was and is. Moreover, Dadaism is now responsible for lectures on the radio, and what the radio will offer audiences over the next six months is exclusively dadá. “The fact that people and nations take the world they live in, and themselves above all, so seriously is the cause for all their unhappiness.” Iwan Goll. “Forge your luck until it’s warm.” Moholy. “The Merz square grows from the potato,” Lissitzky. “Every day is Germany’s fateful hour.” Kurt Stresemann.8 “The best friends are the worst.” Dexel.9 “I really don’t think when I am thinking.” Lehmann.10 “I am the leading servant of my journal.” Schwitters. “I do not work for the barricades of society.” Raoul Dix.11 “Life
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is a Dostonevskian [sic] tangle.” Raoul Schrimpf. “Phlox is a world of mercy. Life without phlox is a mistake.” Karl Förster.12 “Dadá did not perish on account of its own hollowness, since it did not perish.” Raoul Hausmann. “The master wags his dog.” Arp, Persian proverb. “Read Mecano, gentlemen, and in 10 days you will be able to travel to heaven on a tomato.” v. Doesburg. “I see in Dadaism not opposition but affirmation of what we are.” Richter.13 “Once humanity takes advantage of the energies of the world, they are wasted on some purpose. Only dadá takes advantage of these energies correctly, i.e., for no purpose.” Schwitters. “Nous étions tous dadá avant l’existence de dadá.”14 ARP. “The gross amount minus Tzara equals Dadá.” Karl Minder. “Every man is someone else’s clown.” H. Hoerle.15 “The human being is a makeshift construction for the call of nature.” Raoul Kemeny.16 “To drill a hole is easy; to drill a precise hole is an art.” Paul Westheim. “To write an art-hole is easy; to plug the hole in art is an art paper.” Merz.17 “Dadaism is testament to the continued value of all things.” Baaader. “I’m warning any loudmouth who repeats anything I say. And I refuse, point blank, to have sheep staring at me.” Selma Hädrich, Hermdorf, Naumburgerstrasse. “Nothing is more powerful than the human being.” Sophocles, Masterworks of Dadaist Poetry. “Ne jamais metter le pinceau en bouche.”18 Cézanne. Uit Doetinchem wordt gemeld: [“]Het bericht inzake een poging van bolsjewisten om naar ons land te komen, blijkt een misverstand te zijn. Wel is dit bericht bij den commandant der politietroepen te s’Heerenberg ontvangen en zijn onmiddellijk uitgebreide politiemaatregelen genomen, doch deze bleken onnoodig. Wel heeft een vrij talrijke menigte zich gedurende eenigen tijd bij de grens opgehouden, maar dit is waarschijnlijk een geselschap, wandelende geestelijken geweest.”19 But where does the divine Mozart stand? Here nature seems to want to present us with a riddle. In arte voluptas.20
“Mamma, is tomorrow actually the day after tomorrow?” Ernst Lehmann. “Hannover has the most intellectual public in Europe.” Mynona.21 “Poésie pour Ceux qui ne comprennent pas.”22 Picabia. “Der Volk wil glauben, and the man of Geist will see, will sehen, will reisen om to see.” Rosenberg.23
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(60) [ADVERTISEMENT FOR MERZ 8/9. NASCI ] Published in Merz 7. Tapsheft (January 1924): 72.
If you want to polish your internal ailments in an entirely benign way, if you want to look across the road to peek into the basement apartment without climbing a platform, if you want to sow flowers and reap seeds, if without wanting to, you neither can nor want to have to, if in the name of the front three corners of a fully grown dog you want to square the square, if for your soul in general and your education in particular you want to do as our age requires, if you want to convince both yourself and me of the power that our art has, here today on the level ground of Earth, you need to read the journal MERZ regularly. Immediately order a subscription from the editor for 3 marks or 2 fl. or 5 Swiss francs or 1 dollar. Order Immediately. MERZ est joli et vivant comme un poisson, qui dit merde et bonjour. TRISTAN TZARA.1
MERZ moves quickly. Th. v. DOESBURG. In Paris they preserve eternal maladies. Th. v. D.
Merz, Hannover, Waldhausenstr. 5, II.
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Journals received: BROOM, New York; CONTIMPORANUL, Bucharest; DISK, Prague; DER EINZIGE, Berlin-Friedenau; FRÜHLICHT, Magdeburg; G, Berlin; THE LITTLE REVIEW, New York; LUCIFER, Lyon; MA, Vienna; MANOMÈTRE, Lyon; MECANO, Leiden; NEUE KULTUR KORRESPONDENZ, Berlin; NOI, Rome; HET OVERZICHT, Antwerp; PROVERBE, Paris; THE S. 4. N. MAGAZINE, Northampton; SEPT ARTS, Brussels; DE STIJL, Leiden; DER STURM, Berlin; LA VIE DES LETTRES, Neuilly-Paris; ZENIT, Belgrade; DIE ZONE, Brünn; DER ZWEEMANN, Hannover; ZWROTNICA, Krakòw.
Advance announcement: The forthcoming issue, MERZ 8 and 9, will be a double issue titled NASCI. Lissitzky and Schwitters have meticulously compiled NASCI. For this and the following issue, I acknowledge receipt of printing clichés from the following publishers: De Stijl, Leiden; Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin, Markgrafenstr. 5; Wasmuth’s Monatshefte; Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena; Frühlichtverlag, Magdeburg; Karl Peters; Querschnittverlag, Frankfurt a.M.; Bauhausverlag, Munich, Maximilianstr. 18.
[Advertisement for Merz 8/9. Nasci]
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(61) TRAN 35. DADA IS A HYPOTHESIS “Tran 35 / Dada ist eine Hypothese,” Der Sturm 15, no. 1 (March 1924): 29– 32.
In this, the last of Schwitters’s “Tran” texts, the artist takes aim at three old nemeses from the Berlin art press: Ernst Cohn-Wiener (text 7), Curt Glaser (text 12), and Paul Westheim (text 23 and text 33). He also engages a fourth critic, Fritz Stahl, who only rarely reported on avant-garde art. Stahl made a single, passing reference to Schwitters in an omnibus review that included his May 1922 exhibition at Der Sturm, and then only to repeat the opinion, already voiced by Glaser, Westheim, and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, that Merz was a poor imitation of Picasso’s cubist collage (“Wohin geht es? Glosse zu drei Kunstausstellungen” [Where is this going? Broadside against three art exhibitions], Berliner Tageblatt, 22 May 1922). Here the name Stahl, which means “steel,” holds more interest for Schwitters than the critic’s meager words. With its frenetic wordplay and numerous intertexts, this “Tran” is a complex demonstration of how the artist’s various techniques— Merz, i, and “banalities”— may be put to use in a dialectical “overcoming” of both Dada and philistine criticism.
Motto: I think the world’s menagerie the greatest kind of show, that anyone could wish to see wherever they may go, t’will be a pleasant task to me to introduce to you the different sorts of animals you’ll find are here on view. First come, first served.1 That famous last thread, by which my patience now hung, finally snapped at the turn of the year 1923. I now no longer hang by that thread like a spider but am rethreading and spinning threads with ink. How often have I trumpeted my insights to the world; how often have I critically reviewed reviews, without anybody threading New Year’s garlands for me. Why is it that newspapers still refuse to write: “Merz is the constructivism that our age needs”? Quite simply, because I write it myself. But they will write: “Expressionism has long since become the great Merz, and now all constructivism, including cubism, has become Merz, nothing but MERZ.[”] The Kunstblatt will call itself Merzblatt and for the next five years will publish the After-merzers with illustrations.2 And so, too, I will be merzed into the great German corporation, or at least my offspring will. This reminds me of a pas-
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sage in Franz Müller’s Wire Springtime, the novel I composed with Hans Arp in the summer of 1923 on the island of Rügen.3 I include it here: “The term Merz, however, comes from ‘ausmerzen’ and was coined quite usefully by ComMERZ Councillor Katz.4 For MERZ was irony, in that it illuminated the bright sides of so-called Dadaism, which no one in Revon really knew, and the dark sides of so-called expressionism, which was rightly feared in Revon and where Messrs. Westkohn and Heimwiener were up to their old tricks, leading Messrs. Westwiener and Heimkohn to phosphoresce. Now they have become fireflies and buzz about Berlin. “Fireflies, fireflies, glimmer, shimmer Fireflies, fireflies, glimmer, shimmer Glimmer for me with all your kitsch Those bridle paths to make me rich; Fireflies, fireflies, glimmer, shimmer Fireflies, fireflies, glimmer, shimmer And in the Kitschblatt, so expressive, Present to me your genitive. (To be sung to a well-known tune.)5 “At the word ‘Kitschblatt,’ Dr. Rudolf Bluemner immediately shouted ‘Hurrrah’ and jumped— bang!— from a small music box that played6 “Kitschblatt, Kitschblatt above all, Above all else in the world, As long as Mistweh’s defense7 Gets money from its pushers, From Steinpech to Deffregger, Everyone pours kitsch around the money, Kitschblatt, Kitschblatt above all, Above all else in the world. “Dr. Rudolf Bluemner silently looked about. He had heard talk of a ‘“Kunstblatt,”’ but this was no Kunstblatt; this was a Kitschblatt. He had wanted to talk to Westheim, but there was no Westheim here. There was a Westkohn and a Heimwiener, a Heimkohn and a Westwiener. But there wasn’t a Westheim! And so, Dr. Bluemner turned fifty years old and disappeared back into his box.”8 Why is it that you still refuse to read the journal Merz? Don’t you think it would be a great New Year’s gag to treat the question of art seriously? You will be aston-
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ished by the chasm separating Merz and Dada. You will find that Dadaism is not a worldview [Weltanschauung]; it is just a device, somewhat like a living Tran. You will learn about “i.” Assis sur l’horizont [sic] les autres vont chanter.9 Let them sing! But when it comes to the work of art, which comes about only through the viewer, everything becomes i. If you yourself are an artist, you need only grasp something, and you have an artwork. This is what I call i, you see. Suddenly, you are i yourself, since you have grasped yourself. Mr. Westheim is suddenly i, Mr. Cohn-Wiener suddenly i, Mr. Kurt Glaser suddenly i, Mr. Fritz Stahl suddenly prime i-steel. Suddenly, i dawns on you. The world is i, if you only wish it? Not at all, the thing with i is not so simple, and so, for you, I will use the banalities to lance an i.10 The world is banal, and it is all the more banal the more it fusses about. Step up, Ludwig Meidner: Dear Lord, accept my gratitude on my stammering knees.11 Let them stammer. Around here, we call a professor a stammerer. You see, this is what I call Dada, and only Dadaism will liberate you from it. Every man is his own Dadaist, and so you discover, with astonishment, that the Dadaist is the man who has overcome Dadaism in himself, that is to say, the one you all want to be. So, suddenly, you realize that you are all Dadaists by having long since overcome Dada. Mr. Westheim is suddenly Dadaist; Mr. Cohn-Wiener is suddenly Dadaist; Mr. Kurt Glaser is suddenly Dadaist; Mr. Fritz Stahl is suddenly prime steel-Dadaist. And suddenly, a Dada dawns on you; the entire world is Dadaist. Everything made by Fliegentod,12 because it has overcome Dada within itself. Period. Sadly, not period. Things are still not that simple, since you have not yet overcome Dada in yourself. Proof: every scholar of art claims that Dada has long been overcome. And this despite the fact that the Messrs. Art Scholars are the most proficient Dadaists. But Dada aside. Let us consider Dadaism critically. Dada reviews the reviews, Dada stands in opposition to the opposition, and naturally this was the case when the year 1923 turned 1924. This is obvious, or do you disagree? But do you think this is the point at which the thread I threaded in my pencil earlier will snap and then, suddenly, your thread will also snap? Mr. Westheim’s thread suddenly snaps; Mr. Cohn-Wiener’s thread suddenly snaps; Mr. Kurt Glaser’s thread suddenly snaps; even Mr. Fritz Stahl’s steel thread suddenly snaps. And suddenly a thread dawns on you, the entire world consists solely of torn strands of thread, because previously the ball of twine was too tangled, and because everyone was pulling on different threads. Things are still not that simple. You see, Dada is not the torn thread, as much as you wish it were, my dear Messrs. Art Organs. Dada is the Christian spirit in the realm of art. Dada is not an art of self-denial; Dada is not an art that works for art. Dada lends its support to art after Dada, an art that Dada does not want to create. Dada cleans Augean Stables.13 And suddenly everyone realizes they, too, are cleaning out the dung, and suddenly everyone realizes they, too, are Dadaists because they are fighting for something other than art. And suddenly Mr. Westheim is an ascetic, Mr. Cohn-Wiener an ascetic, Mr. Kurt Glaser an ascetic, Mr. Fritz Stahl even a steel-ascetic. They have all become ascetics. And yet things are still not that simple, not yet that simple, because the athlete joins the
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ascetic. My dear Mr. Westheim, Mr. Cohn-Wiener, Mr. Kurt Glaser, Mr. Fritz Stahl, you cannot simply be Dadaists, because in order to negate a thing, you must first possess it. You cannot negate art, because previously you did not even know what art was. You cannot be an ascetic without knowledge of the earthly delights. You need rigorous exercise and experience on the field to become an athlete, and now, you see, at the turn of the year I am turning to the true nature of Dadaism. The true nature of Dadaism doesn’t exist and has never existed, because its vanguard was not competent, not courageous, and not dadaist enough. The nature of Dadaism is the absolute opposite of art. Those who know art, and have the ability, courage, purpose, and opportunity to convert art into its opposite, are Dadaists. And suddenly they all convert themselves. Mr. Westheim converts himself (how many times has he done that now?); Mr. Cohn-Wiener converts himself; Mr. Kurt Glaser converts himself; Mr. Fritz Stahl converts himself; the entire corporation converts itself. Now they read themselves from behind and are astonished. For now they go by Noitaroproc, Lhats, yes, Lhats, Resalg, Nhoc, or Reneiwnhoc, not unlike Renaissance, Miehtsew. Yes, this brings Dada to a standstill. And peacefully I return, with penitent words, to Merz and promise to deliver the complete Dadaism to you in my next tears of Tran.14 Difficile est, satyram non scribere.15 With sincere greetings from my wife and Your Kurt Schwitters
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(62) RIGOROUS POETRY “Konsequente Dichtung,” G: Zeitschrift für elementare Gestaltung, no. 3 (June 1924): 157– 58.
Schwitters uses the adjective konsequent extensively in his theoretical writings (see introduction). This text underscores his conviction, developed in earlier discussions about style, imitation, and Merz (text 55 and text 56), that a whole that is konsequent is entirely determined by an inherent and necessary logic that structures the relationships among its constituent material elements. Elements of poetry cohere as a fully integrated and contained compositional unity, which does not depend on external factors (e.g., mental associations) to shape its meaning. Schwitters draws an analogy between the kind of poetry he has in mind and his own glued-and-nailed-together Merz-pictures, which equally rely on the decisive relationship of parts to form a whole— a point that he underscores by reproducing a photograph of his studio in 1920 (fig. 6).
The word is not the primary material of poetry, but the letter. Word is: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Composition of letters. Sound. Signification (Meaning). Medium for associations of ideas.
Art is uninterpretable, infinite; material for rigorous form-creation must be unambiguous. 1. The sequence of letters in a word is unambiguous; it is the same for everyone. It is independent of the beholder’s personal view. 2. Sound is unambiguous only for the spoken word. For the written word it depends on the beholder’s imaginative faculty. Therefore, sound can serve as material only for the performance, not for the inscription, of poetry. 3. Meaning is unambiguous only if the signified object is present, for example. Otherwise, it depends on the beholder’s power of imagination. 4. The association of ideas cannot be unambiguous because it depends exclusively on the beholder’s ability to make connections. Everybody has different experiences and different ways of remembering and synthesizing. 4. Classical poetry assumed the similarity between people. It took the associa192
tion of ideas to be unambiguous. It was wrong. At any rate, it derived its main focus from an array of associations of ideas: “O’ER ALL THE HILLTOPS IS QUIET NOW.”1 Goethe is not only saying that it is quiet on the hilltops; he wants the reader to actually enjoy this quiet, just as the poet himself does, fatigued by his official business and accustomed to daily life in the city. Just how limited this association of ideas is becomes apparent if a Heidjer 2 (an inhabitant of an area with two people per square kilometer) were to read the verse. He would surely be more impressed by “LIGHTNING ZIPS ZAG THE SUBWAY RUNS OVER THE SKYSCRAPER.” At any rate, the statement that all is quiet will not evoke any poetic sentiments, because for him silence is normal. The poet reckons with poetic sentiment. And what is a poetic sentiment? The entire poetics of silence falls or stands with the beholder’s capacity for sentiment. Here, words are not being evaluated. Apart from an entirely insignificant aural rhythm that results from intonation, there is only a single connecting rhyme in the next verse (between “Ruh” [quiet, silence] and “du” [you]). The only relationship to which elements of classical poetry conform is their relationship to the association of ideas, that is to say, poetic sentiment. As a result, all classical poetry now seems to us to be Dadaist philosophy, and its effect is all the more crazy the less intentionally Dadaist it is. The only people who still practice classical poetry today are the cabaret singers who specialize in rhyming couplets. 3. Abstract poetry released words from their associations, which is a great achievement, and evaluated word against word, or, specifically, concept against concept, while paying attention to sound. This is more rigorous than the evaluation of poetic sentiments, but it is not yet sufficiently rigorous. What abstract poetry strove for, Dadaist painters strive for today, just more rigorously: they evaluate real objects against each other within a picture by gluing and nailing them side by side. Here concepts can be evaluated in relation to one another with far greater clarity than when their meaning is translated into words. 2. Nor do I think it is rigorous to have sound serve as the medium of the poem, as only the spoken, not the written, word has an unambiguous sound. Only in one situation is sound poetry rigorous— namely, when it is created in the act of artistic performance and not the act of inscription. A strict distinction must be made between poetic inscription and performance. The poem is only material for the performance. It is actually irrelevant for the performance whether its material is poetry or not. It is possible to take the alphabet, for instance, which is primarily just a utilitarian form, and perform it in such a manner that the result is an artwork.3 There is still a great deal that remains to be written about artistic performance. 1. Rigorous poetry is constructed of letters. Letters do not relate to any concept. Letters themselves have no sound; they only offer tonal possibilities for the performer to evaluate. The rigorous poem evaluates letters and groups of letters against each other. Kurt Schwitters. Rigorous Poetry
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6 Kurt Schwitters, Untitled (Merz Column in the Studio), ca. 1920. Sculpture. Destroyed. CR 769. Reproduced in G: Zeitschrift für elementare Gestaltung, no. 3 (June 1924): 56.
Atelier K. Schw. W W P B D Z F M R F RF T Z P F TZPF MWT R F MR R K T PCT S W S W K P T F G K P T R Z K P T R Z L T Z P F TZPF HF T L
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An attempt to provide instructions for vocalizing W W PBD. I choose the German pronunciation of the vowels and consonants. Consonants without vowels are toneless. Double consonants are not to be spoken twice. Single vowels are to be pronounced short. Double vowels lengthen pronunciation; they are not to be spoken twice. By the way, all the consonants in PBD are to be pronounced short: wö wö, pébede, zefümm, rüf rüf, tezepüff tezepüff, m wit, refümmr, rákete, pézete, swé, swé, kepitt, fé gé, kepitt, rrrzlll, tezepüff tezepüff, heftllll.
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(63) DADAISM “Dadaizm,” trans. J. Saloni, BLOK: Revue internationale d’avant-garde, no. 6/7 (1924). Translated from Polish by Kamila Kuc.
The Blok group of Polish “cubists, constructivists, and suprematists” included Katarzyna Kobro, Henryk Stażewski, and Władysław Strzemiński, as well as Henryk Berlewi, Mieczysław Szczuka, and Teresa Żarnowerówna, who had ties to Der Sturm. Their journal was published in Warsaw from 1924 to 1926.
BLOK has called on me to write an article about Dadaism; I must make it clear from the start that in actual fact I am not a Dadaist. Since it is only a certain method, a tool, Dadaism cannot constitute the essence of any person the way a worldview [s´wiatopogla˛d, i.e., Weltanschauung] can, for example. Dadaism was born out of a particular worldview, and in any case not from a Dadaist, but a reformist one. Dadaism— dadá (and please pay close attention to the accent) is the best means of ridiculing established, mindless tradition, the current order of the world (= dáda). This is the origin of the ruthless opposition of tradition and of those creations that are based on it, which defend themselves against humiliation, against Dadaism. Dadá is a mirror reflection of the original dáda; hence the transfer of the accent to the second syllable— this is simply what happens with a mirror image (right = left). Dadaism reflects both the old and the new, the latest thing as well as the outmoded, and as a result, it is a test of strength. What is strong will survive despite dadá— the weak must perish anyway. Dadá is therefore kind, because it plays its humble part in helping those condemned to death to die more quickly. However, dadá is not a funeral dirge— instead, it is cheerful, colorful fun, a divine amusement. In heaven and in dadá everything is equal; this state does not exist anywhere else. This is the source of joy for viewers and listeners during dadá soirées, since everyone equally sees their own foolishness. Dadá is an evolution rather than a revolution. With the following reservations: naturally, I am a Dadaist, as I know this device intimately and I often hold it up to the eyes of mankind. And then all mankind sees itself reflected in a mirror! Then things go sour. Man has a body and a mind, but he also has a third thing, the existence of which I have to deny but which he often has— that third something, namely a soul. In 1924, while the first skyscrapers are being built in Germany, when one can hear the voices of the whole continent with the help of a radio, when art returns to nor-
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mativity and to life, when, on the contrary, it is precisely normalizing art that life demands1— in these times, a soul is an illness; it is psychosis. Oh! then things go sour. When dadá and the soul converge, the soul immediately sniffs out a mortal enemy and picks a fight. It’s just that these combative souls are already dead— and so the fight is pointless. A soul that has, up to now, wandered in the wilderness of transcendentalism is outraged when it sees its reflection in dadá— a reflection that is naturally reversed. Then a false sanctimony suddenly meets an insincere pathos and an honest sarcasm. The effect is similar to pricking a fully inflated balloon with a pin: air— I wanted to say: the soul— escapes. And now: do you want to know if Dadaism is still alive? It is indeed and— like the Salvation Army— it frequently acts out of sight, stepping out into the light from time to time in different guises. The idea that dadá would ever die is preposterous. Dadá will always resurface, one way or the other, always, whenever too much stupidity accumulates. After all, the tragedy of all growth is that it is coupled with the growth of the seed of death; and one day everything will be old except for dadá. For us in Germany, Dadaism isn’t as necessary today as it was in 1918. Currently artists are living and creating in the spirit of the time, in the spirit of 1924; dadá paved the way for them, and now it supports them. To name a few, I am thinking here of people such as Lissitzky (Hannover, Ambri-Sotto), Burchartz (Bochum), Moholy, Gropius, and Meier [sic] (Weimar), Mies van der Rohe, Richter (Berlin), Schwitters (Hannover), and many others. There is a “young” 1924— in 1918 there was only an “old” 1918. Then, “dadá” had to argue with everyone, mainly with expressionism, which, at just that moment, was transforming itself into chronic gastritis. Today, expressionism is long dead, and art magazines are giving it a burial. Sometimes there are splendid funerals! In 1919, when Huelsenbeck transplanted dadá from Zurich to Berlin, it provoked enormous excitement from the masses. I mention names here such as: Hausmann, Baader, Walter Mehring, Wieland Herzfelde, John Heartfield, John Gross.2 In Cologne, a new center of German Dadaism came into existence, called “gruppe stupide.” It included Max Ernst, Anton Räderscheid [sic], Henry Hörle, Baargeld.3 In Hannover, apart from myself, there was also Christof Spengemann and Hans Arp, one of the four pro-Dadaists, who visited his German comrades from time to time and continues to do so. Save for this, I have not heard about any other Dadaist phenomena in Germany. For a few years after 1918, as long as revolution was in vogue, a general, very aggressive revolutionary expressionism was on the prowl here instead of Dadaism. In response, Dadaism in Berlin also started to behave in a revolutionary manner. However, whereas expressionism was pulling revolutionary faces in order to curry favor, Dadaism was performing revolutionary gestures to strike harder. Huelsenbeck, one of the best minds of our century, realized at that time that nothing could move a soul wrapped in grease better than communism. Hence, the publication of
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dadá-communist manifestos. There was a demand that all those committed to spiritual creativity be fed in Potsdamer Platz. Perhaps this is proof of how few people like this exist? Of the all the Dadaists, Hausmann lived the most typically Dadaist life. He liked to treat each human being according to their disposition by reflecting their most holy feelings. Baader walked from place to place with his program and brought the president of the globe to the people with his very person. One of the most talented artists and Dadaists was Baargeld. He arrived like a girl from the South; for just a few minutes, he glowed; he sparkled like the Queen of the Night. Ever since Max Ernst left for Paris, Cologne is completely dead. In Berlin, only Hausmann and Baader remain of all the Dadaists. Huelsenbeck is a practicing doctor; Gross has worked out a radical political formula (he was never a lively participant of Dadaism); after all, for him, dadá was only a means of political struggle for a short time, in contrast to Huelsenbeck, for whom communism was an asset for Dadaist combat. These days, Walter Mehring is adored as one of the best satirists; only now Dadaism is out of the question. And Herzfeld [sic], formerly known as John Heartfield, is today a bourgeois director of a bourgeois publishing house, “Malik,” and despises Dadaism of the 1924 variety. Baader has finally shaved his splendid beard; he no longer looks like Christ; he no longer looks so brilliant, but instead a little Saxon. Only Hausmann and I still practice Dadaism in Germany, generating publicity, organizing “dadá” soirées. Hausmann is very wise, with a very rich imagination, very artistic. And yet he is a Dadaist. Whether he writes, whether he creates, whether he spins scientific combinations or paints, whether he models something, teaches, whether he reports, sings or dances— whether he wants it or not, always and everywhere Hausmann is a living, breathing “épater le bourgeois.” Hans Arp, who does not live in Germany but in the land of glaciers, is also a vital Dadaist and will remain so forever, because he cannot be anything else. His dear, lyrical friendliness, his kindhearted, glazed face, everything about him is dadá. In 1924 we organized a few small soirées, only for orientation [orjentacji ]. In general, the contemporary public has welcomed gestures of Dadaist co-laughter. During the larger Dadaist events we were almost always able to rouse a Dadaism dormant in the public. In Holland, the dadá movement and the excitement it generated in the public was the greatest shock this small country had experienced in its concert halls and newspapers for many years. This is proof that our colonization effort is necessary. I dedicated the magazine Merz to Dadaism. Merz ought to serve dadá, abstraction, and construction. In recent times, however, the constructive form-creation of life in Germany has become so interesting that we have allowed ourselves to publish the forthcoming issue 8/9 of Merz, called “nasci,” without dadá.4
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(64) NATIONAL FEELING “Nationalitätsgefühl,” Der Sturm 15. Monatsbericht (August 1924): 3– 4.
What is this, really? A feeling for a nation? There is a German, a French, a Russian national feeling. The German national feeling excludes that of the French. The German considers it a virtue to have a German national feeling and would consider it a sin to have such feelings for the French nation. For the French, it is the other way around. I ask you: Is there no universal national feeling? What I mean is, the resolution of individual national feelings, an all-inclusive national feeling, a kind of national feeling as such— in a word, “the” national feeling. If such a thing existed as “the” national feeling, it would surely take priority over a German, French, or Russian national feeling, as it is more general and resolved. Generalization and resolution define the spirit of our age. For example, constructive-abstract art is the resolution of all artistic endeavors throughout the ages. Accordingly, “the” national feeling should be the resolution of all previous national feelings. Incidentally, national feeling is more than a mere feeling; it describes the devotion of the entire person to the nation to the point of sacrificing one’s life. National feeling requires that you do for your nation something that you would not do for yourself— give up your life for your possessions. And whereas personal egoism is reprehensible, egoism on behalf of your country is considered a praiseworthy character trait. But what is nation, after all? There is a German, a French, a Russian, a Luxembourg nation, and many others. So, for example, what is the German nation? Is it a more or less accidental or deliberate community of people who mostly speak German, who have lived together, worked together, done business together, fought together, celebrated national holidays together for a period of time owing to some fluke of history, and who refer to themselves as a German nation to distinguish themselves from other nations, such as the Luxembourg nation? Not everyone who speaks German belongs to the German nation, nor does every member of the German nation speak German or mainly German. Indeed, the difference between Germans is frequently very great— greater, even, than that between a German and a member of another nation, under certain circumstances. There is a great deal of personal enmity and hostility that exists within the German nation, while substantial friendships can exist between Germans and members of other nations. Geographic borders defined by treaties determine whether a person belongs to this nation or that. All in all, there is a great deal that is arbitrary about how people come together as a nation. What is missing is clarity and resolution. However, we arrive at the 199
pure concept of “the” nation when we exclude all that is arbitrary. “The” nation is the conscious community of all people without arbitrary treaties, without arbitrary friendships or enmities, and without arbitrary wars. “The” national feeling is the love and devotion of a person to “the” nation, to the nation of all humanity, to everyone who calls Earth their fatherland. “The” nation is neither Pan-German, nor Pan-French, but Pan-Human, and it is an honor to be part of it. National feeling here becomes a general human feeling. Egoism is innate to humanity. National feeling is a dignified egoism, an egoism shared by all the people with whom you feel connected. Admittedly, however, if you can claim that the national feeling for Germany, France, or Luxembourg is a dignified egoism, you must also conclude that its further refinement culminates in “the” national feeling. “The” national feeling is not to be confused with internationalism— it is supranational. Anybody who is supranational cannot understand the hatred that nations have for each other. But if I am to hate one part of humanity and love another, I am still left with the decision which part to love and which to hate. To know whom to love and whom to hate, a person incapable of independent thought must read the newspapers of his nation. However, a person who is capable of thinking independently should have the right to decide for himself the object of his hatred and his love, for there is no logical reason that can force me as a human being into a community. I am from Hannover. I can say: “My national feeling is confined to the city of Hannover, to the exclusion of the neighboring town of Linden. Or it is limited to Waldhausenstrasse, specifically to the left side of the street, where I live. My enemies live across the street. I will place a machine gun in front of my house and simply kill any passers-by.” So you see, despite all the sanctity of habit and practice, the conventional concepts that describe a particular national feeling and a particular love of fatherland are somewhat comic— not to be mistaken for cosmic. This is why I demand “the” national feeling and “THE” NATION. Whitsunday 1924
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(65) THE WESTHEIM THREAT, AGAIN “Noch einmal die Gefahr Westheim,” Der Sturm 15, no. 4 (December 1924): 234.
This is the last of four replies to Westheim that Schwitters published in Der Sturm (see text 23).
Paul Westheim, who has disseminated false opinions about art for over a decade, wrote an article on “La situation des arts plastiques en Allemagne” for L’Esprit Nouveau, no. 20, which gives an entirely false impression of the New Evolution [das Neue Werden], as well as of the stagnation and rotting away of everything that is old in Germany.1 The picture Westheim presents is so false that I have to believe his intention is to mislead. Or perhaps— and there are surely reasons to believe this, too— Westheim’s overview of artistic creativity and, especially, his capacity for judgment are very limited. “La réaction devait venir.”2 Westheim has long held this fervent desire, even back when he behaved progressively. The so-called reaction in Germany is nothing more than the failure of hangers-on, imitators, kitschers, and of Mr. Wesheim [sic] and his comrades at a time when, politically, it is no longer revolution, but reaction that is booming. Thank God these gentlemen are finally falling by the wayside. But Westheim finds an answer to his article in the very same Esprit Nouveau: “Il y a toujours des cadavres vivants qui se dressent pour combattre le vrai.” (Le Corbusier)3
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(66) NATIONAL ART “Nationale Kunst,” Het Overzicht, nos. 22– 24 (1925): 168.
There is no such thing. Just as there is no proletarian art. There is art, and there may indeed be nations and proletarians, but there is no such thing as national or proletarian art. Who would want a national advertising or a proletarian advertising, for instance, or national or proletarian science? Even if national advertising were possible, no one would want it. After all, when we advertise, don’t we want to address everyone? Nations exist, unfortunately. Nations cause wars. National art serves to reinforce a sense of union between people who call themselves a nation. National art paves the way for wars. Unfortunately, there are also proletarians. It would be better, of course, if all people had equal rights and felt equal, which is ultimately the goal of all proletarians. Because we have proletarians we have revolutions. Proletarian art strengthens the proletariat’s awareness that they stand in opposition to other people, and so it paves the way for revolutions. But ultimately, people exist independent of nations and independent of the proletariat. Art addresses only people, regardless of whether they are German, French, Russian, Luxembourger, Democrat,1 Pan-German,2 bourgeois, or Bolshevist. The highest task of art is to educate and to cultivate, for it expresses the feeling for humanity shared by the most noble people— at least sometimes. At any rate, this should be the task of art. The aim here is not to polemicize against war, nationalist hatred, strife, brute force, and any kind of fighting. In this instance, the aim is merely to protect art and ensure it is not put to the service of something else. Art cannot and art must not be pressed into service. For art has its own duties. Its first duty is loyalty to itself. Its own laws stipulate that art has no god apart from itself. How can love for a nation produce art? All it can engender is a national sentiment. Conversely, an artwork is all that love for art can produce.
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(67) [WHAT IS MADNESS?] Unpublished manuscript copied in Helma Schwitters’s hand (ca. mid-1920s).
What is madness? Madness can be divided. Madness is divisible and multipliable. The best way to study madness is to stand back from it. Madness is politics. Dada is against politics because it is against madness. Politics stand within the boundaries1 of our times. May those boundaries soon unbind and grant our time free rein.
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(68) THESES ON TYPOGRAPHY “Thesen über Typographie,” Merz 11. Typoreklame PelikanNummer (1925): 91.
Countless rules can be set down for typography. The most important is: Never do anything the way someone has already done it. Or you could also say: Always do it differently from how others have done it. First, a few general theses on typography: I. Under certain circumstances, typography can be art. II. There is no fundamental correspondence between the content of a text and its typographic form. III. Formcreation is central to all art; typographic form-creation does not reproduce textual content. IV. Typographic form-creation gives expression to the push-pull tension of textual content (Lissitzky).1 V. The textually negative parts, the unprinted sections on the printed sheet, also have a positive typographic value. Every little material component has typographic value: letter, word, text segment, number, punctuation, line, logo, illustration, interstitial space, total space. VI. What is important from the standpoint of artistic typography is the relationship between typographic values; by contrast, the quality of the type itself, of a given typographic value, is irrelevant. VII. From the standpoint of the type itself, the quality of the type is the chief concern. VIII. Simplicity and beauty indicate the quality of the type. Simplicity implies clarity, a distinct and appropriate form, the rejection of all unnecessary ballast, such as curlicues, and of any forms that are superfluous to the necessary core of the type. Beauty is the careful equilibrium of relationships. Photographic illustrations are clearer and therefore better than those drawn by hand. IX. As a matter of principle, an advertisement or poster constructed from existing letters is simpler and therefore better than a hand-drawn poster [Schriftplakat]. The impersonal print typeface is also better than the individual handwriting of an artist. X. What content demands from typography is that it emphasize the purpose for which the content is being printed. — Accordingly, the typographic poster is the result of the combination of the demands made by typography and the demands made by textual content. It is incomprehensible that typographic demands have been so neglected up to now, casualties of a single-minded focus on satisfying the demands of textual content. As a result, even today, barbarous advertisements promote high-quality goods. What is even more incredible is the fact that nearly all older art journals understand about as much about typography as they do about art. By contrast, the leading modern art journals use typography as one of their chief means of advertising. I make special mention here of the journal G, editor Hans Richter, Berlin-Friedenau, Eschenstrasse 7; Gestaltung der Reklame, publisher Max Burchartz, Bochum; the journal ABC, Zurich, and I could name a few more.2 Advertising has long recognized how 204
important the design of notices and posters is for the impact of advertised products, and it has employed advertising artists for some time. Unfortunately, the advertising artists of the recent past were all individualists, and they had no understanding for the coherent form-creation of an advertisement in its entirety nor for typography. With varying degrees of skill, they designed details, sought extravagant constructions, drew ornate or otherwise illegible letters, and painted showy and distorted illustrations, thereby compromising the advertised products in the eyes of people who think soberly and rationally [sachlich]. As they saw it, they achieved good results, but this is irrelevant for us here as they were wrong. Today, advertising has started to realize its error in choosing individualists for its needs, and instead of turning to artists, it is turning to art, or to put it plainly: TO TYPOGRAPHY. Better to have no advertisements than to have inferior advertisements. After all, the reader bases his opinion of the product not on the textual content of the advertisement, but on the impact it makes.
Theses on Typography
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(69) [THE STANDARD MERZ STAGE] Published in Merz 11. Typoreklame (1925): 91.
7 Kurt Schwitters, Normalbühne Merz (Standard Stage Merz), 1924. Wood model. Lost (after 1926). CR 1269.3. Reproduced in Merz 11. Typoreklame (1925): 91. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner.
The Standard Merz Stage is a standard assembly stage. It uses only standard forms and colors as accompaniment and background for typical and individual forms and colors. The Standard Merz Stage is basic and modern, cheap, will not interfere with the action, is easy to alter, supports the action by underscoring the intended effect, can participate, move, is suited to any play. See Theater Exhibition Vienna, September– October, 1924.1
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(70) STANDARD MERZ STAGE Unpublished manuscript, “NORMALBÜHNE MERZ” (Göhren, July 1925). An abridged version in Helma Schwitters’s hand was prepared when it was published in the Bucharest literary magazine Punct: Revistă de artă constructivistă internatională, no. 6/7 (3 January 1925): [2].
The stage is solely an accompaniment for the plot of the play. It has to be as basic and as inconspicuous as possible to ensure that the plot stands out, AS LONG AS IT ITSELF IS NOT ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN THE PLOT. The accompanying Standard Stage employs the most basic forms and colors: STRAIGHT LINE, CIRCLE, PLANE, CUBE, CUBE SECTION. BLACK, GRAY, WHITE, RED. The parts are so simply constructed, standardized, and colored that they can be easily placed in relation to one another. For example, the same standard measurements and the same standard colors always turn up. All parts are constructed to be very light, easily transportable, easily adaptable, making it possible to change them during the performance. The Standard Stage serves as a background and an accompaniment for ANY PLAY, which, like any good drama, is MAINLY PLOT. The flat set pieces are painted with different colors on either side; the sidewalls, for example, could be painted black and gray. Moreover, these walls rotate along their vertical axes and can determine the characteristic expression of the entire stage set with every turn. The choice of colors corresponds accordingly. Red, black, or gray triangles or circle segments as well as cubes, cube sections, clustered cube segments, circle segments of equal diameter are inserted laterally on the stage floor and serve to support the expression of the whole. Additional support comes from red or black beams suspended vertically from above or horizontally from the side, a red sphere floating from above that can be raised or lowered to strongly affect the expression, and red circular segments, which rotate laterally into the scenery from above. Typical and individual forms will be used along with and in front of these very basic regular forms, as required; for instance, a tree to indicate a forest, a trumpet when a hunt is to be staged, a cup for drinking, etc. THE ACTORS perform in their most basic form, not as cubes but AS HUMAN BEINGS, without in any way adapting to the geometric forms of the stage. For just as the cube is architecture’s most basic form, the human being is the most basic form for his type, for his kind. It is not important that the visible stage becomes a picture made up of homogeneous parts. Indeed, it must not become a stable image at all, but rather it must continuously indicate the next situation through pictorial disruption, which dissolves the previous situation and causes new disruptions. The actor wears regular, ordinary clothes that correspond to the role he is acting. Any masks or unusual clothing or any clothing that is not in 207
keeping with the plot must be avoided for the CHARACTERS THAT DRIVE THE PLOT. However, masks can be used to give uniformity to crowds and to everyone who serves only as an extra. The objects that the actors use in their performance can have standard, typical, or individual forms, respectively, according to their significance. An actor can sit on a cube or on a chair, for example, but he cannot drink from a cube. For this he needs a cup or a beaker. It is important that all the necessary objects on the stage have a form that does not detract from, but rather supports, the plot. THE PLOT IS PARAMOUNT. The Standard Merz Stage should not be confused with the Merz-theater: they are fundamentally different. The Standard Stage is OBJECTIVE, is COMFORTABLE, is CHEAP. The Standard Stage is objective because it accompanies the general meaning of the plot without the distraction of needlessly imitating natural structures. The design might initially strike the average theatergoer as unusual, or the average theatergoer might notice the unusual design, yet this has no importance for the validity of this idea, the Standard Stage. The cube draws less attention to itself than any organic form because it is more basic. The Standard Stage is comfortable because it can be changed quickly and with ease. The Standard Stage is cheap because it can be used for every play. Only small purchases of typical or individual things are necessary. However: Only exceptionally talented stage architects and directors can use the most basic components just so and still create a set that conveys the specific atmosphere suited to the play at hand. The design alone is decisive for the expressive unity of stage and drama.
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(71) RELIGION OR SOCIALISM Unpublished manuscript, “Religion oder Socialismus [sic]” (Göhren, July 1925).
Today, religion in its traditional form has become ridiculous. My intention here is not to argue whether there is a God or not. If indeed there is a God, religious concepts ordain that it must be an infinitely sublime figure, at least one that exceeds anything secular, earthly, or human. There are already things in our little world whose mere existence elicits the greatest admiration from us little humans— things like natural forces, the sea, inexorable historical development, and much more. Given our remove from such things, we can gauge our remove from God, which must be even greater. Indeed, it is even greater than that between a single drop of water and the sea. Religion demands that we fear, venerate God. I cannot imagine that the sea has anything to gain from the fear or veneration of a water droplet. I cannot imagine that the sea would be bothered by anything a drop does. It can only be to the drop’s advantage or in keeping with the drop’s innermost desire to follow the customs of the sea. But this would be wrong, for the drop obeys different laws than the sea. It is much lighter, more mobile, more mutable, and less powerful. The drop flies lightly, wafts; the sea lies heavy, surges— both with the same chemical composition. The sea would not grant the devoted drop’s slightest wish, nor would it be able to. Nor is there in all probability a personal relationship between the individual and the divine being, providing one exists. If interrelationships existed, they would be incomprehensible to the senses and the minds of us humans. Religion requires the individual to occupy himself with such incomprehensible relationships. This pursuit is supposed to make the individual a religious person, granting him inner nobility and releasing him from the bonds of humanity, elevating him. If this is the purpose, it is highly commendable, and if this is the goal of religion, I believe we can easily stray onto the wrong path as we move toward this goal. After all, we can easily be deceived at the point where our senses communicate something to us. But the possibility of such deception is still greater when we rely on our immediate feelings and instincts, without the use of our senses. In any case, I ask why we should follow such a circuitous route when there is a direct path. In principle, it would be irrelevant if someone thought and felt this way or that, much as it would be irrelevant, in principle, if someone collected stamps or not. But where all humanity is concerned, it is not irrelevant, because religion absorbs precisely those forces that otherwise could be used to refine relationships between human beings. The religious person gains spiritual satisfaction from his religious life devoted to contemplating God; he is aware of his own virtues and can easily and unwittingly 209
feel superior to his fellow human beings. It is easy for him to lack the modesty and tact that makes living with other people tolerable. Thus religion is an internal impediment for socialism— and not just internal, either.Yet the developmental history of our age calls for socialism, not religion. The time for religion has passed. Religion has shown long enough that it cannot offer humanity a humane life. It thinks in materialistic terms; it centralizes power; it dominates. The good socialist cannot be religious. Humanity, not divinity, demands all his effort. Here, and not in religion, lies the possibility for us to increase our inner strength, to improve ourselves— not in religion. Religion cultivates feelings directed at what lies at a great remove, while neglecting what lies close at hand.
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(72) STANDARD MERZ STAGE (SOME PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS.) Unpublished manuscript, “NORMALBÜHNE- MERZ (einige praktische Anregungen.)” (Göhren, July 1925), including drawings and a pasted photographic reproduction.
The Standard Merz Stage is an instrument on which you can play any necessary accompaniment to any kind of theatrical work. The colors are as basic as possible so that the stage can always remain background or accompaniment. This does not preclude the possibility that, under certain circumstances, the stage can also be active— can itself perform— as a support to the performance. The forms are also distilled to the most basic types. For local or topcoat colors, the Standard Stage uses only black, white, medium gray, red— and only one type of red, namely bright vermilion. For forms, the Standard Stage only uses flat surfaces, a cube with 90 cm edges, the box-shaped parts of this cube with the divisor 2, 4, etc., resulting in lengths of 45, 27½, 13¾ . . . cm, as well as other standard forms.1 The proportions of the 90 cm edges benefit the performance; for example, the 45 cm height is suitable for sitting, the 27½ cm height can serve as the steps for stairs. This standardization facilitates the quick assembly of groups of forms that always fit together. Another component of this inventory of standard forms is a sphere with a diameter of 135 cm. First, the stage floor plan: It is a very special floor plan, and it is obvious that the floor plan must be adapted to the spatial situation. Height of the proscenium: 405 cm. The drawing clearly shows the arrangement of the side and rear walls [see drawing in fig. 8]. The sidewalls can rotate 360° around their central axes. They can then be arranged as required to form a straight line, which then would describe a 60° angle with the lower edge of the proscenium, or they can be turned to stand at a perpendicular, parallel, or oblique angle to this edge. Triangular planes, circular segments, [and] circular sectors with standard dimensions serve to establish connections between the vertical and the horizontal lines on the stage— indeed, they create all kinds of connections. Some are pushed in from the wings across the floor; others, such as the circular segments, are rotated in [see drawing in fig. 9]. For the placement of the 3 or 4 rear walls, see the drawing [in fig. 8]. These rise up into the rigging loft. The sphere is suspended from the rigging loft by a thin, gray rope. It can be raised, lowered, and moved to the right and left. Additionally, a large num-
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ber of wide-meshed, rectangular veils can be lowered from above. The veils are gray and serve to balance out tonal differences. This allows larger complexes to be brought together. Spotlights are used to emphasize individual sections. Spotlights were the only standardized props on traditional stages. Long, beam-like boxes can be introduced horizontally from the wings and vertically from above. These can slide right and left and up and down, and together they can make up the shape of a cross. These beams in particular can greatly influence the expression [of the whole] and can be comfortably adjusted during the performance. I included two beams in my model, one measuring 13 ¾ : 41 ¼ : 360 [cm] and the other 13 ¾ : 41 ¼ :
8 Kurt Schwitters, photograph of the Normalbühne Merz (Standard Stage Merz), 1924. Wood model. Lost (after 1926). CR 1269.1. With caption: Basic Form of the Standard Merz Stage. / Floor plan of the Normalbühne Merz (Standard Stage Merz), 1925. Pencil on paper sketch, 7 × 10 cm (30.5 × 23.5 cm sheet). CR 1334. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/ Werner.
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270 [cm]. The rear walls have doors that can be opened as required. Applying something red or black to a door can highlight it, but in general the color of the doors do not distinguish them from the surrounding surface. Trap doors everywhere, as commonly used. A special form to be placed up front measures 45 × 45 × 90 [cm], as a seat.
9 Kurt Schwitters, sketch for rotating components of the Normalbühne Merz (Standard Stage Merz), 1925. Pencil on paper, 30.5 × 23.5 cm sheet. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner.
10 Kurt Schwitters, Normalbühne Merz (Standard Stage Merz), 1925. Pencil on paper sketch, 6.5 × 8 cm (30.5 × 23.5 cm sheet). CR 1334. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner.
STANDARD MERZ STAGE (Some Practical Suggestions.)
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(73) THE ABC OF THE STANDARD MERZ STAGE Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Das ABC der Normalbühne Merz” (12 July 1925).
The most important thing onstage is the performance. The stage itself is not central but incidental. The Standard Stage is so basic that it becomes incidental. The play is performed on the Standard Stage with typical objects and people and with individual objects and actors. I discuss this interaction in my article 101.1 All I want to do here is give a more detailed explanation of the Standard Stage itself, which I exhibited as a model at the Exhibition of Theater Technology in Vienna in 1924.2 Processed in [manuscript] 1213
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(74) LANGUAGE Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Sprache” (23 November 1925).
Only when a new language has brevity in addition to clarity and lucidity does it achieve its sense and purpose. Maximum simplification and combination is what is important. We begin with the concepts to be (to have) a to want (to desire) o
not to be (not to have) u to fear i
to suppose e
The pronunciation of the vowels is long. A c after a vowel indicates a short pronunciation. This marks the verb as infinitive. Not all verbs start with vowels. Pronouns: i
you
(he)
(she)
it
we
you
they
b
d
m
n
g
p
t
k
The pronunciation of the consonants is toneless, distinct, but without a vowel sound, just like children learn in school. The German alphabet is
Initially, I use the double letters just as a symbol. A c after a vowel simply indicates a shortening, a short pronunciation, so a e i o u (long)
ac ec ic oc uc (short)
The c becomes a glottal stop, a short plosive sound, which turns it into a new symbol: c On its own, it is like the intention, the will to a vowel. 215
Pronouns come before the verb I am or I have You are or you have He is or he has She is or she has It is or it has We are or we have You are or you have They are or they have
ba da ma na ga pa ta ka
I am not or I have not You are not or you have not He is not or he has not She is not or she has not It is not or it has not We are not or we have not You are not or you have not They are not or they have not
bu du mu nu gu pu tu ku
I want You want He wants She wants It wants We want You want They want
bo do mo no go po to ko
The affirmation “yes” is given as and the negation “no” as and desire or “to want” as
ac = yes uc = no or not oc = desired, wanted, sought
With verbs, the not is long and is written with a u after the verb. I do not want You do not want He does not want
bou dou mou
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She does not want It does not want We do not want You do not want They do not want
nou gou pou tou kou
This is pronounced as two successive sounds. A suffixed schsound provides emphasis, which I transcribe as x, because x is doubled. A suffixed l removes emphasis. So sch means many or very, good, complete, while l means little or slight. For example, basch means I am very, i.e., I feel strongly that I exist. Dusch means: you do not strongly feel you exist. Mosch means: he really wants.
Language
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(75) STANDARD STAGE BY KURT SCHWITTERS Unpublished typescript, “Normalbühne von Kurt Schwitters,” corrected in Helma Schwitters’s hand (10 December 1925).
Schwitters wrote this text in preparation for his (unrealized) participation in the International Theatre Exposition in New York (27 February to 21 March 1926), organized by Frederick Kiesler with Jane Heap (1883– 1964), the editor of the literary journal The Little Review. This exhibition comprised innovative stage sets from seventeen countries. It restaged, in part, the Internationale Ausstellung Neuer Theatertechnik (International exhibition of new theater technology) Kiesler had mounted in Vienna in 1924, which had included Schwitters’s model of a Standard Merz Stage (see text 69). Here Schwitters directly addresses the Space Stage (Raumbühne) Kiesler had introduced in Vienna to much controversy. Conceived in opposition to the flattened, framed space of the traditional proscenium stage, Kiesler’s circular Space Stage consisted of a scaffolded ramp, ladders, and various platforms. He had removed the orchestra seating in the Vienna Concert Hall to install it in the center of the auditorium, thereby affording spectators the opportunity to view theatrical performances in the round. As Kiesler explained in the catalogue for the Vienna exhibition, the Space Stage was the centerpiece for his fantastic conception of a “Railway Theater” modeled on the mechanical dynamism of a rollercoaster, in which “the individualistic actor completely disappears into a supernatural type-form.”
The Standard MERZ Stage, not to be confused with the Merz-theater, does not trouble itself with questions such as whether to perform on a Space Stage or a proscenium stage. The Standard Merz Stage is concerned only with standardizing, regardless whether it is a Space Stage or a proscenium stage. The stage must become what it needs to be: an arena for the plot. The stage must never attract particular attention to itself, by doing either too much or too little. The arena for the plot is the accompaniment to the plot within the logical constraints of nature. And so, the stage should accompany the plot accordingly. I constructed a model of the Standard MERZ Stage for the Theater Exhibition in Vienna in 1924, which was conceived for a proscenium stage and subsequently gave rise to the mistaken opinion that I was making a case for the proscenium stage.1 On this matter, see the “Epilogues” by Dolbin on the International Exhibition of New Theater Technology in Vienna in Der Sturm v. 16, n. 7/8.2 I can certainly conceive 218
of a standardized Space Stage, and I will be exhibiting the design for a standard Space Stage alongside the standard proscenium stage shown in Vienna at the New York Exposition Internationale of New Theatre Technique in January 1926 [see fig. 11]. At this point I must also note 2 errors in the exhibition catalogue for the Viennese theater exhibition. The typesetter, who had initially set an article titled “Stegreifbühne” [Impromptu Stage] on the page, accidentally left the title “Stegreifbühne” when my article “Merzbühne” [Merz-theater] replaced it.3 But MERZ is in no way impromptu, since it takes all conditions into account as relevant factors. Furthermore, my Standard MERZ Stage was mistakenly listed as “Merzbühne” under catalogue entry no. 101. The most important thing for the theater is the performance. A play itself certainly does not need to be performed; it can be read. It can also be spoken or performed. When a play is performed, it alone is not enough, for along with actors it also needs a stage, because physical actors need physical trappings. Thus, the stage, for which the play was not originally conceived, becomes, in practice, a very important factor. At the very least, whenever an actor wants to sit down, he needs a place to sit. This doesn’t need to be a chair— he can also sit on a box or on the ground. But by sitting on the ground, he places particular emphasis on that action, since this is out of the ordinary. If the actor needs to drink, he needs a cup or a glass. It is impossible for him to drink from a box. All that the actor needs to perform is the stage. And as you can already tell, not everything can be standardized. When you see an actor drinking, the cup will not distract your attention from the action, whereas an elegantly set table or an opulently decorated room will. By contrast, an unobtrusive wall divided into a few planes couldn’t distract anyone. The wall and the table can be standardized; the cup cannot. It is important that the stage is basic and straightforward in all its parts so that it serves to foreground the play. I make distinctions between standard, typical, and individual
11 Kurt Schwitters, Untitled (Standard Stage Merz or Spatial Stage), 1925. Gouache (?) and ink on paper, dimensions unknown. Lost (after 1926). CR 1333. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner.
Standard Stage by Kurt Schwitters
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things on the stage. The hero is individual; the mass of people and the cup are typical; the seat, the wall, and the light are standard. The evaluation of these unequal things against each other yields artistic equilibrium. On the STANDARD MERZ STAGE the most basic physical form, together with the most basic colors— with everything reduced to a few standard values— becomes an instrument that can easily accompany the play. And it does so without drawing disproportionate attention to itself, without causing a disruption, and without ripping the actor out of his three-dimensionality, who, after all, performs for show. First, I want to discuss the model of my proscenium stage. MERZ will always put old factors to new uses. The Standard “MERZ” Stage takes the existing theater building as its basis. The play and the main actor of the play remain the central focus; the stage itself accompanies them. Unlike the standardized stage, the actor is not standardized, above all when he is central to the plot. He wears everyday, common, and natural clothing and acts in an entirely natural manner in front of and with the Standard Stage. He is individuum— indivisible and hence incapable of being standardized, he thereby performs in a distinctly individual manner. At the very least, the crowds and extras must wear typical clothing and perform in a typical manner, because everything must serve to foreground the action of the main characters. Some of the objects required by the play must be individual, some typical, and some standard, depending on their purpose. But only those things that are absolutely necessary may be typical or even individual; everything else must be standard. The great advantage to emerge from this situation is that anything significant is particularly emphasized— significantly more so than on the conventional, uniform stage. It produces an unambiguous clarity, and clarity is the primary demand of our time. While the Standard Stage may initially strike audiences as a novelty, it will gradually appear familiar and natural since it always uses the same standard elements. And with this increased familiarity, the spectator will no longer notice those elements and instead only see the construction of the whole. Now that he no longer needs to abstract from accidental appearances, as he has to with the conventional, representational stage, his pleasure is immediate. The fact that this stage appears novel to yesterday’s theatergoer means nothing, not even the fact that it draws attention to itself merely for being new, because everything new always attracts attention at first. He will always shy away from what is new and for this reason, he cannot objectively evaluate it. Set changes on the Standard Stage are very convenient. Because these basic cubes are made according to standardized dimensions, they can easily be moved and joined together. As a result, the Standard Stage can easily support the plot throughout the performance by being adapted. Every movement has its definite expression, like any composition. Equally, every plot also has its definite expression. So it is important that the expression of the plot runs parallel to that of movement and composition.
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All the materials used must be real. Wood must be used as wood and color as color. This way we can move away from the kind of sham stage that would use color as a house or a landscape, for instance. After all, using real materials is cheap. Color is much cheaper than a painted forest. But what really reduces costs is the fact that any play can be performed on the same stage and that only a very few new typical and individual things need to be purchased: an armchair, a drinking glass, or a pipe for the reverend country priest or somebody like that. The difficulty lies in directing, however. For the Standard Stage, the set designer and the director really have to be artists, i.e., creators who, with the proper tact, can work out what needs to be individual, what needs to be typical, and what needs to be standard. Standard form is so universal that it can be anything, while typical form is the universal form specific to a genre, such as a type of person or a type of prop. Individual form, however, is one-of-a-kind, like Mr. Meier or Goethe. Of course, there are countless gradations between these concepts. It is of course pointless to build a Standard Stage for one play. Only people who intend to perform all their plays on a Standard Stage should build one. The forms of the Standard Stage have been reduced to a few basic ones. One basic form is the cube whose sides measure 90 cm. This cube generates box-like sections. The boxes that are most useful in practice measure: 90 × 45 × 90, 45 × 45 × 90, 45 × 22.5 × 90, 45 × 15 × 90, 22.5 × 15 × 90, 45 × 45 × 45, etc. (cf. illustration).4 The 90 cm height is the height of a table, the 45 cm height is that of a seat, the 15 cm height is that of steps. Because the stage must mediate expression and accompany the plot, it also employs many things that are not used by the lead actors but that instead intensify the expression mediated by the eye of the spectator. These could be called decoration in an expanded sense, though they are much more than that. On the proscenium stage these decorative things include the scenery, etc. Here is a possible floor plan of my stage:
12 Floor plan of the Normalbühne Merz (Standard Stage Merz), 10 December 1925. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner.
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There are many possibilities, of course. Here I have planned for four rear walls, each with four or five doors. The doors and the walls are the same color, except for the door actually being used, which is highlighted with color. The four side walls rotate along their vertical axes, which can be used to create an enormous number of different expressive values through abundant variations in placement and lighting— even more so, since the walls are painted gray in front and black behind. See the illustrations.5 The side walls can rotate to form a single straight line and thereby create a very calm space (Figure 1). Planes in the shape of triangles, circular segments, and circular sectors mediate between vertical and horizontal lines. Some of these can be pushed in across the floor from the wings; those that hang from the ceiling can be rotated in from the wings or lowered from above. A large red sphere is suspended from above and can be lowered and raised during the performance. This sphere can also be moved left and right and from the front to the back, or the other way around. Large, thick beams are suspended into the stage from above and from the wings and can be moved in all directions. Gray veils can be used to balance differences in tonal color, and to join complexes together. Spotlights highlight individual sections. The spotlights were the only standardized material on the traditional stage. The sphere and the beams can greatly influence expression. They can also be moved about easily during the performance. The sphere can appear uncanny and threatening as it is lowered; the crossed beams can give an appearance of calm, etc. (Figure 2). As is customary, there are trap doors everywhere. When the performance requires it, typical or individual objects can be inserted from above or the wings to give final emphasis. Color supports the overall design of the Standard Stage. Most standard objects are gray with various nuances. In addition, there are black and white elements. These are all colorless. Color is essentially standardized as vermillion. If the impression is to be very colorful, lemon yellow and blue green are added to the red. All the individual colors can be performed on this tonal scale. The Standard Space Stage uses the same elements as the proscenium stage. However, it has a few special requirements. It is circular but it can also be square. No objects used on the Space Stage can be higher than 90 cm, because a person measures 130 cm when seated and 165 cm when standing. And the seated person needs to be visible from every side. The Space Stage can be entered from the auditorium by one or more sets of stairs, from below through a trap door, from above by a hoist, a conveyor basket, or a rope ladder. There are also platforms installed— some suspended by ropes from above, some resting on thin supports. These platforms can be made of glass, for instance. Bear in mind that the performance on a proscenium stage normally proceeds from right to left or from front to back (or vice versa), and that on the Space Stage the performance obviously must unfold from top to bottom, or vice versa. The hero emerges from the trap door, sings his aria, climbs to the glass platform using a step ladder, where he briefly greets his leading
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lady (who has been waiting there for him fervently), before he then ascends in a conveyor basket past her squabbling rival (who is standing on a second platform), directly into the ceiling. This rival now leaps deftly down to the other platform where she gets into a scuffle with her opponent. Her opponent, however, climbs down a rope and flees into the auditorium. You see, this is just action, without any disruptive ornamentation.6 The Space Stage can also be constructed so that it can rotate slowly together with the corresponding ceiling plate. This way everyone can see the actors from all sides.
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(76) GUT GARKAU Unpublished typescript, “Gut Garkau” (ca. late 1925/ early 1926).
Gut Garkau is a farm complex designed by Hugo Häring (1882– 1958) and constructed in 1925. The estate lies on the southwest shore of the Großer Pönitzer See, a lake in the Scharbeutz township in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The owner, Otto Birtner, was a farmer committed to progressive agricultural techniques, and Häring’s designs for the site and structures were pioneering works for an “organic” approach to architectural functionalism— one sensitive to environmental conditions, topography, and materials rather than an ideal of pure form or personal expression. Häring published a photograph and short text about the recently completed cowshed in the October 1925 issue of the Deutsche Werkbund journal, Die Form, and Schwitters may have visited the site shortly afterward, as did El Lissitzky. See fig. 26, text 92, and text 120.
Located in magnificent surroundings directly on the Pönitzer See lies Gut Garkau, which, as an agricultural business, is outstanding, and, as architecture, is an exemplary form-creation. The layout of the estate includes a number of projects that are still in the planning phase, but the barn, the cowshed, and the machine shed have recently been completed. Owner Mr. Otto Birtner, architect Mr. Hugo Häring. The grain barn is an enormous construction of clinker brick with an interesting vault construction for the roof (Zollbau),1 which is tiled on the outside. The large vaulted interior can accommodate a large harvest. Hugo Häring has a personal approach to form [and] a personal way of working with materials, which makes his work so stimulating. The outer form is in complete accord with the demands made by the space, which in turn follows the function. The construction always remains visible and is further emphasized where it would otherwise be hard to make out. In place of the iron girders over the windows and doors that are usually found in brick buildings, Häring uses broad reinforced concrete beams. These give apt formal expression to the load-bearing support and, furthermore, provide the whole building with an interesting horizontal structure. The way Mr. Birtner works is convincingly rational, and in this respect he has influenced the design of the building; he has had a decisive effect on the form-creation. The buildings have been conceived as functional architecture in all their components.2 The underlying principle is to ensure that the least possible amount of work has the greatest possible effect within the operation, that production follows the shortest possible path, that all the space 224
is appropriately allocated, and that space is never wasted. Wood panels encase the barn’s pointed-arch vault on the outside; the roof tiles resting on them are not held in place with mortar. This type of roof has the same effect as a porous thatch roof; just like a thatch roof, it ensures the necessary airflow for the grain to dry out. The storage space for the grain is recessed 1½ meter lower than the entrance to create as much space as possible and make the discharge of heavy truckloads easier. A large cellar for storing and sorting potatoes lies partly underneath the enormous barn. The construction of a corn silo next to the barn is in planning, with stables for horses and pigs beneath. Next follows the cowshed, which has already been built. The cowshed is the most lopsided house I have ever seen. Yet the form is not arbitrary but instead follows the requirements of rational building methods. Conventionally, a cowshed is shaped like the segment of a circle, since cows are pointy in front and broad in the rear. This form would be the most practical one. However, because it needed to house forty-two head of cattle as well as a pen for the bull and two pens for calves in the same space, it was modified. This meant that the cow pen took on the form of a horseshoe with a central feeding platform. This building method allows for 25 percent more cattle to be housed without increasing the floor area. Permanently installed troughs with running water encircle the feeding platform. Centered above the feeding platform is a trapdoor (made of iron to protect the cattle in case of fire) through which fodder can be thrown down from the hayloft above and from where it is easily accessible for feeding. The ceiling rises up as it extends outward, forming a ridge above the axis of the feeding platform. This encourages the warm air to rise and draw the stale air upward, where it is channeled out through narrow ventilation shafts on all sides. No two sidewalls are parallel, no two surfaces are parallel at all. This produces a space that is as lopsided as any found in expressionist paintings, but which is contorted precisely as much as is necessary. Incidentally, the external walls are not load bearing [and] merely provide thermal insulation and weather protection. The load-bearing construction has been moved inside and is provided by the placement of pillars. Many other innovations and good features could be mentioned, such as the fan system for transporting the threshed hay or the hopper to store the chaff, etc., etc. All I want to do here is assert that the requirements of a working process have created an interior space, that the architect has designed this interior space to be as straightforward [sachlich] as possible, that by doing so he has defined the external form of the house, that nothing is simulated, that instead the construction is emphasized wherever it is indistinct, that there are no decorative embellishments without a function— in short, in this case, the collaboration between client and architect created a brilliant building. When looked at superficially, Häring’s approach to form vaguely recalls the buildings designed by the Hilversum city architect Dudok.3 However, Häring builds organically, whereas Dudok works decoratively. Kurt Schwitters, Hannover, Waldhausenstr. 5. 6 illustrations included.4 Gut Garkau
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(77) FANTASTIC THOUGHTS Unpublished typescript, “PHANTASTISCHE GEDANKEN” (ca. 1926).
When we use human reason to consider things and ourselves, we get very strange results. First we must be clear that our reasoning, taken in its entirety, is not mathematical but follows human logic. It is true that our vision is significantly different from the purely optical registration of the photographic apparatus, and our reasoning differs from mathematical precision even more so. The fact that our reasoning cannot be brought in line with mathematics merely demonstrates that mathematics is not the legitimate child of humanity but an adopted one. It seems to me that mathematics is nothing other than the vernacular language between celestial bodies. We humans do not think: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 1, ½, ¼, 1 ⁄8, 1 ⁄16 or 3.14159 . . . Instead, we think: I, you, we, you all. Such thinking is mathematically imprecise given that this “I” is already different when thought by the same person at different times, even though it remains the same “I” for him. And the difference is even greater when another person thinks “I.” The difference is even more significant with “you.” Here an attempt will be made to think through a few things to the extent that the author can think through them at all. For within your own reasoning, you can never get to the root of things. First, the concept of unity. It is the opposite of multitude— a whole that belongs together, not simply parts loosely strung together. An individual is such a unity. I am, you are, we are a unity. When we proceed from the idea of unity, there is no essential difference between the unity of an individual and the unity of humanity. And, indeed, at every moment an individual differs from himself. If you wanted to express this insight with the mathematical formula one equals infinity [1 = ∞] or if you were to state that one is unequal one [1 ≠ 1], you would be writing nonsense or applying human reason to mathematics. But perhaps all mathematics is nonsense, simply because we cannot think in purely abstract terms. Our thinking is correct only as long as it is supported by corporeal representations [köperliche Vorstellun gen]. Mathematics states: 1 plus 1 equals 2, and then it says that this 2 is twice the size of 1. But a human being can only represent this in terms of quantity, space, weight, or time. You can clearly see that a meter increased by another meter equals two meters; it is less clear that a minute increased by another minute equals two minutes. But this train of thought suddenly breaks down once we think in terms of being. For unity, it is not appearance but being [Wesen] that is important. Being knows no addition in the sense of 1 plus 1 equals 2, there is only an act of balancing. Every plus is always a minus, because every plus marks a shift within being 226
and requires a subtraction in some other relationship to maintain equilibrium. If someone wants to occupy themselves with one thing intensely, they cannot occupy themselves with anything else at the same time, since this second thing will reduce their attention to the first. One cup of tea with 2 pieces of sugar is equal to 2 cups of tea with 4 pieces of sugar. We humans are born with a certain essence [Wesen]. There was a balance that made us a unity. Our essence can change. We can change a great deal about ourselves once we think in essential terms. But we can also maintain our essence through our efforts. Rather than adding up, rather than piling knowledge on knowledge or wealth on wealth, we must evaluate [werten], occupying ourselves with our own essence. Religion thinks in terms of being; mathematics does not.
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(78) ART AND THE TIMES Unpublished typescript, “Kunst und Zeiten” (March 1926). Published in English (without the final two paragraphs) as “Art and the Times,” Ray 1 (1926): 4– 8. Published in Czech (with German and French summaries) as “uměni a doby • kunst und zeiten • l’art et les époques,” in fronta. mezinárodní sborník soudobé aktivity / front. internationaler almanach der aktivität der gegenwart / front. receuil international de l’activité contemporaine, ed. František Halas and Zdeněk Rossmann (Brno: Edition Fronta, 1927), 13– 15.
We have the German word Kunst, art. It suggests a Können, an ability.1 What ability is being called for here? The old person says: “There is no ability that comes from within ourselves, because the whole world, of which we are but a tiny part, stands apart from us. And it has real ability, its ability is of such a different order from anything we can do that our abilities can only be an imitation, an imitation of nature, which is truly accomplished.[”] For our reflections here, it is beside the point whether this imitation is exacting or personal; imitation is imitation. Imitation is weakness and fallacy. It breeds imitation-landscapes and portraits, program music, and ultimately the socalled styles that inundate our age, too. However, we must make a qualitative evaluations, and in this respect, we stand as individuals before a world, which, though vastly greater than individuals in terms of mass, is equal to us in essence [Wesen]. We become what we can become through our engagement with the world, and as attentive, cosmopolitan citizens, we become ever more related to the world. Now we find the same striving, growing, becoming, and decaying in ourselves as we do in our environment. This becomes especially apparent in the work of art. If you look with an eye to essence [wesent lich], then the work of art will appear— here I am thinking of works by Braque, Gleizes, Boccioni, van der Leck, Mondrian, Doesburg, Malevich, Lissitzky, Moholy, Hans Arp, Mies van der Rohe, Hilberseimer, Domselaer,2 and myself, for instance, or even the work of an as yet unspoiled child. That is to say, the work of art will appear before you as a unity. A unity is temporally and spatially delimited as a thing that grows out from itself, that rests in itself, and does not distinguish itself essentially from other things in nature. The earlier mimetic image, however, differed significantly from the surrounding world; it was effectively a pale imitation, whereas the new naturalistic work of art grows like nature itself, and, as such, it is far more closely related to nature than imitation could ever be. I refer you to the nasci issue, 228
MERZ 8/9, that I compiled with Lissitzky.3 There you will find clear demonstrations of the fundamental correspondence between a drawing by Lissitzky and a crystal, between a skyscraper by Mies van der Rohe and the strict, economic structure of a femur. You will recognize the constructive tendency evident in the arrangement of the leaves on a stem, and you will take a photograph of the surface of Mars to be an abstract painting, one by Kandinsky, for instance, simply because the photograph has been framed with a black line.4 You will see with my i-picture that nature, chance, or whatever you want to call it, frequently brings together things that, in themselves, correspond to what we call rhythm. The artist’s sole task here is to recognize and delimit. And in the end, this is the only task of which an artist is capable: to delimit and recognize. Even though the crystal effectively has the same structure as the drawing by Lissitzky, it is a crystal, not an artwork, while Lissitzky’s drawing is an artwork, not a crystal. However, to recognize art is an innate ability that comes from an innate drive, the need to engage in an artistically creative, artistically organized manner. This brings us to the cause of art: it is a drive, like the drive to live, to eat, to love. Drives are grounded in the law of humanity, and certain drives can be strong in one person and weak in another. However, drives are not connected to a person’s social position or level of education. And given how, as far as I can tell, no natural selection can occur in a Darwinian sense based on the existence of an artistic drive— since the artistic drive is irrelevant to the other developments of life— we can assume that the artistic drive occurs on average with equal frequency in every age and in all cultures. But only a few people ever have artistic talent. Accordingly, these few inhabit an exceptional position and, depending on fashion, they are mocked, they incite outrage, or they are idolized. There is no such thing as an artistic people or an artistic age, such as Greece or the Renaissance; there are only times of artistic fashion. An era of artistic fashion has just come to a close, and now, in response, art has become very unfashionable. But do not be deceived. This is the reason why our age is as suited to pure artistic activity as any other age, and we would be deceiving ourselves if we were to assume that art no longer had a place in our age or in the future. On the contrary, you do not need to be a prophet to be able to predict that there will be another fashion in art in the future. Indeed, it is obvious that there should be qualitatively outstanding achievements in art today because our age is free of the usual fashionable flattening of art that occurs in times of artistic fashion. In times when art is fashionable, there are many people without any artistic calling who occupy themselves with it, because such an occupation brings money, fame, or a respected position. These are the hangers-on and imitators who merely serve to drag the reputation of art through the mud. It is precisely these fashionable artists who, in times when the persecution of art is fashionable, campaign most fiercely against art, since they inevitably follow the most opportune fashion and thereby gain an advantage first and foremost for themselves. But art is not dependent on professional artists, for there is no such
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profession in this sense. And so it is possible that we will find art where no one among the community of snobs would expect to find it, away from the professional incompetents and in the play of children, for instance, or in handicraft. After all, art is a peculiar flower that cannot abide fertilizer. It can be found wherever there is vigorous growth that proceeds according to a law and wherever there is a valid evaluation of parts against each other that seek to form a whole. In our time, it is evident that a prior artistic fashion is coming to an end. There are many clear signs: for example, many professional artists are turning away from art; people whose clothing indicates that they are professional artists have become open to ridicule; general interest in art has significantly decreased. By contrast, the general interest in sport and technology has greatly increased. But this has no bearing on the necessity and viability of art. This is the most propitious situation for the healthy proliferation of artistic creativity and against the rampant growth of weeds. While this does indeed make things more difficult for the artist who is trying to support himself with his art, no artist has, in fact, ever achieved this, even in times of artistic fashion. Even then the buyer would always skillfully manage to sidestep the artist and the artwork. The fact is, many professional artists today have other professions, but it should not follow that the artistic act itself has passed its prime. For even where the artistic act manifests itself as design [Gestaltung], as in handicraft or industry, for instance, art continues to be alive— and even more alive than in the work of the fashionable artist who is unable to design anything. Accordingly, art today frequently takes refuge in handicraft, industry, the play of children, without becoming unfree in the process, as when it designs a thing that has some other function, for instance. Even here, this sort of design is effectively without function, just as in the case of easel painting; it has no function from the vantage point of the industrial object. I reject the false logic that the simplest, i.e., the best, industrial solution must at the same time also be the simplest, i.e., the best, artistic solution. Artistic design has, in the final reckoning, no practical function. Art is never a means to an end; it is an end in itself. The masses who admire a good and beautiful automobile do not see the key aspects necessary for good design; at best they see what is fashionable, and today it has become fashionable to give industrial objects an artistic design, despite the greatest technical objectivity [Sachlichkeit]. But then again, the public also failed to see the artistic design in Leibl’s painting.5 I was asked to give my take on the future of art.You already know my verdict. Art will continue to thrive with the same freshness, because it is the result of a proportionally constant drive. And this drive cannot be eradicated because such refined, sensitive, and degenerate [degeneriert] people do not die out. However, you cannot predict the form through which this drive will find expression, only that it will find expression in a form that differs from what was presumed beforehand. This because art is always a made thing, and you cannot constantly make the same thing over and over again. And then again, an entirely valid thing, like something made
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by an engineer or an architect, need not be art since its function is not that of art, namely: rhythmic form-creation. Now, does art still have a function in a social state? You already know my answer. It is completely irrelevant for art what form the state takes, since art is the result of a drive. As an artist, I cannot know if the social state especially appreciates or neglects art. At any rate, just as the nationalist bourgeois content of previous images was no indication of artistic cultivation, merely giving social content to images and films in a social state does not indicate any real cultivation of the arts either. The function of art can never be the promotion of a social agenda, because its core concern is with form-creation alone. But this does not mean that we should underestimate the general human value of art, even in a social state. It is precisely in its engagement with things that are not immediately necessary for life’s most important requirements that humanity is freed from everyday trivialities and elevated above itself and its passions. Artistic evaluation, the act of establishing relationships among the values in an artwork that initially appears devoid of any function, the creation of rhythm, and the empathic appreciation of such activities— all these serve to exercise and fortify the mind [Geist]. In our age, which is so sober and fixated on reality, such exercises are as necessary for the mind as sport is for the body. And it is not merely athletes, but especially the weak who must fortify their bodies through sport; so too it is precisely those rationalists who are most estranged from art who must work to keep their minds flexible by engaging with art that serves no function.
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(79) THE NEW ARCHITECTURE IN GERMANY “Die neue Architektur in Deutschland,” Braunschweiger Neueste Nachrichten (2 March 1926): 2.
On the occasion of the architecture exhibition at the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hannover in January 1926, which only presented German architects, I want to write more generally about the new architecture in Germany. While the Hannover exhibition includes many valuable examples, the selection is rather random, and it does not give a clear sense of the significance of the individual architects. Moreover, some very important architects are not included or poorly represented. The new architecture is international. The movement begins in North America, where Frank Lloyd Wright horizontally organizes his buildings to emphasize the horizontal layering of their stories— cornices with a horizontal emphasis and the horizontal fading of the building into the landscape (city residence in Chicago, South Side).1 The Dutch architects, such as Wills [sic],2 Rietvelt [sic],3 Doesburg and van Eesteren,4 now also emphasize the vertical, along with the horizontal axis. By evaluating the horizontal against the vertical, they bring the architectonic to rest or, as they themselves put it, arrive at the equilibrium of relationships. One goal of new architecture is to establish tension within this equilibrium of relationships; another goal is truth to material, and a third is functional objectivity [Sachlichkeit]. The building that results is a compromise between these goals, which have been achieved to a greater or lesser degree, and concessions to previous efforts and local relationships. The principal leaders of the movement in Germany today are Mies van der Rohe from Aachen,5 Häring,6 Dr. Mahlberg and Kosina,7 Meier [sic], and Gropius,8 and Hilberseimer, who recently published a very instructive book on new architecture with the Aposs Press in Hannover, “Metropolis Architecture.”9 The works of Mies van der Rohe are objective, entirely true to materials, and yet lively and full of fantasy. His steel and glass skyscraper is such a natural construction [Gebilde], like the stem of a plant that grows and supports.10 Mies van der Rohe is innately brilliant. Häring is a kindred spirit. Mahlberg and Kosina innately understand the requirements of our transportation age. Their traffic tower at the intersection of Friedrichstrasse and Leipzigerstrasse and their projected plans for the overpass spanning Potsdamer Platz and for the Central Station in Berlin are brilliant constructions in terms of new form-creation with new materials. Meier and Gropius are brooders, who, like the entire Bauhaus, research every last possibility and every last consequence of material form-creation. Let me remind you of 232
the experimental house by the Bauhaus in Weimar, as well as their versatile models for prefabricated houses (see Bauhaus Book no. 3).11 Their most beautiful building is the Benscheid [sic] factory in Alfeld, the Fagus-Werk.12 When it comes to working with new materials while taking into account social requirements and comfort, the most sober and, at the same time, the most rigorous architect is Ludwig Hilberseimer. His works are entirely unromantic, objective to the point of austerity, and yet so functional that all the inhabitants of Greater Berlin could, according to his plans, be housed twice over within the confines of the Ring-Bahn, with everyone living in comfortable, healthy, and sunny quarters and with each person having a room of their own. A major pioneer for the new architecture in Germany is Peter Behrens.13 By making the strictest of all the straight-edged shapes, the cube, the basis for his architecture, he emphasized strict form-creation. This remains palpable in his works, even though it is hidden beneath various layers. After Peter Behrens, the movement split in two directions, the objective, which I mentioned first, and the fantastic. And so, in Germany we find Taut,14 Poelzig,15 and Mendelssohn [sic]16 working alongside Hilberseimer and Mies, just as in Holland we find the unobjective fantasists of the Wendingen Group17 working next to the strict Stijl architects. However, here as there, the good buildings by these fantasists were still in keeping with clear objectivity, but, unfortunately, only by accident. Bruno Taut commits a completely misguided, Dadaist act by painting a city like Magdeburg in ghastly colors (see Merz 7).18 Unfortunately, it has become a common disease to use color to deface German cities that were originally never meant to be colorful. And if we then also have colorful trams roaming like parrots among the buildings and if the facades are built like cheap kitsch, too, and the vivid colors have partially washed away, it can make you feel sick, just as it does in Magdeburg. Then again, this same Taut manages achievements such as the thoroughly objective and imaginative material form-creation of the Magdeburg cattle auction hall, whose interior resonates like new music.19 Despite his vivid imagination, Poelzig remains an architect. He often manages to match the beauty of an American corn silo.20 Mendelssohn’s imagination, on the other hand, leads him to create highly unusual form-creations, such as the Einstein Tower in Potsdam. Everything about this tower, which houses the largest telescope in the world, has been carefully and deliberately calculated, but it is the most disgusting, modeling-clay architecture I know. The rooms inside are slightly musty, especially the cellar, where the astronomers have to work most of the time. And inside, everything appears lopsided, like something out of the dream world of the Caligari film.21 That this same architect also built housing estates like the Dutch architects of the Stijl Group and that it was he who also built the rather decent two-family house at Karolinger Platz in Westende is a pleasant surprise to me.22 The new architecture oscillates between these two poles, between Hilberseimer and Mendelssohn, between the skyscraper city and the Einstein Tower. You can
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learn only so much in the Kestner-Gesellschaft, because the exhibition, although it is very good, does not claim to be comprehensive. For instance, the architects Meier and Gropius will be included in the Bauhaus exhibition next month. But in addition to the leading figures mentioned here, you will see a whole series of more or less important and, at times, quite interesting architects exhibited at the Kestner. If you have a look at the Bauhaus Book no. 1, “New Architecture” [sic] and the book by Hilberseimer noted above, you will be able to formulate your own opinions on new architecture based on your own observations.
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(80) LIFE’S PATH Unpublished typescript, “Lebensweg” (5 May 1926), Hans and Lily Hildebrandt Papers, 1899– 1979, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 850676, Box 42, Folder 26. Part of this text was published (as noted) in the Das Wissen um Expressionismus: Führer durch die Ausstellung der Abstrakten; Große Berliner Kunstausstellung [The knowledge of expressionism: Guidebook for the exhibition of abstract artists; Great Berlin art exhibition] (Berlin: Kunstarchiv Verlag, 1926), 41.
I was born much too early, or else there would have been no need for me to participate in this struggle over goose down, and that was on 20 June 1887. Everyone’s calling in life is to fabricate down, and we need legions of it if we want to stuff a comfortable pillow. Then there is the mighty wind that sweeps through our age. You have to hold onto your down feathers with both hands so they won’t be blown to infinity. And only once someone dies, can he bring his small down feathers to the great pillow manufacturer in the museum, that is, if he still has them. The pillow manufacturer then stuffs all the down feathers in a pillow that will only be exhibited and may not be used. So there you have it, and now you struggle to keep your hands on your down feathers, despite the storm. This is the path my life has taken or the run of my life, without my actually having to run. And now I offer my down feathers to this esteemed audience for you to use, until the great pillow manufacturer demands them from you. Buy five or six down feathers from us, so you can rest on them your entire life. Now, it is always very valuable to give your goose down a name. I called mine Merz. Merz is not Commerz [i.e., commerce], just the second half of it. Without the Com it is not a matter of trade but an artistic act. What art is, you know as well as I do.1 It is nothing more than rhythm. But if that is true, I will not burden myself with imitation or soul but will provide rhythm, plain and simple, using any and all materials— tram tickets, oil paint, woodblocks, yes, indeed, that’ll make your eyes pop— or with words in poetry, sound in music, as you wish. So, do not focus on the material, for it is not essential. Do not seek any hidden imitation of nature or inquire after the stirrings of the soul, but rather try to recognize the rhythm in shape and color, despite the unusual material. It is as far from Bolshevism as the modern pageboy haircut. Instead, it is the essence of all art, that is, every artwork of every age had to satisfy this primary demand, to be rhythm. Otherwise, it was not art.
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(81) FACTS FROM MY LIFE Unpublished typescript, “Daten aus meinem Leben” (7 June 1926). Schwitters sent a slightly modified version to the art historian Hans Hildebrandt (Hans and Lily Hildebrandt Papers, 1899– 1979, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 850676, Box 42, Folder 26).
It is not particularly interesting to write down facts from your life. You can’t lie, you haven’t experienced anything significant, and yet you live. Isn’t the time of my birth completely irrelevant— except for a fortune-teller? But I’m not a prophet, and I don’t believe that the lines on a palm, the time of birth, or the events in life can tell anything about a person, who will always turn out to be different than predicted. For instance, when I was 3, my mother was told I would die soon, while still a child. I am now 39 and still alive. It’s true, I grow a year older every year, and I can predict that everybody will be a year older every year, unless they drop dead. For all the other prophets out there, here’s something for you to work with: I was born on 20 June 1887, unfortunately somewhat too early, since now I won’t have firsthand knowledge of my god-like stature. But then, we human beings are all born too early. You can always come back later and enjoy your fame then. For instance, I am convinced that I was Rembrandt van Rijn in a former life. After all, only scoundrels are modest. And my heart rejoices to see the enthusiasm with which people revere me in this existence. By the way, I originally wanted to be a coachman in order to chauffeur my mother around, then I intended to study physics, because I had even less talent for that than painting. However, I decided to study art and enrolled at the College of Applied Arts in Hannover, thereby ensuring that it will be famous one day, with a plaque that reads: “Here sojourned, etc.” Then I spent five years at the Dresden Academy as a model student— or so it seemed to me. Which also deserves a plaque. I studied portraiture with Bantzer.1 And for this they made Professor Bantzer director of the Kassel Academy. At some point I also tried to embarrass the Berlin Academy by enrolling as a student there. After four weeks I was dismissed on the grounds that I was entirely without talent. I share this fate with Menzel. Then I got a master’s studio with Kühl in Dresden. Here, his Excellency the Professor Privy Councilor himself sat on my palette in my studio. And from then on, he no longer wanted to review my work. However, this incident inspired my interest in abstract painting. The palette split straight down the middle. Then I went to Professor Hegenbarth to paint animals and learn about color. After that came the war. I married and am still happily married to Helma, née Fischer; my father-in-law is a procurator 2 for the Hannover Tram Company. Perhaps you can draw some conclusions about my art from this, if only false ones. During the war 236
I valiantly remained in the fatherland, where I courageously spared myself for the fatherland and the history of art. I served as a soldier for just three months, and behind a desk at that. I then sought permission to be recruited for the next best job, working as a draftsman of hand levers and rack-and-pinions for Hill-clutches at the Wülfel steelworks, another place that deserves a plaque. With the outbreak of the great and glorious revolution, I immediately quit my job and now I live for art alone. At first, I tried to construct new forms of art from the remnants of past culture. This resulted in Merz-painting, a kind of painting that uses any kind of material, taking as much delight in Pelikan paints3 as in waste found on the trash heap. And so, I enjoyed the revolution in its most entertaining form and am considered a Dadaist without actually being one— which is why I was able to introduce Dadaism to Holland with complete impartiality. It was in Holland that I first encountered architecture, despite having at one time studied architecture for two semesters during the war. Now I publish the architectural series Aposs, which has already issued a 32-page magazine by Ludwig Hilberseimer on urban architecture.4 You absolutely must read it. And you must read my journal MERZ too, now in its fourth year. I must also mention my extraordinary gift for poetry, which I discovered during the revolution when I composed my famous poem to Anna Blume. An especially important aphorism of mine goes: “With her legs, a girl enthralls, but I’m a man, I’ve none at all.”5 My sound poems are even more important: “Fümmsböwötääzääuu, pögiff, kwiiee.:edessinnnnrrrrrr, Ii Ee, mpifftillfftoooo till, Jüü Kaa. Rinnzekete bee bee nnz krr müüü, ziiuu ennze, ziiuu rinnzkrrmüü; rakete bee bee. Rumpfftllfftoo? . . . . .”6 If you want to know more, the entire sonata will soon be printed in America, typography by El Lissitzky.7 So now you can form your own rough opinion. Yours sincerely, KURT SCHWITTERS. HANNOVER. WALDHAUSENSTRASSE 5II. 7 June 1926.
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(82) RHYTHM IN THE WORK OF ART “Der Rhythmus im Kunstwerk,” Hannoversches Tageblatt, 4. Beilage (17 October 1926). This article was based on a typescript titled, “Meine Anschauungen über künstlerische Dinge” [My views on artistic things] (Retelsdorf, 13 October 1926).
Granted, it is most important for an artist to create, but from time to time, the time is ripe for the question, what do I actually think about art. And here, at least, I can provide a few pointers. It is my opinion that an artist cannot be serious enough about his art and that he should not focus on anything else while making art— for instance, politics, or social, national, or religious, or even philosophical matters— since his art would be the first thing to suffer from such distractions, because a person can focus intensely on only one thing at a time. For me, art is a thing that grows as self-evidently from its own conditions as a tree, an animal, a crystal. Art is never the imitation of nature; rather, art is itself nature. Art is always creation, and so it can never be imitation— especially not the imitation of another person’s art, the kind of imitation that is so popular. This is not to say that an artwork cannot, in principle, represent something. When the demands of artistic rhythm are met, representation is certainly allowed, such as that which helps to further our understanding of the creation of form. The important thing in an image is rhythm: the rhythm of lines, planes, light and dark, and colors— in short, the rhythm of all the parts of the artwork, of its material. Rhythm becomes most apparent in the abstract work of art. Contrary to critical opinion, I take Hannover to be the preeminent art city of Germany. It is certainly the case that Hannover lagged behind while art followed many a wrong turn, but it has caught up with everything again. In a city as odd as Hannover— where Steegemann, Haarmann, Gleichmann, Wilhelm Gross, Behrens, Dorner, von Garvens, and many others live side by side, where typhoid epidemics break out— an equally distinctive art is bound to flourish.1 Unlike the other so-called art cities, we are not bound to outmoded traditions, and instead we enjoy exemplary support for the arts here in Hannover. The KestnerGesellschaft has exhibited nearly everything that is being created today, and our museum is the only one in Germany that has a room for abstract painting.2 No wonder, then, Hannover is home to the greatest number of abstract painters; there are four: Vordemberge, Nitschke [sic], Buchheister, and me.3 And I believe that it is precisely a city like Hannover that has given me the most valuable stimulation. 238
(83) MERZ-BOOK Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Merzbuch” (Retelsdorf, 16 October 1926).
This text consists of rough, preliminary notes for a book planned for the Bauhaus book series. Although a “Merz-Buch” by Schwitters was publicized as forthcoming in materials circulated by the publisher, Albert Langen Verlag, it never appeared.
Contemporary Art Is the Future of Art Merz is a standpoint open to everyone. From this standpoint they can survey everything, not just art, in a word: from here they can survey the world. For me, Merz has become a worldview [Weltanschauung]; I can no longer change my standpoint; Merz is where I stand. This is the result of a decade of work. I beg the reader not to be annoyed with me for writing at length about myself here, but the development of the Merz concept relates closely to my own personal development. They are inextricably linked. Even though you can see the influence Merz has had on the world here and there, such as, strangely enough, in groups where the journal Mavo seems to be completely Merz, you will find that, as far as I can tell, my followers have not contributed anything substantially new and important to its development.1 The standpoint I call Merz has three premises: 1. Man cannot create the way an almighty deity can; he cannot create something from nothing, but only from specific conditions, from specific material. Human creation only gives form to something already given. 2. Perfection is unattainable to us humans. 3. In an artwork, the artist wants to strive only for what he can achieve. Add to this a serious determination to do everything as well, as honestly, as openly, as logically as possible. What results from this is Merz. ∙∙∙
Merz is a smile by the grave and gravity at happy occasions. [Schwitters includes a column of ditto marks under “Merz is” suggesting that at a later date he planned to fill in at least six more aphorisms in this vein.] I think it is best if I explain how I came to Merz, then Merz will become clear to you. Perhaps it will interest you to hear something about my childhood days. By that I mean my artistic childhood. First, the facts of my life. I was born 20 June 1887. Father merchant, clothing retail business, mother manageress in father’s busi239
ness. Grandparents, craftsmen. School, Realgymnasium I in Hannover until the Maturum. Autodidact during school years. At the time, watercolors as seen in Figure 1, Harzburg.2 Please note the same rhythm, the same spatial sensibility in this watercolor and my most recent Merz-works. This is a personal matter. Every person has his or her own specific rhythm, a personal rhythm. The artist should cultivate the rhythm of the artwork, not one resulting from his own peculiarities. From 1910 to 1914 Royal Saxon Academy, Dresden, Professor Bantzer (Portrait), Director Kühl (Genre).3 From this period I am including reproductions of Still Life with Commu nion Chalice (Figure 2) and The Cauldron Carrier (Figure 3)4 [manuscript ends]
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(84) STANDARD STAGE Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Normalbühne” (17 October 1926).
Standard Stage (A few practical instructions:) (Copied down on 17 October 1926 in Retelsdorf ) The colors and shapes are kept as basic as possible to keep open the possibility of the stage aligning or subordinating itself. However, this does not preclude the possibility that it will, under certain circumstances, intervene in the plot— that it will become active or perform as stage. The sidewalls are colored gray on three sides, black on the rear. The color of the floor is black. The colors of the segments and circular sections are black or red or white. The colors of the beams are black, white, or red. The colors of the cubes are black, white, gray, or red. The sphere is only red. White, red, blue, or yellow lights. There is only one red, one yellow, one blue. What is important is the correct distribution of focal points. It is very important that everything is adjusted to the requirements and conditions of the theater and the town in which the play is being performed. The stage manager must certainly be able to compose, must be able to master color and form. Moreover, he must have a deep-seated sense of the tensions in the play. He must be able to balance the optical conditions against the conditions of the plot and he must possess a rich imagination. In brief, he must have an artistic personality. The actor must act (act creatively, creatively act). (I think this has been used before.)
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13 Kurt Schwitters, Normalbühne (Standard Stage), sketch on p. 56 of the “Hamburg Notebook,” 1926. Copying pencil on paper, 3.8 × 9.5 cm (18.2 × 11.5 cm sheet). CR 1490. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner. Written in shorthand on the floor plan at right are the words “gray” and “black.”
(85) MY MERZ AND MY MONSTER MERZ: MODEL MARKETPLACE AT STURM “Mein Merz und Meine Monstre Merz: Muster Messe im Sturm,” Der Sturm 17, no. 7 (October 1926): 106– 7.
The French word, monstre— like Monster in German— has its root in the Latin monstrum, which describes a sign that is portentous or deviant, and monstrare, which means to show or demonstrate. Schwitters alludes to this etymology, particularly in his use of the word Muster (model, exemplar) in the title of a text published to introduce new works to the public. These works eschewed the incorporation of found matter that had characterized Merz from its outset, prompting his reflection on his relationship to the contemporary tendencies of constructivism and the rappel à l’ordre (call to order) in painting.
Back when I first exhibited Merz at Sturm, my goal was to make anything and everything available for art and to test my abilities on any material whatsoever. After all, art is nothing other than form-creation with any kind of material. Over time, I arrived at a certain selection, fully aware that this selection was just a personal preference. Today, what matters most to me is precise selection and precise formcreation. Not that I thought I would be able to make a finished work of art in this way. In the end, it is downright impossible to create anything that is quite simply complete. But to those who now say that we are all, once again, painting from nature as we used to, I would reply that my new work has little to do with the copying of nature. Even Ingres’s influence on me can, at best, be described as marginal. I am hardly aware of it myself, but then I am not Picasso. I would suggest that art criticism would be better off noting that my influences were Moholy, Mondrian, and Malevich; after all, we are living in the age of M, as in Merz. This is what’s called Monstructivism. A few years ago, everyone was talking about “Kandinsky, Klee, Kokoschka,” all the Ks. Before that it was Lissitzky with L. We are just going through the entire ABC of developments. Today, fashion has reached M, because that is how the alphabet continues. And one day, when we have advanced to S, the name will suddenly be “Schwitters.” Yes, indeed, art is fashion. You ask why I no longer use any old material? It is not that I have resolved formcreation for all materials; such as thing is downright impossible and, ultimately, 243
unimportant. The only thing that is important is the principle. Currently it is precise form that I want to present to you alongside the earlier glued and nailed works. Not that I consider form to be paramount since that would make my art decorative. No, it is the song that resonated within me as I worked and that I poured into the form and which now also resonates for you through that form. Are you musical? I mean, musical for colors, marks, and lines? Incidentally, do not believe that I was working in opposition to older art. I am opposed to what is old, not what is art. Quite the opposite, I want to help develop an instrument that every artist can use. As to the instrument, I am of the opinion that no age knows itself well enough to know what is valuable and what will last. Certainly, we are living in an age of technology, which distinguishes us from earlier times. This will not distinguish us from later times, since we will retain the machinery. We are also living in an age of transportation, of practical requirements. All this will endure in the future. But whether art should work according to the same principles as technology is something nobody can prove to me. Constructivism certainly has its value, for it demonstrates that you may even be able to make artworks like this, under certain circumstances. But it runs contrary to its own program, which seeks to replace art with construction without acknowledging that the most important aspect for construction is rhythm. But if we are calling for the art of our age, shouldn’t our very redemption from the age of technology, of transportation, of practical necessity be the art of this age? Every age must redeem itself, because it suffers only from itself. But there is nothing that can redeem the spirit of commerce, the spirit of practical construction, more than the most useless of all the things in the world: “Art.” This is why, even today, I openly dare to commit myself to art. I do know that today, when art is no longer fashionable, it is risky to discredit yourself in this manner. Then again, since “M” is fashionable now, why should Merz stand back? Art was fashionable with Klee and Kandinsky, in the K series. But I have inherited the old tradition. If no more art were alive today, one artist would nevertheless still live on— I already hear you give three cheers: That artist’s name is, and even if it were a disgrace and even if it bore witness to the person involved being a reactionary fool— I can say it calmly and without arrogance, because today you are more likely to find distinction being a chauffeur than an artist— so the only remaining artist then would be— three cheers once more— none other than yours faithfully Kurt Schwitters
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(86) CALL IT COINCIDENCE Unpublished typescript, “Nennen Sie es Zufall” (ca. mid-1920s).
Schwitters’s punctuation and orthography leaves open the question whether he is discussing a specific film with this title or offering reflections about a type of film form more generally.
Notes: Distinct from the usual kind of films in that: 1 ) the intertitles are not mere plot expositions, but literary texts in their own right; 2 ) the intertitles do not interrupt the long sections of naturalistic representation; and 3 ) the plot is as uncomplicated as possible giving the visual qualities of the film greater independence. Concerning point 1: The titles make up a text that, when taken on its own, would no longer need to be illustrated by images. It is written in a form that can be described as lyrical poetry, with ample opportunity for emotion, for sentimentality. The images that accompany this text run parallel to it or, at times, follow their own path. In any case, the title that was there because the operator couldn’t make himself understood without it has been excluded to avoid embarrassment, and he asks your forgiveness that it had to be there. Concerning point 2: Here, as with point 3, we can point out that the long sections of the film do not need to be interrupted by text, because the plot is so simple. And the plot is so simple because anybody who has seen the preamble with the texts that frame the film should be able to understand it. And even somebody who did not see the preamble should be able to guess most of it. When you exclude the text you unquestionably heighten the attention because you do not need to listen to the film’s mystery being resolved repeatedly with unambiguous, empty words. You see and do not need to hear. Concerning point 3: It goes without saying that the operator must be very skillful in the case of a visual as opposed to a literary film. The optical [effect] must be very appealing. The viewer’s anticipation, you might even say his interest in the plot, remains keen right up to the resolution, just before the end. The desire for resolution becomes very strong, because care has been taken not to introduce inter245
secting subplots that would temporarily distract attention from the main plot. A strong counterplot strengthens the plot. Incidentally, the viewer remains unaware of the final plot twist right up to the end, which nevertheless seems plausible and allows the counterplot suddenly to prevail. Novelty, uniformity, simplicity, tension, empathy: these are some key terms that could be used to define the quality of film, call it coincidence.
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(87) THE ARTIST AND HIS TITLES “Der Künstler und seine Bildertitel,” in Sonderausstellung Kurt Schwitters (Merzausstellung), Kunstverein für Böhmen, Prague, 30 December 1926– 16 January 1927. Reprinted in Kurt Schwitters Almanach 2 (1983): 134– 35.
Kurt Schwitters has given his drawings titles that viewers will, at times, find utterly incomprehensible, and for this reason they presented the greatest difficulties for the translation of our Czech catalogue. We therefore asked the artist for clarification and received the following answer, which is certainly interesting and characteristic: Concerning the titles of my Merz-drawings I would point out that most of them are just labels. You can distinguish three groups: 1. names of cities, landscapes, people; 2. deliberately misleading titles that were clearly chosen to underscore the fact that with abstract works there can be no connection between title and work; 3. titles derived from any of the printed letters found on the glued picture. You can translate the city names, etc., as well as the factual titles of the second group, while the titles derived from the printed letters in the drawings cannot be translated. Titles are, fundamentally, things unto themselves, and it is effectively irrelevant what title I give an abstraction, it just needs to be memorable. And a title can also be memorable without any recognizable connection to the work. I experience something strange when I title my pictures. Once, when I gave a random set of drawings a series of titles based on city names, they acquired a strange internal relationship without my knowledge or intention, such that one drawing, for instance, became exactly suited for one city, while another was suited for another city. There are certainly specific internal connections, and there is no question that the artist serves as their instrument, though he may not be able to give an account of the matter. And the value of art consists in just such unconsciously sensed connections with the universe.
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(88) MERZ 20. KURT SCHWITTERS CATALOGUE Merz 20. Kurt Schwitters Katalog (1927).
“KURT SCHWITTERS gives us back what we have long been missing: mystery. It seems to me that honesty is the basic feature of his work. He is a genuine human being and one of those rare people who faithfully follow the laws dictated by his inner necessity. He seeks the immediate, the spirit [Geist].”1 I lead with these comments by Adolf Behne printed in Cicerone. For why would I reprint criticism that is neither as objective nor as wise and insightful as Behne’s? After all, an unbridgeable rift currently separates a large number of art lovers and their associated critics from the majority of contemporary artists. One group wants nature to be copied beautifully; the other group aims to set a construct next to nature that is as systematic as nature, that is itself nature. For more on this matter, see issue 8/9 of Merz, called nasci, which discusses this topic in detail and with conviction. Eds. Lissitzky/Schwitters. Art is never the imitation of nature but instead grows according to laws that are as stringent as those found in nature. I am currently showing an exhibition of my development that was presented, in part, at Sturm in November 1926.2 The exhibition will open at the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden in March 1927 before traveling to Schames in Frankfurt a. M. in May, to Bochum in July, to the Ruhmeshalle in Barmen in August, to the Gallery Dr. Becker in Cologne in September, and on and on, from Braunschweig to wherever you like: Constantinople, New York, Shanghai— everywhere, hopefully. As of yet, this is just my project, but by showing your interest, you can help make it a reality. So far, it is only traveling as far Braunschweig, thanks to good will. Dear public, dear critics: show interest. You must be wondering, how did this beautiful dream for art lovers everywhere finally come about? Quite simply: I will be exactly forty years old on 20 June 1927. That is about half a man’s lifetime, and it is something you want to celebrate by showing half your life’s work. There is much to be seen, and, accordingly, it provides beautiful and ample prospects for the future, making this an interesting and important event, period. I want to take this opportunity to express my deepest and heartfelt thanks for the scores of congratulatory notes that I will receive, since I will not be able to respond to them all personally owing to their sheer magnitude. This exhibition includes
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14 Cover for Merz 20. Kurt Schwitters Katalog (1927). Portrait photograph of Kurt Schwitters by Genja Jonas. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner.
paintings and drawings from my development, and so I would like to mention a few things about this development first. It is the usual development that we all go through, beginning with the imitation of nature and then moving on to abstract works. But you will want to hear all the details. I was born in Hannover in the year 1887, the son of Henriette Schwitters (née Beckemeyer) and Eduard Schwitters. My parents owned a ladies’ clothing store on Theaterplatz in Hannover. I attended the Realgymnasium I, where I received my Maturum, and then I went to work at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hannover for one year. Then I was a student at the Dresden Academy from 1909 until the beginning of the war, specifically with Professor Bantzer (portraiture), Privy Councilor Kühl (genre painting), and Professor Hegenbarth (animal studies).3 You can still trace the influence of my teachers in my earliest works: Kühl in 1 and 4, Hegenbarth in 2 and 3, and, even now, in 31. You can see Bantzer’s influence again in 17, from 1921.4 During the war, I fought on all the fronts of Hannover’s Waterlooplatz, but I never saw action. But once I completed my desk job, I joined the Wülfel steelworks for my obligatory service, where I trained as a technical draughtsman (the next best occupation) and specialized in drawing hand levers for Hill-clutches. I also spent two semesters studying architecture. In the stormy war years, without a teacher and hardly any time to work, I underwent my transformation internally and externally in my develop-
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ment from copying to painting. I continued to work on my first attempts from my time in Bantzer’s painting classes, which culminated in 1918 with my first purely abstract oil paintings, such as no. 13. You will find traces of the transition from Hegenbarth to abstract works in my exhibition in the sequence 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.5 Here you can clearly see how the precise imitation of nature was gradually neglected in favor of an ever more intense pictorial composition. It is not possible to do both intensely at the same time, to copy and to paint. The individual and particular observation of nature increasingly gives way to the objective and general study of the image and its laws. At first I still attempted to paint quite specific and particular moods, such as the feeling of infinity in 13, for instance. But the goal is the universal, the whole. In the paintings from the years that followed, the expression became more and more universal. And in the end, it became a completely abstract expression of yellow, red, blue set against gray and white, with a particular preference for simple planar relationships and sometimes even just vertical-horizontal composition. It was irrelevant for this development in color and form that, for purely human reasons (let us say, a sense of morality or universal justice), when making paintings and in addition to the colors manufactured in tubes of paint, I used any type of color whatsoever, regardless how it was produced. I simply fail to see why you cannot use old train tickets, pieces of driftwood, cloakroom numbers, wire or wheel parts, buttons, and other old junk from the attic or trash heap as material for paintings, just as you would use factory-produced paint. Effectively, this was a social consideration and, in artistic terms, a private pleasure. But above all, it was inevitable. I cannot fathom why anyone should get so upset with me just because I make pictures from discarded material. But that is how it is. I also cannot understand the reason for the lengthy, frequent, and often extremely malicious, even vicious criticism leveled at my pictures and poems from 1919 until about 1923. After all, no critic can ever hope to turn back time or influence me with his criticism. I coined the term MERZ for my new method of form-creation, which uses any and all materials as a matter of principle. This is the second syllable of the word Kommerz. It was derived from the Merz-Picture, a picture in which the word MERZ, cut and pasted from an advertisement for KOMMERZ UND PRIVATBANK, remained legible underneath the abstract forms.6 This word MERZ was modulated against the other parts of the picture and thereby became a part of the picture itself. And so it had to be placed in the spot where it is. You can understand why I would call a picture with the word MERZ the MERZ-Picture, just as I would call a painting with the word “und” the Und-Picture and a picture with the word “Arbeiter” the Arbeiter-Picture.7 When I exhibited these glued and nailed images for the first time at Sturm in Berlin, I searched for a collective name for this new genre, since I couldn’t categorize my pictures with old terms like expressionism, cubism, futurism, or what have you. So I gave all my pictures the generic name MERZ-pictures, after the most character-
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istic picture. Later I expanded the meaning of MERZ, first to include my poetry (I have been writing poetry since 1917) and, ultimately, all my activities. Now I call myself MERZ. In my exhibition, numbers 14– 16, 18, and 19 are typical MERZ-pictures.8 These were pictures from a time spent passionately researching materials, during my revolutionary period. From my study of materials and pictorial laws, there gradually emerged selection, integration, the fruits of my labor, which led, in the year 1924, to my first attempts at greater stringency, simplification, and a more general expression: the pictures 21– 28.9 These are typical transitional pictures that show my shift toward the new, unambiguous expression I first managed to achieve in 1926, while working with a view of the North Sea in Holland. I painted most of the new paintings there in the studio of Lajos von Ebneth in Kijkduin: 32– 45.10 It is still Merz, because I still allow details not of my own making to inspire me. But these moments of inspiration are so rare and the contrapuntal working-through [Durcharbeitung] is so pronounced that the works must be seen as compositions first and as Merz second. Now I have found my new expressive form again, and so I have decided to present my works in public again, hence this exhibition and this catalogue. The two new paintings 46 and 47 from 1927 are bigger, but they are essentially no different than those from the previous year— completely worked-through compositions derived from details found by accident.11 I exhibited pictures 17 and 31 to show that I have continued to study nature, every year and for a short time, alongside my work on abstract compositions.12 Perhaps this is also just a private pleasure; in any case, I do not want to lose the connection to my earlier stages of development. For I think it is of paramount importance that, in the end, one’s entire life, in all it has striven for, stands there complete, that nothing is lost, even if it was once wrong or lackluster. After all, we humans, with our thousand weaknesses and one small, ideal spark, can only present ourselves openly and honestly and work on ourselves in an ideal sense. But we cannot turn ourselves into an ideal being. More often than not, the attempt ends in hypocrisy. I have nothing to hide, not even the fact that, to this day, the sentimentality of copying from nature sticks so pleasantly with me, without any artistic intentions, only for orientation. KURT SCHWITTERS, 4 March 1927.13
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paintings in the large merz exhibition
1927
merz - theater 14
basic configuration There is a Merz-theater and a Standard Stage. Here I am referring to the Standard MERZ Stage. The Merz-theater, cf. Anna Blume, Verlag Paul Steegemann, is only a stimulating idea. The Standard MERZ Stage is a stage that uses the most basic forms as a neutral background for any plot. It can be adapted with ease and is intended to be changed during the action in order to support the expression of the plot. The scenery in the wings can be rotated, gray in front and black behind. The sun above is red. merz - drawings and
i-drawings
Merz-drawings are what I call small, glued, and occasionally painted-over compositions. The term “drawing” is really not that fitting, since they are actually painted, that is to say, they are small, color-planar works. But because of some oversight, this incorrect term crept in early on and now it cannot be easily changed. But please regard the small Merz-drawings only as paintings. The same goes for the “i”-drawings, most of which, though not all, are paintings. With “i” I am referring to compositions that have come about through the act of seizing alone, where the artist has cut out extracts from nature, which grows haphazardly. The term “i” is my
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invention. I discussed this topic at length in the second issue of Merz.15 Moreover, Merz 7 describes how the “i”-principle can be applied to the modern metropolis.16 Just to be sure you understand me correctly, an “i”-drawing is, for instance, a section cut from a piece of misprinted paper, which I have not subsequently changed in any way and which should have a distinct expression as a composition that is beyond reproach. I expressly say: “should have,” because this is a very rare phenomenon, since nature, which grows haphazardly when seen from our analytic perspective, rarely creates things that are already rhythmically balanced in an extract. Nature is formed so harmoniously and systematically as a whole that it can serve as an example for us to emulate, but in its details, it is not thoroughly formed. Which is also why painters are not allowed to copy details either.17 merz - poetry
It is not important that I worked on sculptures in the meantime, since I have produced nothing that is really new apart from Merz-reliefs. Even less important is my private passion for music, especially for playing the piano. Composition with musical notation is still a mystery to me; perhaps one day I will suddenly be able to solve it. For I strive to make my activities in all areas of art harmonious, because each area informs and enriches the other. However, I have composed a lot of poetry, and with great pleasure. Let me draw your attention to the books Anna Blume (published by Paul Steegemann), Auguste Bolte, Sturmbilderbuch, Blume Anna (published by Sturm), and Memoiren In BleiE, but above all Die Märchen vom Paradiese [sic] and Die Scheuche, published by Aposs.18 I began writing poetry in 1917, which, on the surface, was similar to that of August Stramm:
Unstupid (1917) So hear glant scream pained Morea Mamauer gleam dislarned thou I sing Shrill glowteth glant équalte fine Like wheel axles scream to scream Embers paineth bodyhot dislarned shine O hear! I dislarneth painèd pains. Seeyoo Sibeelee splashes the moon O see you, o sing along; Libeelee goldens Glotea. But Paain Dream throttles my sing.19 I soon achieved my own form, in my Dadaist period. Of course, you have all heard of my poem “Anna Blume.” So I will merely quote a Dadaist aphorism here: “With her legs, a girl enthralls, but I’m a man, I’ve none at all,”20 and the Dadaistically melodramatic poem: “And when she looked inside the bag, she saw red cherries there inside. And when she looked inside the bag, she saw red cherries there inside.
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So then she closed the bag right up, so then the bag was closed, so then the bag was closed!!”21 Writing poetry led me to give recitals and I have already performed in many places, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brunswick, Bremen, Delft, Drachten, Dresden, Einbeck, Den Haag, Haarlem, Hamburg, Hannover, s’Hertogenbosch, Hildesheim, Holzminden, Jena, Leer, Leiden, Leipzig, Lüneburg, Magdeburg, Prague, Rotterdam, Sellin, Utrecht, Weimar, Zwickau. It takes you here, it takes you there. Wiesbaden, Frankfurt a. M., Paris, and Cologne are on the docket. I like giving recitals and do so with great enthusiasm, and I would be grateful if other places were to offer me the opportunity to recite. Please write to me. One section of my poetry, sound poetry, requires public performance, and it can only be read by someone who has closely studied my explanation of the notation— that is, if he is capable of vocal creation at all. My Sonata in Ur-Sounds is a work with variations that takes thirtyfive minutes to perform.22 Here I quote a new sound poem:
priimiitittii. priimiitittii tisch tesch priimiitittii tesch tusch priimiitittii tischa tescho priimiitittii tescho tuschi priimittii priimiitittii priimiitittii too priimiitittii taa priimiitittii too priimiitittii taa priimiitittii tootaa priimiitittii tootaa priimiitittii tuutaa priimiitittii tuutaa priimiitittii tuutaatoo priimiitittii tuutaatoo priimiitittii tootaatuu priimiitittii tootaatuu23 Aside from such purely abstract poetry, I am now writing fairy tales and grotesques too. The more substantial pieces worth mentioning include “Punsch von Nobel” as well as “Totenbett mit happy end,” a comedy.24 My grotesques have given me employment at the leading newspapers, e.g., Berliner Tageblatt, Frankfurter Zeitung, Hamburger Fremdenblatt, Prager Presse, Hannoverscher Kurier, Schleswiger Nachrichten,
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Badische Presse, Hannoversches Tageblatt, Bohemia, Braunschweiger Neueste Nachrich ten, Schlesische Zeitung, Hartungsche Zeitung, Westfälische Neueste Nachrichten, Prager Tagblatt, Haagsche Post, Wiesbadener Fremdenblatt . . . The most interesting of my newspaper-grotesques include, among others, “The Lottery,” “The Borrowed Bicycle,” “Courtship,” “Magician,” “Radio,” “Horizontal Stories,” “Monkey Dead . . . Shop Closed,” “Pig Farmer and Poet Prince,” “Seven Rabbits,” “Peep Men and Pig,” “My Suicide,” “Hamburg Harbor” . . .25 At this point I will quote two more poems from 1926:
The Last Fly. Autumn has come, and the curtains are empty. The flies are departing for the summery south. Autumn has come, and the curtains are empty. A pair of orphaned flyspecks on the eyeglasses by the lamp do still recall the idyll from some golden bygone time. Autumn has come, and the curtains are empty. Only a single last fly does sing me its song. It has much to do, for it has to provide the illusion of the summery noise of the legions of summery flies. Little fly, my sweets, play roundabout my nose now with prodigal chirping, buzz about my dreamy and forever ticklish ear, that again it may be summer. Oh you divine last fly, now you even sit down on the tip of my nose. Hail thee! Do sit, my sweet, get warm, for the cold season has begun. Lick off the breadcrumbs on my nose, till you are quite satisfied, for I owe it to you that you remind me of summer.26 My sweet doll I don’t care at all When I take my kisser And plant one on you, sister.27 The MERZ-ADVERTISING AGENCY Hannover, Waldhausenstrasse 5, KURT SCHWITTERS will work on
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15 Clockwise from left: Genja Jonas, Portrait of Kurt Schwitters, ca. 1926. / Kurt Schwitters, Billige Kissen; Handarbeitsgeschäft Buchheister, Hannover, 1925. Newspaper advertisement, 11.5 × 12.5 cm. First published in Hannoverscher Kurier (18 November 1925). WVZ 64. / Kurt Schwitters, Ich bin seit 1844 Fachgeschäft in Glas Porzellan Steingut. / I. C. Herhold, Hannover, 1926. Newspaper advertisement, 6.5 × 8.5 cm. First published in Hannoverscher Kurier (21 March 1926). WVZ 67. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner. Below this advertisement, Schwitters includes a quotation from Max Burchartz, from the leaflet “Gestaltung in der Reklame” (Form-creation in advertising, 1924), which appeared on the cover of Merz 11. Typoreklame: Pelikan-Nummer (1925): “good advertising is reasonably priced. A small amount of high-quality advertising that shows its superiority in every respect creates an effect that exceeds a far greater amount of unsuitable, clumsily organized advertising.” The remaining printed text in this image reads: KURT SCHWITTERS: recites grotesques. / Two designs from the Merz-Advertising Agency, Hannover.
designs for all types of propaganda purposes. Member of the Union of German Graphic Designers.28 Place your trust in us and please offer us your valued business. We will find the right solution. I recommend all ART COLLECTORS put in an order for MERZ 3, a lithograph portfolio with six original Merz lithos by Kurt Schwitters, and MERZ 5, a portfolio with seven ostentatious Arpades by Hans Arp, priced 60 and 30 marks respectively. Order from Merz-Publications, Hannover, Waldhausenstrasse 5. Editions of fifty. All previous issues of the Merz magazine are also still available.
No. 151 . . . etc. DESIGNS for ADVERTISING29
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(89) [ELLA BERGMANN-MICHEL] Unpublished typescript (Eppstein im Taunus, 25 March 1927).
The artist Ella Bergmann-Michel (1896– 1971) worked primarily in collage and drawing with a brief but intense period of activity as a photographer and filmmaker in the late 1920s and early 1930s. She lived with her husband, Robert Michel (1897– 1983), in the village of Eppstein in the Taunus. She was an active member of the Bund das neue Frankfurt (Union of the New Frankfurt), a collective of artists and intellectuals who worked to promote the city’s massive modern social housing initiative. The couple both trained at the Großherzoglich-Sächsische Hochschule in Weimar just before it was absorbed into the newly established Bauhaus in 1919. They frequently opened their home to visiting artists, filmmakers, and designers from Germany, the Netherlands, and Russia. From 1921, Schwitters was a close friend of the pair and a regular guest. In the summer of 1927, he organized the first meeting of the ring neue werbegestalter (ring of new advertising designers) at their house, with Michel as one of the founding members (see text 118). In September that year, he toured the Netherlands with them, visiting Hannah Höch, J. J. P. Oud, Mart Stam, and Piet Zwart. This text shows that Schwitters held Bergmann-Michel’s work in especially high esteem— a sentiment he stressed in his public lecture on modern art and design in Frankfurt in 1930 (see text 120). Beginning in 1923, she made a series of collages in which she incorporated reproductions of color spectra cut from physics textbooks. Stam included a selection of these collages in one of the houses he built for the Werkbund Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart that opened in July 1927 (see text 98). The architect later commissioned her first film, Wo wohnen alte Leute? (Where do the elderly live? 1931), documenting his home for the elderly in the new Frankfurt settlements.
Ella Bergmann-Michel and her influence on the new development in painting: The general development of the new art has led to an ever-greater simplification of form, color, and line, culminating in the current paintings of Mondrian. With Mondrian we are no longer speaking of form in the traditional sense, because in Mondrian’s paintings negative form is always equal to positive form; there is no more play among forms. Form as such is thereby sublated [aufgehoben]. All forms are rectangular, all lines are vertical and horizontal, only the three primary colors are used, i.e., aside from black, white, and gray, there is only red, yellow, and blue. This restriction was important in order to contrast system and clarity against the 257
arbitrariness of the imitation of nature and the painting of soulful expression in recent decades. Mondrian is just one among many who have restricted themselves to the primary colors, and Lissitzky restricts himself for the most part to vermillion as the only distinct color. However, what is important is not restriction per se but the clarity that results. And if it is possible to return from such restriction to variety without losing clarity, then this is a reward we should welcome. To my knowledge, no one aside from Ella Bergmann has achieved this clarity while maintaining variety in color composition. Let me remind you of the architecture of Magdeburg painted according to Taut’s system, where the color green could only ever appear confusing and brutal when placed next to the three primary colors.1 In her color drawings, now on view at the Museum in Wiesbaden, Ella Bergmann has employed all the colors of the rainbow, including all the intermediary stages in the sequence of the rainbow.2 In doing so, she has achieved a completely clear and self-evident effect. This is an important achievement and an essential step beyond the system of the color triad. This work can serve as the basis for a system that leads to a method for painting. To this end, we need to study the relationships between neighboring colors: how they merge into each other, how their coexistence within the rainbow is regulated. The previously established color triad operates solely on the basis of oppositions while this rainbow only knows connections. Methodical painting previously only knew of connections through gray. Following Ella Bergmann’s influence, the new painting will evaluate the oppositions of the three primary colors against the transitions within the rainbow and thereby greatly enrich the method of painting.
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(90) [LETTER TO WASSILY KANDINSKY] Unpublished shorthand manuscript (26 April 1927).
Schwitters responds to the book by Wassily Kandinsky (1866– 1944), Punkt und Linie zu Fläche: Beitrag zu Analyse der malerischen Elemente, BauhausBücher 9 (Munich: A. Langen, 1926); translated by Howard Dearstyne and Hilla Rebay as Point and Line to Plane: Contribution to the Analysis of the Pictorial Elements (New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 1947).
Dear Mr. Kandinsky! I read your book, Bauhaus Book no. 9, with interest. Please don’t take it amiss if I ask you a few questions. After all, we write to stimulate ideas and exchange our views with other people, so criticism offered in the spirit of honesty cannot irritate you, and I hope you won’t mind my writing. On the whole, I must say that I heartily welcome your attempt to formulate a general theory of painting. However, I feel I must criticize your approach because I believe, with all due respect to your systematic execution of your argument, that it is far too complicated.You are attempting to develop a theory that would allow us to analyze any, let’s say abstract, painting. But the comparison you draw to music teaches us that, in the end, this undertaking is and must be impossible. After all, any abstract painting is such an infinite multiplicity that no individual theory will ever entirely encompass it. Similarly, a single theory can never adequately analyze a piece of music that does not limit itself to a few very simple elements. From all the innumerable sounds and noises, music selects only very few. Up until a few decades ago, it limited itself to the full and semitones alone, which were easily arranged into a system. And working with such a system, it is also easy to complete an analysis. Now music uses quarter and eighth tones, as well as noises, and this theory cannot be expanded to accommodate the musician’s imagination. It can’t keep up any more. In fact, painting takes the opposite path to music, moving from complexity to simplicity. And in order to develop a theory of painting, it would be necessary to reduce its elements to their most basic form first and then, working from these, to create paintings accordingly; in this case, translating the theoretical method of music into painting may indeed have a certain interest and may even be quite instructive and practical. Indeed, some things can easily be appropriated. All you need to do is translate them correctly, and I disagree with the way you went about the translation on page 37 and those that follow.
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16 Wassily Kandinsky, diagrams depicting the translation of themes from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony into graphic points and line, from Punkt und Linie zu Fläche: Beitrag zur Analyse der malerischen Elemente. Bauhausbuch 9 (Munich: Verlag Albert Langen, 1926), 37 and 39. Courtesy Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (84-B31231).
You have interpreted the notes that indicate sound as points: good. You maintain the temporal sequence of the language of music and have taken what we arbitrarily call high and low in music and set them high and low in the drawing. But what does high and low mean in a drawing? You can simply rotate the page. I find your idea to depict the drawn-out tones of the E-flat and D on page 37 using spiky forms or the overlaid melody on page 39 using a serpentine line to be quite extraordinary.1 However, this does not change the fact that such depiction is incorrect. I must emphasize this quite forcefully as these incorrect depictions can quite easily curb the development that you yourself are advancing in such an important way. As I see it, these translations must replace time with space, absolutely, irrevocably. Succession in equal intervals corresponds to a juxtaposition. Simultaneity corresponds to a togetherness. Nothingness in music is the absence of tone; in painting, it is the absence of color, such as black. Tone in music is color in painting; both are based on vibrations. But music has 7 octaves, painting just the one. Each bar is a measure of
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time, each square a measure of space. — It is very interesting that painting has just one octave, not much more and no less.— I believe this is the only basis for a general theory of painting. Your interpretations of point and line are elegant, even very interesting to read, but they are particular and ultimately inconsistent, as is anything that is particular, which is what I want to demonstrate here. Neither your work nor mine comes close to absolute painting. I believe, as of yet, no one has achieved absolute painting. Mondrian’s paintings come closest to it. All this aside, I do find it very useful and particularly interesting to engage with your observations. Indeed, your book lucidly explains your most recent work. Only I doubt its claim to universality and general significance. But above all, I believe a theory of painting must pursue quite different paths. To return to the example on page 37: here you haven’t transferred music into painting, but rather you’ve transferred musical notation, which already exists anyway— that is something fundamentally different. If we actually want to transfer music— which, incidentally, is not a task of painting— we would first have to assume a uniform temporal orientation, which I would then need to replace with a surface orientation. So I would have to draw a ribbon (horizontally, if you like) and start at a random point (from the left, perhaps). Music also starts at a random point. A black square would represent a pause, which would be followed by 3 blue ones and then by approximately 4½ yellow squares (because of the fermata), or put more precisely: orange-yellow squares, because it is E-flat, not E. In fact, E starts out yellow, bright and forceful, and ends darker and weaker, since “loud” and “soft” in music, that is, the intensity of the sound waves, correspond to the intensity of the light waves in painting, that is, the strong (bright) and weak (dark) in painting. Then there would follow a black square, 3 green ones, and 8½ orange ones. Of course, this translation cannot produce a painting any more than your attempt on page 37 can produce a drawing. And this is where the characteristic differences begin. Painting is not a ribbon; it does not have one single direction, but rather infinite directions. It conforms to a planar composition that extends in all directions and cannot simply be transferred into and out of music. We start with a rectangular surface, which we fill with colors belonging to the seven basic types, not forgetting black.2 The colors can be overlaid like a chord to create mixed colors. Because we can recognize only a few pure colors, there are only a few mixed colors. Of course, there are no nuances. Music
Painting
Time
Space
Succession Simultaneous
Juxtaposition Together
Pause
Black
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Tone cd / ef / ga / bc
Colors Red orange / yellow green / blue indigo / violet red
Bar
Square
Temporal orientation
Surface orientation
Loud and soft
Strong (bright) and weak (dark)
Chord
Mixed Color
Of course not. But we can apply the colors more or less thickly, thereby achieving gray too. We can also apply all colors with the utmost luminosity to get white. Of course, this would be impossible, but that is how it is. There is another assertion: that we can make only positive forms, that no form is merely the negative of the adjacent one, i.e., that all forms must be rectangles. In this way, there is only variation within the same form, that is to say formlessness. This is the only way that painting can actually become absolute, i.e., entirely released from form. This is the only type of painting for which a precise theory can be formulated and which can then be applied, with more or less skill and correctness, to all paintings. Thus, in one stroke, the terribly complicated foundation for a theory of painting becomes very simple. Conclusion: This would be the foundation for a logical and personal and pure theory of painting. It would be marvelous and, I believe, very promising if a man of your artistic insight and elementary force were to write a universal theory based on this foundation. In music, sound moves, the ear is at rest; in painting, the surface is at rest, the eye moves.
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(91) ELEMENTARY KNOWLEDGE IN PAINTING Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Elementarkenntnisse in der Malerei” (ca. 1927).
Comparison with Music If we consider the medium of painting at first quite generally, we will notice its relationship to music. It is vibrations that generate tone and vibrations that generate color. All music evidently consists exclusively of tones; all painting, of colors. In music we use vibrations that range from — — to — — waves per minute; in painting, from —— to —— . Practically speaking, music has 7 octaves, painting has one. That is, whereas the note A occurs 7 or 8 times in music, the color red only occurs once in painting. You can use the note A on different levels of pitch in music; you can only use the color red on one level in painting. One major difference immediately stands out: music uses time in which to compose its tones; painting uses space in which to compose its colors. I explicitly say space, not plane. Because every color on an absolutely flat, smooth plane destroys the plane, unless it is the actual color of the plane, since different colors placed at an equal distance from the eye appear to come either forward or together in relation to one another. There is another reason why I explicitly said space. The plane is also an element of space, and it is not uncommon for abstract paintings to have applied spatial elements that jut forward from the plane into space. Alternately, naturalistic or cubist paintings will consciously rupture the plane through their selection of colors. Having made these introductory remarks, I nevertheless think it is better in theory to consider the plane first and make it the basis for further reflections. To repeat the comparison: Music
Painting
Tone
Color
Time
Plane
Wherever I find parallels between music and painting, I will point them out. The goal of music and painting is the same, composition. However, composition is transmitted through different senses: in music, through the ear, in painting, through the eye. On the other hand, the purpose is the same for both, to mediate between the composer or painter and the listener or viewer. So: 263
Music
Painting
Composition with tones
Composition with colors
Mediation through the ear
Mediation through the eye
Here I will skip over what is to be conveyed— a feeling, a mood, an expression, some specific matter— and I will also skip over whether [it is] something uniform for all individuals, whose receptive apparatuses can be different and certainly are different, and who have different levels of education or receptivity for mediation. Let us suppose that all human beings are equal and have the same preconditions.You cannot write a theory for different people, and if you were to write a theory, you cannot make considerations for people who are color-blind, for the fact that people’s eyes are set differently in their heads, closer together or wider apart, or for the possibility that people are nearsighted or farsighted, sensitive or insensitive, stupid or smart. I will continue, first by looking for corresponding terms in music and painting. Music and painting correspond as follows: Music
Painting
Succession
Juxtaposition
simultaneous (chord)
overlayering (mixed colors)
The succession of tones, what we call melody in music, corresponds to the juxtaposition of colors in painting, whereas the simultaneity of tones, namely chords, corresponds to color mixtures. This first raises the difficulty in determining what juxtaposition means. In music, there is just one direction, which leads from the past through the present into the future. In painting, there are an infinite number of possible directions on the plane; indeed, they extend from every point and there are an infinite number of points on a plane, no matter how small it is. Where is the starting point, where is the following one? But in music too, the totality is important, not the succession at a given point, and, in theory, the listener should have all the details of a piece of music present before he is able to understand it. Now, as we turn to painting, let us start by remarking that there is juxtaposition and overlayering. Overlayering refers to the overlapping of colors when viewing the picture plane perpendicularly and not their vertical arrangement when seeing the painting hanging on a wall, for instance. And by overlayering we mean the penetration of colors; they must penetrate each other so intensely that they produce a completely mixed color. Wherever things in music and painting correspond to each other, and wherever music has coined commonly understood terms for them, I will apply the terms used in music here, and thereby compliment music for its very accomplished music theory. Accordingly, I want to call all juxtapositions of color (which includes mixed col-
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ors) the melody of a painting, while I will use the term chord to describe the mixed colors of a single, delimited patch of color, considered as a discrete unit. A chord unites different colors in a harmonious combination; they can produce a concord or a discord. And the chords that exist side by side in a melody can produce concord or discord, together or in clearly recognizable sections. The term sound is to be understood as it is in music. At this point it is important to elaborate on the term color. I am referring to the abstract concept of color, not to the physical color you buy from a shopkeeper in tubes. Physics teaches us that color equals light. The opposite of this is darkness (shade). Light, like shade, can be strong and weak. We call the brightest light and the deepest (darkest) shade strong and the darkest light and lightest shade weak. You see here how light and shade merge into each other. If I place strong and weak light next to one another in a line, I will pass the weak to arrive at the strong shade. White is generally the brightest light in painting, though of course it is always possible to use artificial light, such as the light from an arc lamp, which tends to be brighter than the white color that is externally illuminated. I will overlook this possibility, just as I will overlook the fact that white color, when mixed with some pure light cad[mium] can appear lighter than pure white. The strongest darkness commonly used is black color. In the case of white in black we generally assume normal lighting, though later on we will need to define what normal lighting actually is and how color differs from lighting. I just want to say in advance that both white and black can appear lighter or darker under different lighting conditions. If I assume that the entire picture plane is evenly lit (which is certainly not the case because light originates from a single point, whose distance to the different points of the plane must vary) we can then assume that the relationship between white and black remains constant across this plane, regardless if I increase or reduce the light. This is important confirmation of the relational values of an image to which we will return later and which is so important for everyone. We will initially define normal lighting as colorless light, not too bright, not too dark, and will discuss it in greater detail later. This means that white color is the brightest possible color under normal incident lighting, while black color is the darkest possible color under the same conditions. When we mix the colors white and black, the result is gray. When the mixture contains too much white and not enough black, the result is light gray, or, conversely, dark gray. It goes without saying that there are infinite gradations between white and black: there is light-light gray, light gray, gray, dark gray, etc. If we were to arrange these colors as a sequence, it would run parallel to the sequence leading from light into darkness: white
light gray
dark gray
black
strong light
weak light
weak darkness strong darkness (weak shadow) (strong shadow)
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You could say that weak light turns into weak shadow and that at some point they must be the same. I want to point out that I refer to white, gray, and black as colors, and that they are chords, indeed, they are chords that contain all the colors. Physics describes white light as the sum of all colors and darkness as the absence of colors. In painting white is the brightest and black is the darkest chord that can be used. Black contains all the individual color tones in painting too, just like white, but weaker. It goes without saying that gray is also a chord made up of all the colors. Here we return to the terms strong and weak. These correspond to the loud and soft dynamics in music. In music you can play the same A loudly, softly, or something in-between. Music
Painting
loud
strong (bright)
medium loud
medium strong
soft
weak (dark)
Here we could adopt the musical terms of fortissimo (ff ), forte (f ), mezzoforte (mf ), piano (p), and pianissimo (pp). Our sequence from white to black would then look as follows: white
light gray
middle gray
dark gray
black
white ff
white f
white mf
white p
white pp
black p
black mf
black f
black ff
or black pp
Here you can clearly see that white mf equals black mf. Physics tells us that white contains all the colors. What does this mean? You can refract white light through [a prism into] a spectrum, which yields 7 color tones. Physics has not yet managed to refract these any further. These colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. There is no significant difference between blue and indigo, so for the sake of simplicity we will refer to both as blue. Then the sequence is red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. This sequence would correspond to a musical scale, such as C, D, E, F, G, A, B. But the correspondence here is not as self-evident as our previous analogies. What remains the same is the fact that, in music, the same scale continues immediately above B and immediately below C, so, for instance: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C, D, E . . .
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etc. This scale would also continue in same way for painting: if our eyes were capable of perceiving purple and indigo, etc. with lower frequencies we would see them beneath the red, while red [and] orange with higher frequencies would again appear above the purple. In reality, however, painting has just one scale, no more and no less. In painting, we cannot transpose C-major to D-major (D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#) as there is no high C#. We must mention one more thing: the scale in music does not have uniform consistency, i.e., the distance between the tones is not always the same. The musical scale distinguishes between whole tones and semitones: the distance between C and D is a whole tone, between E and F a semitone. I am leaving out the fact that we can distinguish between [large] and small whole tones, except on the tempered piano, where there are only whole tones and semitones.1 In music we also distinguish between different scales, for instance major and minor scales. The difference between these scales is evident in the differences between the respective tones, with the major scale consisting of whole, whole, semi, whole, whole, whole, semi tones, and the minor scale made up of whole, semi, whole, whole, semi, whole, one-anda-half, semi tones (and this is the sequence going up the scale, which is different going down). It take us too far off course to explain other musical subtleties here; all we need to do is start with the assumption that there is an equal distance between all the tones. That is to say, the distance between red and orange should be equal to the distance between orange and yellow, etc. Accordingly, the painterly scale would correspond to the chromatic scale of music if it were exclusively made up of whole tones and not semitones. Music
Painting
chromatic whole tones
chromatic whole tones
scale
scale
C D E F# G# A#
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet
If we wanted to, we could also list semitones and thereby introduce other scales, but I will refrain from doing so at first. Instead, I will draw your attention to the age-old circular arrangement. Because there is only one scale in painting, and because you must emphasize that the scale theoretically continues, you can arrange the 6 main tones in a circle:
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Now if you connect every color on the scale across the center with the third color, you will arrive at the value we call complementary colors. In music we call this “an interval.” Interval is what you call the distance between 2 tones. We call the interval between C and D a second (whole tone). The scale from C to C consists of 6 seconds, when it is considered a chromatic scale that exclusively uses whole tones. We can easily introduce this term to painting: if we call every pure color tone (not mixed color tones) a prime, the distance between each tone would be a second. Thus the distance between red and green, what we call a complementary contrast, would correspond to 3 seconds. In music, an equivalent distance would be from C to F#, an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth, or better yet a tritone = 3 tones. Accordingly, we will refer to the distance between complementary colors as a tritone. Now, it has been found that complementary colors of equal strength produce gray when mixed together. Theoretically, then, red mixed with green would necessarily produce the same gray as orange with blue or yellow with violet. In practical terms, colors from paint tubes produce 3 grays that are all approximately, but not exactly the same. But in theory, we must consider them to be the same. Moreover, it is possible to make orange by mixing red and yellow, green by mixing yellow and blue, and violet by mixing blue and red. It should also be possible to produce yellow by mixing orange and green, blue by mixing green and violet, and red by mixing violet and orange. But that is just in theory. In reality this is not the case. In any event, the mixed colors will be more gray than colorful, i.e., an accumulation of colors into a chord. Hence, you can define red, yellow, and blue as pure colors, and orange, green, and violet as mixed colors (also chords, like white, gray, and black, just assembled differently). We can now see that, when mixed correctly, red, yellow, and blue must also produce gray, because blue and yellow mixed together make green, while red and green complement each other to produce gray. This all means that we can represent our color circle as follows:
You see that gray is in the center and is the most important color, the color capable of combining all the other colors.
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(92) STYLE OR FORM-CREATION “Stil oder Gestaltung,” in Documents internationaux de l’Esprit Nouveau 1, ed. Paul Dermée and Michel Seuphor (1927), 45.
Schwitters revisits ideas about a common or universal style that he initially developed during the Dada Tour of Holland and in dialogue with Theo van Doesburg (text 45 and text 55). His allusion to a normal (standardized) architecture recalls his conception of a Normalbühne Merz (Standard Merz Stage), and the contrast he draws to a genuinely functional architecture underscores his abiding interest in the work of Hugo Häring (text 76). This text, in terms of both its content and the venue of its publication, is international in orientation and important for understanding Schwitters’s engagement with the Werkbund and concerns about “design” more generally. On the significance of the term Gestaltung (design, form-creation) for modern artists, architects, and designers in the 1920s, see introduction.
The disinterested and uneducated person, when confronted with the sheer abundance of different kinds of things, does not draw distinctions, but instead, he summarizes, in order to assert himself. And so, the layman once labeled every new artistic effort Jugendstil, then futurism, and currently, if he is German, Bauhaus style. This is all highly advantageous for the reputation of the Bauhaus, though perhaps not— you never know what terrible things the Bauhaus may be accused of. At a time when a common style has yet to emerge, it is, firstly, wrong, and, furthermore, probably quite damaging to the Bauhaus to brand it an academy of style. The Bauhaus calls itself an academy of form-creation, and that is correct.1 It is true, we have an international type of form-creation, which takes its impetus from Wright in America, who was the first to emphasize the horizontal structure of the different floors of a building.2 The Dutchmen Oud, Wills [sic], and others adopted the horizontal and consciously contrasted it to the vertical, thereby arriving at a type of form-creation by balancing the horizontal against the vertical, which has become so pervasive in Holland that it can indeed be called the Style there (see the journal De Stijl ).3 But it is not only the Dutch who are inspired; the will to a similar form is general, international. The Bauhaus is a site for fostering these new ideas in Germany, but the Bauhaus is not alone. I mention just a few of the many modern architects: Mies van der Rohe, Hilberseimer, May, Haeseler, Kosina and Dr. Mahlberg, Mendelssohn [sic], Hopp, Lüdecke, and there are many 269
more I could mention who, without influence from the Bauhaus, have developed a corresponding will to form-creation, which guides them to make corresponding forms.4 Of the corresponding painters, I mention Baumeister and VordembergeGildewart.5 Now, there are also architects who have the same will to form-creation as most of the others, but who arrive at entirely different forms. I am thinking of Hugo Häring, whom I consider extraordinarily important for this very reason. Häring demonstrates that our age has no style but only a principle of form-creation. This principle is to realize a simple, evident, and functional form with new materials like iron, concrete, glass, etc. This is the same for all the new architects, and it is somewhat disconcerting that they produce such similar external forms. Häring even calls this box system of architecture a matter of packaging. And this is its only practical significance: to join rooms together conveniently, like crates in a warehouse or on a freight train. This has the great advantage of easy alteration, but it also has a certain rigidity. And because the box system continues down to the details, the result is standardized architecture, whereas Häring produces functional architecture. The overarching principle is form-creation. Häring orients his work to the sun and the landscape; he builds according to existing conditions; and, above all, he takes into account the kind of habitability of the space, its function. A classic example is the cowshed in Birtner’s model estate, Garkau, in the Lübeck region.6 To fulfill its function, the building had to have a completely lopsided form. Seen in detail, Häring’s cowshed developed from bricks, reinforced concrete, and rational construction methods, just like a house by Oud or, if you like, any of the new architects. This brings me back to my assertion: Our age has no style but a principle of formcreation. Quod erat demonstrandum. But then: there is no fool like a learned fool.7
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(93) TYPOGRAPHY AND ORTHOGRAPHY: LOWERCASE Unpublished typescript, “typographie und orthographie: kleinschrift” (ca. 1927).
many things run parallel in the development of our age: the demand of the new will of the age expresses itself equally in separate areas. simple objectivity, manifest tranquility, lucidity— hence the bringing together of parts into a whole, hence functional material, hence system in all things. this is the goal of our age, born of the new attitude to life, given to us by technology, on the one hand, and the will to a new style, the style of the age, on the other. nothing is arbitrary here. instead, strict rules and logical consistency prevail. it is no coincidence that clothing has become simple and sporty, that women wear bobbed haircuts instead of long braids, that architects construct their buildings in an objective manner, eschewing ornament but with beautiful proportions. our age is not far from perceiving system as beauty. this general development also required that the design of printed matter be overhauled. only people who hold on to the past at all costs, who deny any new development, who do not see or who do not want to see major connections, could describe the new typography as whim or fashion and remain insensitive to the beneficial effects of systematic order. there are two important reasons to set type with just lowercase letters: 1) it is more correct than the conventional procedure that combines minuscule and majuscule, and 2) it is more economical. 1) historically, the conventional upper and lower cases were an arbitrary mixture of two alphabets, and so lowercase writing rectifies an historical mistake. to this day, no design for any typeface has sufficiently smoothed out the differences between minuscule and majuscule type to the point where we no longer sense this disparity. 2) if we make lowercase a general standard, children will only need to learn half the letters, the typesetter would be able to work faster, the printer would need to purchase only half the letters, we would be able to type substantially faster, the design of typewriters could be simplified, etc. so why do we continue to cling to the outdated relics of uppercase and lowercase letters?
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(94) SENSATION “Sensation,” i 10 1, no. 7 (July 1927): 270– 71.
Schwitters comments on his visit to the Deutsche Theater-Ausstellung (German theater exhibition) in Magdeburg, which ran from May to October 1927. The exhibition traced theater history from antiquity to the present day, addressing a wide range of practices from opera and ballet to communal and experimental performance. It also showcased the social and technical aspects of contemporary theater practice, exhibiting developments from stage and lighting design to fire safety and administration, and it focused particularly on the relationships among theater, radio, and film.
Chamberlin visits the theater exhibition in Magdeburg.1 It was 17 June 1927 at suchand-such o’clock. Of course, Magdeburg is a sensational city. Just think of all the colorful facades beside the magnificent Gothic cathedral and the many impeccable posters and commercial signs.2 Now think of Magdeburg bathed in the glowing heat of a sultry day as it was on the seventeenth, the temperature mounting with the excitement of the crowd, because, as I mentioned, today Chamberlin was expected to visit the Magdeburg theater exhibition— the heroic aviator who had conquered the ocean. So they reduced the entrance fee to 50 cents for the day, instead of the usual 1.50 marks. It was terribly crowded on the Elbe Island. Then again, the theater exhibition is quite a thing in itself. Three quarters of it is an amusement park, the rest is a recently erected municipal hall, a trade hall with fair stands, a so-called industrial section, then an experimental stage and a culture section, and here and there you find this and that, such as a babysitting area, a Punch-and-Judy show, alpine villages, candy stalls, a waterfall, and all the trappings of a theater exhibition. The municipal hall is not yet finished, and so it blends in with the rest of the exhibition. Nevertheless, on this day it is supposed to serve as the reception hall to welcome the ocean aviators from America. As with all municipal halls, it has horizontal stripes on the outside, while painted diagonal stripes distinguish the inside. From the outside it appears massive, while inside it resembles a variety theater, just as with all municipal halls. For hours the hall has been at capacity, because we are expecting the ocean aviators. The front row has been reserved for the relatives of the aviators, behind it the passageways are overcrowded, and onstage there are three empty chairs, two for the ocean aviators and one for someone else. Maybe they’ll smoke a cigarette up there. Number two: the industrial section contains an imposing dragon. It was used in the Siegfried film, and it is quite large.3 But sadly 272
dead, and because it is made of papier-mâché, it cannot easily frighten any of the visitors. Quite unlike Siegfried, who once upon a time killed it stone cold dead so we may admire it now in the theater exhibition. Third: the experimental stage is a serious space with plush curtains. Mr. Laslò [sic] plays his color light music.4 I find this to be a very interesting mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. Images are not music, even when they are set in motion. Time in music corresponds to space in painting. And just as music has no space, painting has no time. To combine music and moving flecks of color is absurd. The relationship is literary, not sensual. Interesting nevertheless. Anyway, the lecture wasn’t very well attended. There were only eleven people there, while nearly ten thousand people were waiting in and outside the municipal hall for Chamberlin and the remaining hundred or so were laughing themselves silly in front of the distorting mirrors in the industry section. Poor art. The art of today is the big sensation. Now to number 4: the culture section. This includes many, many little stage models from many, many greater and lesser periods, planned and designed according to many, many private and official ideas. People may think I’m just a crazy artist or a halfwit, but I especially liked the works by Tairoff [sic] from Moscow, Bragaglia from Rome, and from the Bauhaus and from Sturm.5 I also found my own little model for the systematic Standard Stage, neatly placed on a small little base and cheekily listed as a theater design by Moltzahn. I believe Johannes Molzahn, without a t, will offer his most sincere thanks.6 I also presented my thanks to the receptionist, where they showed me that my little stage was listed as a Merz-theater in the catalogue. And though I found this somewhat reassuring, the description was still wrong since it was a Standard Stage.7 Then again, the exhibition is still incomplete; after all it only opened in the middle of last month. The scenery in the alpine village of Upper Bavaria was interesting. Enormous mountains of ice towered over everything and in larger quantities than I have ever encountered on my travels through Switzerland. A real Bavarian Seppl wearing short imitation lederhosen was in the process of gluing real Bavarian paper roof tiles to a house with Sichelleim.8 Nothing wrong with that since no rain will seep into the hall itself. The real pine branches were already dry but were not yet losing their needles. But they can always be exchanged in the end. The real moss was dry, just like the pine trees, but the real ferns seemed alive. But in the poor lighting they haven’t grown very well. And of course, the tablecloths are checkered blue and white. The beer is very good, no surprise there! What a sight, when the real door suddenly opens to the outside from this mountain landscape and real daylight floods inside and obscures the giant mountains. It’s a door that’s taller than a mountain thirty-five hundred meters high. That is what we call perspective. The wayside shrine with a hanging crucifix between the beer tables is quite clever. Well, kids, that was fun!
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(95) FRONT AGAINST FRONTA: AFTERWORD TO THE FOREWORD OF FRONTA “Front gegen Fronta: Nachwort zum Vorwort der Fronta,” Der Sturm 18, no. 4– 5 (July– August 1927): 64. Published in Czech as “Fronta proti ‘Frontě,’” in ReD 1 (October 1927): 42– 43. This statement was initially pitched to the editors of i 10, according to an undated typescript in the J. J. P. Oud Archive, Netherlands Architecture Institute, Rotterdam.
Schwitters founded the group die abstrakten hannover (the hannover abstractionists) at his home on 12 March 1927, together with the artists Carl Buchheister (1890– 1964), Rudolf Jahns (1896– 1983), Hans Nitzschke (1903– 44), and Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart (1899– 62). César Domela-Nieuwenhuis (1900– 92) was included as a “nonlocal” member a few months later. It was a local chapter of the Internationale Vereinigung der Expressionisten, Futuristen, Kubisten, und Konstruktivisten e.V. (International Union of Expressionists, Cubists, and Constructivists), which had launched in October 1919 at the Galerie of Der Sturm. die abstrakten hannover exhibited both annually at the Kunstverein Hannover and internationally. It sponsored numerous lectures and performances by such figures as Henry Cowell, Cornelius van Eesteren, Katherine Dreier, Naum Gabo, and Albert Renger-Patszch. The group officially dissolved in 1935. This group statement is a response to the foreword to fronta: mezinárodní sborník soudobé aktivity / front: internationaler almanach der aktivität der gegenwart / front: receuil international de l’activité contemporaine, ed. František Halas and Zdeněk Rossmann (Brno: Edition Fronta, 1927), 5–7; reprinted in Der Sturm 18, no. 4– 5 (July– August 1927): 66. This ambitious book included contributions by proponents of the international avant-garde in art, architecture, film, and poetry, which addressed topics in philosophy, technology, sociology, and modern life. It included the text “Art and the Times” (text 78) and two poems by Schwitters.
Fronta writes in its foreword, “Does art still have a right to exist?” They claim that art no longer has any direct agency in life, that creative work is rife with uncertainties, that there are opinions pro and contra, that we live in an age of cultural
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reaction, and that only by responding to the question of a new society can culture move forward. In contrast, we claim: 1. The right to exist and the objective of art is the creation of new people, who will form the new society. This gives art great responsibility. Artistic activity as well as artistic pleasure, which both correspond with drives that cannot be learned or taught, accord immense power to this new society. 2. We recognize that the development of art proceeds inexorably in a unified direction toward abstraction, and given this seamless development in a fixed direction, one cannot speak of uncertainties. Uncertainties can exist only for individual artists who have yet to clarify their aims. But there can be no uncertainty that an artist who has already been overtaken by artistic development is no longer part of the front. 3. It is natural that opinions run pro and contra in the current age of general fragmentation. This does not contradict the fact that the development of art proceeds logically and fundamentally in the direction toward abstraction, and consequently art paves the way for the development of the new society. 4. We do observe that there has indeed been a reaction in art. But this reaction is a matter only for art dealers and has no aesthetic significance. This reaction does not have the power to inhibit the development of abstract art in any way. Buchheister / Jahns / Nitschke [sic] / Schwitters / Vordemberge-Gildewart die abstrakten hannover
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(96) PROPOSALS FOR A SYSTEMATIC TYPEFACE “Anregungen zur Erlangung einer Systemschrift,” i 10 1, no. 8/9 (August– September 1927): 312– 16. An altered version was published in Der Sturm 19, no. 2/3 (May– June 1928): 196– 206, with significant differences as noted.
Schwitters illustrated this text with three tables and two examples that employ variations on his typeface designs (figs. 17– 20). Table 1 (fig. 17) shows six different typeface designs, labeled (a)– (f) along the right margin. The first five are his attempts to reform the design of the existing alphabet. They exhibit variations in the visual separation of vowels from consonants, the use of upper- and lowercase letterforms, and the uniformity and legibility of each typeface. The final design (f), introduces Schwitters’s Systemschrift (Systematic typeface), which offers a completely new “optophonetic” alphabet. Table 2 (fig. 18) demonstrates how Schwitters arrived at his Systemschrift: it consists of five numbered grids, which show his progressive elaboration of the individual signs for the consonants, and, in the lower right corner, a sub-table with seven rows dedicated to the forms of the vowels and a final row that shows how signs for individual consonants and vowels may be merged into new signs for combined sounds. Table 3 (fig. 19) provides the complete set of Systemschrift letterforms for sounds in the German language, including signs for triple-sound combinations. Along the bottom edge, we find the address for his advertising agency, “Kurt Schwitters Merz Werbe Hannover Waldhausenstr 5” written in Systemschrift. (In the version published in Der Sturm, the illustrations for tables 1 and 3 were incorrectly switched, which makes deciphering Schwitters’s system impossible to follow.)
A systematic typeface actually concerns just a single aspect within a larger complex that includes systematic languages and systematic thought, among other things. However, these are prospects for a very distant future, and we cannot know if they are utopian or not until the day comes when they are before us. Then again, a systematic typeface is certainly not a utopian idea, and I want to offer a few suggestions on how to achieve it and roughly what it would need to look like. First I want to dispense with the objection that we have been able to manage without a systematic typeface for so long, so why would we need one now? My answer is that we have actually needed one for a few decades, perhaps even a few centuries. In an age that finds itself forced to standardize and adjust everything to 276
fit a system, that generally expects and achieves from this system greater precision and awareness of how to live, a typeface with an ornamental design certainly represents a holdover from the Middle Ages that no longer fits our age organically. It is almost unfathomable that the same people who no longer want to ride in the most elegant horse-drawn carriages would choose to use a typeface rooted in the Middle Ages or antiquity. The typefaces we currently use are all, without exception, based on Roman Antiqua or Gothic Fraktur, or both. They are fundamentally historic rather than fundamentally systematic. Any attempt to produce a new typeface has been limited to: (1) adorning adopted letter-forms with beautiful embellishments; (2) simplifying and eliminating everything that is expendable to arrive at the essential form of the letter, working out the historical sum of the digits, so to speak; and (3) reaching a new, elegant, or lively form by weighing up the proportions. Depending on the designer’s disposition, these attempts tended more toward one goal or another or sometimes even several different goals at once. We have a wealth of typefaces, but they are all historic; not one is systematic. And who today would seek to design an automobile based directly on the external form of a horse-drawn carriage or even that of a sedan chair? In order to develop a systematic design, we must first examine what writing is. Writing is the written image of a language, the image of a sound. At this point you can see that our investigation leads to an investigation of language. But if this were our task, then it would not be absolutely necessary to pursue the most systematic solution to give pictorial expression to existing languages. As with anything that mediates and translates language, writing must be optophonetic if it is to be systematically designed.1 I know that many attempts have been made to explain why an A or an N must look exactly like this or like that, in order to justify the optical appearance of a sound. However, this has not produced an optophonetic alphabet because each letter has been derived individually— following either this or that system— and more than one system is no system at all.2 To achieve a systematic typeface, the overall image of the writing must correspond to the overall sound of the language. That is to say, you cannot focus on a single letter here or there and make it correspond more or less to the noise it represents when it has been isolated from the overall sound. Table 1, A– F To make the typeface correspond to the sound, we must examine the individual letters for similarities and differences. In table 1, I show the progress of my attempts from the common grotesque (a) through progressively systematized typefaces (b to e) to the systematic typeface (f ). In (a) you can observe the great similarity between E and F and the large difference between E and O. However, in terms of their sound, E and O are more related than E and F. This is clearly illogical, so I begin by distinguishing between vowels and consonants, because the vowels are more
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17 Kurt Schwitters, table 1, Neue plastische Systemschrift (New plastic systematic typeface). Reproduced in i 10 1, no. 8/9 (August– September 1927): 312. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/ Herling/Werner.
similar to one another than they are to a consonant. In (b) I made all the consonants thin and all the vowels thick. Because this did not draw a clear enough distinction between these two groups, I made all the consonants in (c), (d), and (e) thin and angular and all the vowels thick and rounded. I was able to do this only by employing the lowercase e and a rarely used i that is closer to the current letter j. To design the letter I, I relied on the fact that this letter is essentially written the same way in the Latin script.3 But you can see for yourself that the text is, nevertheless, very easy to read. We now read better and, above all, more plastically, because resonant sounds appear expansive and clear while weak sounds appear faint. The image of the typeface already resembles the sound more closely. The differences between (c), (d), and
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(e) result from my use of existing lowercase letters in (c) and uppercase letters in (d) as my respective starting points, while (e) results from combining the most characteristic symbols in (c) or (d) and from emphasizing the vowels to a greater degree. The typefaces (a)— (e) require no effort to read, and they could be easily introduced into circulation. After all, you can quickly learn the symbols for sch and ch or you can just leave them out and combine the basic sounds, as has previously been the case. But I want to use this opportunity to suggest a more general symbol for sch and ch, as the lack of a symbol for these simple sounds is one of the most glaring logical and practical shortcomings of the alphabet. Table 2, 1– 5 Now to (f ). This is the alphabet for a typeface constructed on purely systematic, purely optophonetic principles. In section (1) of table 2 you will see that all the clearly distinct consonants that can be uttered or used in a language have been arranged in phonetic order. This consists of a six-by-six grid where each row indicates, from top to bottom, the soft glottal stops, the hard glottal stops, the soft sibilants, the hard sibilants, the nasal sounds, and the fricatives. The horizontal directional bar 4 here indicates whether a sound is produced in the throat, on the rear palate, on the middle palate, by the tongue on the front palate, or by the tongue being pushed against the teeth or the lips. This phonetic order focuses explicitly on the source of the sound rather than the sound itself. I am doing this for two reasons: to avoid placing the focus on small nuances and to avoid an inflation of sounds. Please examine the row with the letters H through F.5 By my reckoning, this is the only row in which I could produce the sounds used in spoken language at all the previously mentioned locations in my mouth. Eight squares remain empty. I was unable to form the respective sounds in those areas. I cannot say if other nations can generate sounds there, but we should assume it is possible, and so the symbols for all the squares must be designed uniformly. I can make the coughing, choking, bellowing, or neighing sounds indicated in the respective squares, but I do not know if any language uses these. If we now examine the resulting phonetic arrangement, we will clearly see that there are two th sounds (English), soft and hard; two j sounds (used in the German jedoch and the French jamais); two ch sounds (as in the German noch and mich); that there is an r produced against the roof of the mouth and an r produced with the tongue; and that the sounds ch, sch, and ng (found in the German word Angel ) are not composites but basic sounds. However, this phonetic table does lack the letters z and x as they are composite sounds. The common alphabet, such as the German for instance, does not take into account everything that we have noted here. So you see just how far removed the German alphabet is from being a system. Now I develop an optical order made up of six rows, with six symbols each. I must establish one principle: all the symbols for the consonants must be thin,
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angular, right-angled; they must consist only of 18 (facing) Kurt Schwitters, table 2, Neue plastische Systemschrift (New a single vertical line about seven units long and plastic systematic typeface). Reproduced in i 10 1, no. 8/9 one unit wide; and it must be possible to attach (August– September 1927): 313. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner. a crossbar (each ½ to 1 units wide) to these vertical lines at the bottom, the middle, and the Section 1: Consonants. Rows label the soft glottal stops (a), the hard glottal stops (b), the soft sibilants (c), the hard sibitop and to the right and the left, depending lants (d), the nasal sounds (e), and the fricatives (f ). From left on whether the typeface is to be big or small to right, columns indicate origin of the sound in the throat, in the rear palate, in the middle palate, by the tongue on the front (twenty-four points [Doppelcicero] or six points palate, by the tongue against the teeth, and by the tongue [Nonpareille]).6 against the lips. In four empty squares in the grid, Schwitters has indicated the placement for coughing, choking, bellowing, The letters T and F already follow my rules. and neighing, for which there are no common letterforms. / Section 2: Transferred signs. These are the common letters I simply use both and mirror them to make the Schwitters carries over into his Systemschrift. / Section 3: Sesix symbols of section (2). In section (3), I serialries. These series show the basic options for the placement of vertical and horizontal elements. / Section 4: Permutations. All ize these six symbols to make up eighteen sympossible variations on the basic series. / Section 5: Symbols. bols and then use permutations of the crossbar The Systemschrift signs applied to the actual consonants of the German language. / The final, unnumbered section lists the vowto make the thirty-six symbols of section (4). els (top row), the basic forms for the vowel series (second row), This list in section (4) shows the optical order long vowels (fifth row), short vowels (sixth row), nasal vowels (seventh row), and combination letterforms (eighth row). of the symbols based on a formal system. In section (5) I replace the phonetic order developed in section (1) with the optical order developed in section (4) and arrive at an optical phonetic order for the consonants. I have left all the sounds that cannot be used blank, crosshatched all the sounds not used in German, blackened the symbols that indicate German consonants. To develop the vowels, I begin once again with the source of utterance. I arrange all the clearly distinct vowels in a row, from the widest open mouth to the most rounded shape of the lips, ending with the smallest rounding of the lips, i.e., from ä to ö to ü. After all, ä, ö, and ü are not umlauts, but rather they are on equal footing the other vowels. They are only umlauts historically speaking.7 If we refer to ä as the umlaut of a, then we must refer to a as the umlaut of e, and e as the umlaut of i, etc. There is also a closed and an open o and ö. However, in the case of o and ö, the difference between open and closed is so great that I would want to keep these two sounds separate. In my series I always start with the closed sounds, because that is the most precise. Accordingly, my phonetic series of vowels is ä a e i o o ö ö u ü. Now, if you examine the uppercase A, O, U. . . , you arrive at a series that has the symbol O in the middle, which is completely closed; the symbol A at the beginning, which is closed at the top and open at the bottom; and the symbol U at the end, which is closed at the bottom and open at the top. I retain A O U. Systematic modulation then produces an inverted U in front of the letter A and an inverted A in front of the letter U. Through permutation of the crossbar we arrive at the series of long vowels. Removing half the length of the symbol for the long vowels in the front [i.e., at the left] produces the short vowels and taking away half its length at the back [i.e., the right] produces the nasal ones.
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Of course, you cannot freely and comprehensively develop a system to its logical conclusion based on a single letter without making additional choices, either arbitrary or at least freely chosen— even though such choices follow a system. Regardless, it is always preferable to seek the greatest possible consistency, and the fact that the path remains open for additional consistent developments is no mistake. This is what keeps the system alive. As far as I can judge, my systematic typeface is more consistent and more systematic than all the typefaces I know. I am well aware that more work needs to be done and I even intend to do so in quiet moments. Now we turn to the composite letters. I reject out of hand as unsystematic any combination of consonants and vowels. I will only combine either vowels or consonants. To begin with, according to German grammar, all composite vowels are short, not long. The system to create the composite letters merges the rear vertical line of the first vowel with the front vertical line of the second vowel to form a single symbol. For this, the second vowel must be rotated 180 degrees to give the appearance of the corresponding nasal vowel. Table 3, A– C Now for the composite consonants: given how ng does not appear in combination with other basic consonants in practice, I have identified twenty times twenty combinations in the German alphabet, only some of which are used. In table 3, section (C) you will find the German composites made up of two consonants. I have highlighted those combinations in black ink that I believe to be most common. But it is useless to simply learn the composites off by heart, because I have found a method that will enable you to read them immediately without first needing to learn them, just as long as you know the twenty basic letters. Following my system, you will draw the first letter as usual and then add the second letter above it but slanting to the right, so that the vertical lines merge. Where three letters are to be combined, the third letter is added above the combination of the first two but slanting to the left. The question whether to combine letters or not depends on clarity, as it is always clearer not to combine. But it is not appropriate to simply equate ts with z and ks with x. But when you do make composites, you can combine only letters that are also enunciated together. You cannot combine the consonants of two syllables that are articulated separately.
19 (facing) Kurt Schwitters, table 3, Neue plastische Systemschrift (New plastic systematic typeface) applied to the German language. (A) Vowels, (B) Consonants, (C) Combinations. Reproduced in i 10 1, no. 8/9 (August– September 1927): 314. Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/Herling/Werner.
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20 Kurt Schwitters, posters in “Systemschrift,” Fitelberg, Opernhaus, Frankfurt a. M., 1927, 87.5 × 66 cm (WVZ 81); and Opel-Tag, 24. Juli. Grosser Auto Blumen Korso, Frankfurt a. M., 1927, 84.5 × 66 cm (WVZ 82). Sprengel Museum Hannover. Photo: Herling/ Herling/Werner.
To sum up: The typefaces (a) through (e) are ready for print, while typeface (f ) needs to be understood as a proposal that indicates a possible path toward a systematic typeface. I am including two posters that were put up in Frankfurt a. M. as examples of design with a systematic typeface.8
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(97) SENSE OF DUTY “Pflichtgefühl,” Der Sturm 18, no. 6 (September 1927): 85.
We have forgotten what it means to have a sense of duty. We know it is more than just a vague feeling, that it means complete dedication to one’s duty. However, we no longer know what our duty is. We know that we have not only rights but duties, too— duties owing to our rights. The right of others imposes a duty on us just as our right imposes a duty on others. However, we no longer know what our rights are. The modern age has become so complicated that we can no longer orient ourselves without getting back to the root of things. From there we can once again make sense of everything, including mankind’s principal right and sacred duty. It is so self-evident I must print it here in bold letters: OUR PRINCIPAL RIGHT IS OUR HUMAN RIGHT, and because this is our principal right it is also our greatest right. From this it follows that our most sacred duty is our HUMAN DUTY. Human right is the right to live a life worthy of a human being. First, this is the right to life, and second, the right to human dignity. Hence, it is our most sacred duty to let people live their lives and not offend their human dignity. Manslaughter and murder belong in the museum along with old paintings. It is time they were dead and buried. The noblest act of a human being is to forgive even one’s enemy. HUMANS, BE HUMAN, HUMANS, BECOME HUMAN! Be worthy of being human, act with human dignity.
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(98) STUTTGART, THE HOME— WERKBUND EXHIBITION First published as “Stuttgart, Die Wohnung / Werkbundausstellung,” i 10 1, no. 10 (October 1927): 345– 48. Translated from the expanded version, “Stuttgart die Wohnung / Werkbundausstellung,” Der Sturm 18, no. 10 (January 1928): 148– 50, with additional text from the original publication as noted.
On 23 July 1927, the ambitious Werkbund housing exhibition, Die Wohnung (The home), opened in Stuttgart, and during its three months’ run, more than half a million visitors from all over the world would travel to see it. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886– 1969) was the artistic director of this massive undertaking, which consisted of four sections. In the city center, a trade fair showcased modern furniture design, products for flooring, lighting, and heating, electrical appliances, and four complete kitchens, representing scientific studies in domestic efficiency. At the exhibition hall at the Interimstheaterplatz, the Internationale Plan-und Modell-Ausstellung Neuer Baukunst (International plan and model exhibition of new architecture) offered a sweeping survey of designs for residential, industrial, and commercial buildings by 129 architects representing Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, the Soviet Union, and the United States— a landmark presentation that went on tour to seventeen cities. The crowning monument of Die Wohnung was, however, the Weissenhofsiedlung, a model housing estate of twenty-one single-family and multifamily homes designed by seventeen leading modern European architects, situated on the hills above the city. Schwitters reports in detail his impressions of the estate, where visitors could tour thirty-three furnished units. From there they could explore the final section of the exhibition, an adjoining “experimental site,” where modern building materials and machinery, demonstrations of innovative construction processes, and three prefabricated houses were on display. Die Wohnung remains a watershed in the history of modern architecture and design. The guidelines for the Weissenhofsiedlung stressed the “abstract form of the individual body of the house, which is the same from all sides, that is, the form of the cube,” and to this end, mandated that all the buildings have flat roofs: “The lack of any [pitched] roof characterizes this kind of building, which breaks with every tradition and, owing to its abstract form, must be described as international art.”1 As Schwitters’s account of the opening celebrations details, 286
this distinguishing feature met with resistance and controversy. Over the course of the next decade, the Weissenhofsiedlung would exemplify the polarized reception of Neues Bauen (New building).
Der Volk wil glauben, and the man of Geist will see, will sehen, will reisen om to see.2 Rosenberg’s aphorism is a fitting one for the exhibition in Stuttgart, “The Home 1927.” In this case, the people who wil glauben are the laymen who do not actually understand much about architecture but who nevertheless want to believe that the exhibition in Stuttgart, their exhibition, is good. These people hold grand speeches along the lines of, “It may well be . . . however . . .” Not one of the many official speeches is free of the undertone: “You can think or say what you like, but . . .” Though they understand that something was accomplished here, they just do not understand why. They are convinced neither by the outcome of the exhibition nor by the housing estate but rather by the fact that the man of Geist had traveled om to see. Indeed, they all came to the opening ceremony, everyone you would expect to find at such events. And indeed, Mr. Werner Gräff generated some very exciting publicity for the exhibition,3 working under the men of Geist who are supposed to make the people of all God’s nations believe. But as I see it, the public authorities in Stuttgart and Württemberg are like mother hens who have hatched false eggs and who are now left standing on the shore of the pond as they watch, filled equally with pride and dread, the ducklings that they take to be their children swim far away across the water where they cannot follow. A pretty picture, no? And all the while, the mother hens are clucking and calling out to their water chicks, but to no avail. However, at the official dinner here in Stuttgart, the table with the public authorities seethed with opposition, and the elderly representative from Tübingen University, in his capacity as “protector of local heritage”4 (as he called himself ), pointed out that Stuttgart was neither in Holland nor in California and so these flat roofs had no business being built here. He seemed to confuse the flat roofs of houses with the fallen arches of feet, since he always referred to them as fallen roofs. In the end, Mr. Protector was prevented from making even more unsupported observations on fallen roofs since his flatfooted discussion was not on the official schedule and so most of his fellow moochers5 continued with their loud chatter, drowning him out. One particularly cheeky moocher with an oval face even said, “Nobody asked him to say anything,” which sparked general amusement. Just like any official dinner. But don’t you think it goes without saying that such an old professor cannot simply adapt to the new era overnight? After all, the brief interval between 1918 and 1927 just isn’t long enough. And anyway, if somebody who has been hiking painlessly for sixty years suddenly discovers he has fallen arches, he will just buy some supportive insoles. However, it quickly became apparent that his comments lacked support since all the speakers who followed tried to gloss over the unpleasant impression. And I hope to do the
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same here. As my mother always liked to say: “They are like children. They don’t mean to say anything foolish, and then something very, very foolish suddenly slips out.” Then I clinked glasses with Mr. Mies van der Rohe, because I felt so sorry for him now that he wasn’t allowed to build fallen roofs anymore. But he recovered awfully quickly and let out an enormous belly laugh. I haven’t seen him laugh so heartily in a long time. The people of Württemberg are really splendid, by the way.6 They are so humane and nice! I got to meet the Württemberg State President Bazille, the exhibition’s patron.7 A very humane and friendly gentleman. Incidentally, this is the same Bazille who was said to have fallen into Lake Constance a few years ago. And quite by chance. That is, we met in the toilets after dinner, quite by chance. We all like to pop in there every once in a while, after all. And so, quite incidentally, I asked the president about something quite incidental, and from my Hannoverian pronunciation he immediately noticed that we Hannuverahners, with our sharp S’s, consider Wirt tebergers to be foreigners;8 and so he did me the honor and gave himself the pleasure of showing me around the picture gallery at the Villa Berg, where the dinner was being held.9 Truly wonderful paintings. All real oil. Hand painted. They breathe the spirit of a time gone by, and some aren’t even breathing anymore. But the Villa Berg breathes a spirit that is even more bygone. Rococo. Wonderful. What is true for schnapps is true for spirit: it gets better with age. And so I said to President Bazille (and with all due respect to Mr. Reiniger, a man well known in our Hannoverian social circles),10 that the spirit of these paintings had not been allowed to age long enough (no offense) and that by comparison, the spirit of the rococo villa had already matured to a far greater degree. And from my jovial face, Dr. Bazille immediately saw that I shared his opinion, and I supported this impression by remarking that no architect today could build like this anymore, could build a Villa Berg. And Mr. State-President smiled enthusiastically, “Yes, isn’t that so! Nor can they.” And so I continued, “But then again, we don’t need such houses any more, either.” I complimented him on recognizing this fact and for helping to establish the Weißenhof estate. Then Mr. State-President showed me some kind of a black marble bowl, which alone is worth more than the entire Villa Berg put together. I examined this black object carefully, and marveled. This is how my pleasure in art always begins: I marvel. To think, a Grand Duchess or some such person is said to have carved this dish from a single piece of marble herself. Certainly it is valuable because it is rare, as is the case with postage stamps. But you won’t understand, you’d have to see it. But I suppose you want to know why I am telling you all this. Well, because this exhibition and the entire Weißenhof estate were born of this Spirit. When people talk about Wirrteberg, they often point out its delusions of grandeur.11 And if a Ber lina, or even Mr. Westheim12 himself, had actually heard the speech in which we explained that we Stuttgarters had built all this in Schtuggert because we are just as capable as the Berliners of erecting something that is good and new and, besides, we did so on account of our famous Swabian pigheadedness, he still would have
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probably only seen our big, bushy beards, like Berlinas always do. But this would be wrong. The people of Wirrteberg are very versatile. If God had wanted Hannover to catch a man like Bazille instead of the bacillus responsible for typhoid fever, we too might have been able to organize a good exhibition at some point.13 The exhibition really is exemplary, and while there are some issues with the estate, it is a great achievement.14 The selection of photographs assembled by the architect Ludwig Hilberseimer sets out a truly comprehensive development of international architecture, which is instructive in its arrangement.15 If I had been one of the many previous speakers, I would have offered my gratitude to Mr. Hilberseimer, since all the speeches ended with someone being offered the deepest gratitude. I was in such a grateful mood that I was grateful to everyone who was out and about in Stuttgart, because I couldn’t decide exactly to whom I owed all my gratitude. And now to the Weißenhof estate.16 Unfortunately, a very important German architect is missing here: Hugo Häring. But the time has not yet come for Häring’s ideas about auto-functional architecture to take hold in such an estate.17 Some efforts that follow Häring’s ideas can be found here and there, such as making use of a view or designing the layout of a room to fit a specific function. However, the kind of building that dominates is the one that serves the most general purpose possible, what Häring calls a matter of packaging.18 All due gratitude to Miesch van der Rohe for organizing the entire estate. To schpeak in the schpirit of the previousch schpeaker, “he maschterfully underschtood” how to fit the master plan to the site. Mies van der Rohe determined the placement and size of the houses. The individual architects gave the bescht of their bescht. That said, it’s a hare-brained scheme to commission so many prominent pioneers of architecture and members of the Werkbund to each build a house in such close proximity. The end result will certainly be a mixed bag, no doubt about it. Although each architect spared his neighbors as much as possible. As an exhibition the whole thing is exceptionally instructive, and besides, I don’t need to live up there. Out of sheer politeness to younger architects, very strong personalities like Peter Behrens and Poelzig have suddenly taken to building houses here that they do not believe in and that I don’t believe in either.19 Poelzig has made a pretty Italian villa in the new style, while Peter Behrens is now completely devoid of all character. He has become modern in a quite general sense. Pity. Why this pretense? Behrens is certainly very important for the entire development. He is one of the most significant pioneers of the new architecture, after all. Why is he taking out a 25 percent loan on his previous building methods here? Why this modernist remortgaging? Does he no longer believe in himself? It’s a pity. It would be far more interesting for the visitor to be able to compare the real Behrens and the real Poelzig to Mies, Oud, Gropius, Stam, Le Corbusier. As it stands, you cannot really compare anything. Then again, you can’t really do this anyway, since all these gentlemen solved their tasks quite differently while more or less following the guidelines provided. For example, Gropius was the only one who experimented with new building meth-
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ods, whereas all the others stuck to their familiar methods, with or without mortgages. The interesting aspect of Gropius’s house is his attempt to grapple with new materials. Moreover, not everyone complied with the dimensions set out by the plan. Le Corbusier, for instance, made his two houses far too large, thereby ruining the overall impression. In fact, Le Corbusier is not entirely innocuous. He is an immensely talented architect, but he is also, unfortunately, a romantic. I actually think he is as dangerous for the health of architecture as Dudok and De Clero [sic].20 But perhaps I am mistaken? Perhaps there are people who think that these imposing buildings by Le Corbusier are fantastic. I would say they’re being bamboozled. My grandmother would always say: “Don’t let yourself be bamboozled,” and I do not intend to let this happen to me. When I see a steel beam covered in plaster and placed in the center of a room and in front of a window, I ask myself sine ira et stu dio21 what is the meaning of this? Oh, I see. He did this so that we see a continuous row of windows from the outside. Is there any significant difference between this approach to construction and Dudok’s abattoir in Hilversum? In that case we have a castle with fortified walls from the front and a factory from behind— after all, light has to come from somewhere.22 Now if we continue into Le Corbusier’s house, you will find a bathtub in a living room divided by a semi-wall. Why? Because of the moisture? Is this healthy or is it hygienic? I continued looking and found, right beside it, a door to the toilet that opened out into this room. And I realized that this was on account of the smell. The Frenchman likes the smell of his woman on the toilet or in the bath. After all, the Frenchman is elegant, which is something we Germans don’t understand. The main room extends across two floors. Why? When you heat the space, it will still be cold downstairs while it will be intolerably hot upstairs. But perhaps the house was built for a southern climate where heating isn’t necessary? And now, through some kind of mishap, it finds itself transplanted in Stuttgart. It’s a shame, and I have to ask myself why. The gigantic balconies also support this idea. Considering the weather in Stuttgart, they will be used only rarely. Though perhaps Le Corbusier hopes his house will positively influence and change the weather in Stuttgart? By means of a secret force, perhaps? Or perhaps it’s all romanticism? I’m not an expert in these matters. Even the direction of the wind and the rain that accompanies westerly winds would have to change, since the protective wall of the balconies is facing the wrong direction. This is how you create nature. The view is superfluous, since the wall in the main room that would afford the best view does not have a window. But I will not be the one to say anything, because I know very well just how revered Le Corbusier is, and, as has been frequently pointed out, our German architects have learned a lot from him. This is certainly the case: by studying Le Corbusier, you can see exactly what won’t work in German conditions. I think the house by Victor Bourgeois is well thought through.23 There is none of the empty pathos of Le Corbusier’s facade here;24 instead, the interior is good, really good. Everything is carefully worked out: comfort, consideration of the view,
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what side is exposed to the weather, most of the windows face south, well-placed windows in the rooms, well-formed rooms. You can tell from the houses by Oud that they were built by an experienced architect, by someone working with supreme confidence based on his experience.25 Here we could speak of functional architecture in general terms. His goal is to use the medium of architecture to create the most simple and useable apartments. I don’t want to mention all the architects individually; I don’t need to, because I am not obliged to.26 It’s interesting that Rading built his entire house solely on account of the circuit for the electric lighting.27 But the way this has been done is really first-class. The wires all rest on small wooden boards that all project about five centimeters from the ceiling and the wall. It looks impeccable. Hopefully, this exciting innovation will inspire schools of architects so that we will soon have the kind of beautiful overhead cables in our homes that already decorate our cities so agreeably. The house by Hilberseimer seems thoroughly honest. It is very sound, straightforward, and free of fantasy— quite the opposite of Le Corbusier. Here there are no bathtubs in the middle of rooms and no beams in front of windows.You can tell just how much I admire this sober approach from the fact that I published a booklet by Hilberseimer, Grosstadtbauten, years ago through my Aposs imprint.28 Mies van der Rohe combines the Spirit of the age and format [Format]. What is format? A new catchphrase for architects. Whereas painters can have quality, architects have format. Format means quality in appearance. Frequently, even the smallest thing has format. Nevertheless, the building by Mies van der Rohe is large, the largest in the estate. And it also seems enormous inside, with doors that extend up to the ceilings. I cannot imagine that you simply walk through these doors; rather, you stride through them. Great, noble figures stride through these doors, filled with the new spirit. At least, I hope so. Of course, it may well be that people will arrive with their plush green sofas, as they did in the Frankfurt estates.29 So it is always possible that the residents won’t be as mature or emancipated as their own doors. We must hope that the house will ennoble them. Mart Stam’s house is brilliant and has sweep. By sweep I do not mean the kind found in the roof over the stairwell of another house, which could also be used as a toboggan run in the winter.30 What I mean by sweep is the assured use of materials to create a unified and convincing effect. Genius is assurance in working with new things. Do you know the chair by Mart Stam that only has two legs?31 Why have four legs when two are enough? Watercolors by Ella Bergmann-Michel hang on the walls in Stam’s house.32 Also on view is a prefabricated house constructed out of pumice concrete slabs by May.33 And why not? Stuttgart is conveniently accessible from Frankfurt by waterway, and settlements can easily be erected using this material. In any event, the Frankfurt house is a significant addition to the Werkbund estate. I spent six hours with these houses, covered my new summer coat with oil
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paints, and in this regard, I was no different from the other visitors. I refused food and drink, partly because there was nothing real up there, but also because I needed to save room for the official dinner. I could write volumes about the estate, but I won’t because I am not obliged to. However, I recommend that everybody go and visit it. There won’t be many opportunities to see something this interesting in a single place. I would also recommend that you follow my example and drive home in a friend’s private car along the route that leads through Wildbad, Herrenalp [sic], Badenbaden, Bruchsal, etc. It is a pretty drive and a good way to end the trip, even though this isn’t the most beautiful part of the Black Forest. Bruchsal has been painted according to designs by [Bruno] Taut, and his was also the most colorful house on the estate.34 But Mies van der Rohe’s careful calculation made sure that this colorful house was set precisely in the right place within the overall plan. Otherwise, Bruchsal is generally rococo.35 Now I will just make an important suggestion, namely to the Ullstein publishers:36 if they would only decide to publish a one-thousand-word essay in the Swabian dialect to accompany the architecture exhibition in Stuttgart, it would boost enjoyment and facilitate comprehension. Yours sincerely, Kurt Schwitters
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(99) MY SONATA IN UR-SOUNDS “Meine Sonate in Urlauten,” i 10 1, no. 11 (November 1927): 392– 94. Republished in an abridged form as “erklärungen zu meiner ursonate / zeichen zu meiner ursonate” (explanations for my ursonate / notation of my ursonate), in Merz 24. Kurt Schwitters: Ursonate (1932): 153– 55.
In 1921, while traveling with Raoul Hausmann through Saxon Switzerland, Schwitters attempted to read aloud one of his friend’s Dada poster poems, fmsbwtözäu (1918). This marked the beginning of a decade of work on what would become, initially, a Sonate in Urlauten and, ultimately, the Ursonate, a thirty-five-minute sound poem divided into an overture, four movements, a cadenza, and a finale. Schwitters first published sections of this work-in-progress in 1923. In 1925, he issued a gramophone record of his own performance of the scherzo as Merz 13. Schwitters had hoped that El Lissitzky would design the printed score, but after this fell apart in 1926, he approached the graphic designer Jan Tschichold (1902– 74). Schwitters published the full version of the Ursonate with Tschichold’s layout in 1932 as Merz 24, the final issue of his serial publication. It remains one of the most influential and widely performed sound poems.
Explanation of the Notation The letters used here should be pronounced as they are in the German language. A single vowel is short; two vowels do not make two sounds, they indicate length, as long as they are the same vowel. Where two identical vowels should be pronounced separately, the word is separated at that place. Accordingly, “a” as in Schnaps, “aa” as in Schlaf, “a a” is a short “a” pronounced twice, etc., “au” is pronounced as in Haus. Consonants are unvoiced. If they ought to be voiced, the vowel giving the voice must be included. Examples: “b, be, bö, bee.” Successive b p d t g k z’s should be pronounced separately, that is to say: “bbb” is pronounced as an individual “b” repeated three times. Successive f h l j m n r s w sch’s are not pronounced as individual sounds but are elongated instead; “rrr” is a longer rolling sound than “r.” The letters c q v x y are dropped. For the sake of convenience, the letter z is retained. Uppercase letters serve only to indicate separations and groupings, to highlight sections, to mark the first letter of a line, etc. “A” is pronounced like “a.” Underlining can be used to indicate volume, red for loud and black for soft. Accordingly, a thick red line means ff [ fortissimo], a thin line means f [ forte], a thin black line means p [piano], and a thick black line means pp [pianissimo]. Anything that is not 293
underlined is mf [mezzo forte]. It is also possible to use writing like musical notation, as when the tempo follows rhythmic measures, for example:
(quietly, evenly) This would be another, less obvious way to write out the second movement.1 Where the rhythm is free, the bar lines could be used to stimulate the imagination. Numbers indicate only the length of the tone. Numbers, lines, and anything in brackets should not to be read aloud. To repeat, here are all the available letters: a ä au e ei eu i o ö u ü b d f g h k l m n p r s sch ch w z. The vowels are a e i o u ei eu au ä ö ü.2 If the “r’s” are to be pronounced separately, the following spelling is recommended: RrRrRrRrRrRr. Similarly: SchschSchsch, or LlLlLl, etc. When the rhythm is free, use paragraphs and punctuation marks as in written language; when the rhythm is strict, use bars or indicate the beat by arranging the textual space into sections that are equal in size, but do not use punctuation marks. The marks , . ; ! ? : should be read only as tonal coloration. Naturally, conventional writing with letters from the ancient Roman alphabet can give only a very partial sense of the spoken sonata. As with any musical notation, many interpretations are possible. And as with any reading, you need to have imagination if you want to read correctly. The reader must apply himself seriously if he really wants to learn how to read. Work stimulates the reader’s receptivity more than asking questions or mindless criticism, for that matter. Only someone who has understood everything has earned the right to criticize it. Listening to the sonata is better than reading it. I therefore recite my sonata gladly and frequently in public, and I am happy to organize an evening performance of the sonata anywhere by invitation. But since it is not feasible to organize these evenings everywhere, I have made a gramophone recording of a few characteristic passages. The record in question was published as MERZ 12 [sic] and is available for 20 marks from Merz-Publications, Hannover, Waldhausenstrasse 5. The length of the entire sonata is about thirty-five minutes.
General Explanations: My sonata in ur-sounds builds on the first movement, a rondo with the main theme: “Fümms . . .” This main theme is derived in part from a poem by Raoul Hausmann, which was written as follows: F M S B WT C U PGGF MÜ
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and as far as I know, it was originally just a printing sample for a selection of typefaces.3 With extraordinary imagination, Hausmann turned it into a recital piece, and since he is Bohemian, he probably delivered it as follows: fümms bö wö tää zää uu pögiff mü The “Kwiiee” from the first theme of the first movement also derives from the Hausmann’ian Q I E4 The “De des nn nn rrrrr,” or as I first wrote it, “D D S S N N R,” is derived from the word D R E S D E N. The reader might be interested to learn how this came about, though it is irrelevant for the work of art. The “rakete” is, of course, nothing other than the word Rackete [rocket]. The “P R A” in the second part is the conscious inversion of the name “arp.” It refers to Hans Arp, the French Dadaist in Paris, and not the Allgemeine RelativitätsPrinzip [general principle of relativity]. Arp is the founder of the journal ARP. I got the “zet üpsiilon ikks wee fau uu . . .” by reading the alphabet backward.5 All the other compound sounds are complete inventions, unconsciously inspired, in part, by the abbreviations for various companies on signs or printed matter, but especially by the interesting lettering on railway switch towers, which always seems so interesting because you don’t understand what it means. I am perfectly well aware that explanations do not get you any closer to a work of art; their value is merely historical or Dadaistic. In the end, my explanations are a document of the artwork’s inexplicability, or as Raoul Hausmann says: “First the art, and then the piano playing.” And now a few words about the composition. Whereas collecting the themes and sources of inspiration was Dadaistic and arbitrary, the internal logic, precision, and rigor of their arrangement and grouping is, in equal measure, exact. The sonata consists of four movements, with an introduction, a coda, and a cadenza in the fourth movement as a seventh component. The first movement is a rondo with four main themes, which are specifically noted in the text of the sonata provided here. You will likely sense how the rhythm shifts between strong and weak, loud and soft, compact and broad, etc. Any attempt to explain the subtle shifts and compositions of the themes would get tiresome and could very well spoil the pleasure of reading or hearing them— and anyway, I’m no schoolmaster. I’ll just draw your attention in the first movement to how the themes repeat, word-for-word, before each new variation; to the explosive start of the first theme; to the pure lyricism of the “Jüü-Kaa” that is sung; to the strict, militaristic rhythm of the third theme, which itself seems very masculine by contrast to the trembling, lamb-like delicacy of the fourth theme; and, finally, to the accusatory conclusion of the first movement with its inquiring “tää”? The second part has a centered composition.6 You will see from the notation
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in the text that it should be sung. The largo is metallic and incorruptible; it lacks sentiment and any sensitivity. Notice how “Rinn zekete bee bee” and “ennze” recall the first movement. Notice too how the long “Oo” of the introduction presages the largo. The third movement is a true scherzo. Notice the rapid succession of the four short themes “Lanke,” “trr gll,” “pe pe pe pe pe,” and “Ooka,” which all differ greatly from each other and shape the character of the “scherzo”: the bizarre form. Themes 1 and 2 are constant and recur stubbornly and rhythmically. The “rrmmp” and “rrnnff ” recall the “rrmmpff tllff too” of the first movement, yet it no longer sounds lamb-like and delicate, but rather abrupt and assertive, utterly masculine. The “Rrumpfftillftoo” of the third movement also loses some of its delicacy. The “ziiuu lenn trll” and “lümpff tümpff trill” emulate the sound of the “lanke trr gll” of the main theme. The “ziiuu iiuu” that appears in the trio strongly recalls the “ziiuu ennze” in part 1, except in this case it is very solemn and ceremonial. The scherzo is significantly different from all three other movements where the long “bee” is especially important. The scherzo contains no “bee.” The fourth movement is the strictest, and at the same time it is the richest in composition. Again, the four themes are precisely indicated in the text. Please take note of the segment up to “Oo bee,” which is repeated word for word. A lengthy reworking with many surprises follows, and finally the segment reappears slightly altered, only now the sequence of themes has changed. The transitional theme, “Oo bee,” distantly recalls the second movement.7 The long, quick fourth movement is an excellent test of the performer’s lungs, not least because the endless repetitions frequently require that the voice be raised a great deal in order to avoid sounding monotonous. In the coda, please note my intentional resounding of the alphabet back to the a.8 You sense and anticipate the a with heightened tension. But it culminates painfully twice with b. This arrangement makes the b sound painful. Then the alphabet returns a third time and resolves soothingly with a. On its fourth and final return, the alphabet then concludes very painfully with “beeee?” In this way I avoided the banality, however obvious it might be, of placing the admittedly necessary resolution at the end. The cadenza is ad libitum and every performer can assemble a cadenza at will from the sonata’s themes according to his taste. I have only provided one option for the potentially unimaginative performer. I myself have performed a different cadenza every time, and because I recite the rest from memory, word-for-word, I can make the cadenza sound especially vivid so that it stands in sharp contrast to the rigid quality of the rest of the sonata. So there you have it.
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(100) KITSCH AND DILETTANTISM Unpublished typescript, “Kitsch und Dilettantismus” (19 December 1927).
We all know it. It surrounds us everywhere. Only a few recognize it. Most do not see it. Very few suffer from the existence of kitsch. Recognizing kitsch does not require any great talent, just an intensive preoccupation with things. In order for someone to recognize kitsch, their thinking must have a certain quality. From this it follows that kitsch is a lack of quality. But dilettantism is also a lack of quality. Kitsch and dilettantism differ inasmuch as kitsch is the result of a lack of quality in thought, whereas dilettantism is the result of a lack of quality in craftsmanship. You see, a work can be kitsch and dilettantism at the same time. If the person making the work fails as a personality, the result is kitsch. If a person with a personality of otherwise high quality fails with respect to craftsmanship, the result is dilettantism. Dilettantism does not satisfy the mass of undiscerning people, for they can see a lack of craftsmanship and perceive it as a defect, whereas they cannot see the personality behind the work or the earnestness that inspires the person working. By contrast, kitsch completely satisfies the unremarkable person most of the time: he marvels at the craftsmanship that he lacks himself and does not notice that there is no personality at work, for he simply has no feeling for personality one way or another. And now to art: art leaves the unremarkable individual even more dissatisfied than dilettantism, because here he cannot recognize anything anymore. Whenever the artist’s personality masters the requisite craft for the creative act, the unremarkable person will take this to be poor craftsmanship, for he cannot recognize personality and, accordingly, he cannot perceive the reason for this creative distortion. And so kitsch blossoms while the kitscher enjoys the greatest accolades and fetches the highest prices.
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(101) GOOD OR BAD FORTUNE Unpublished typescript, “Glück oder Unglück” (20 December 1927).
Though it preoccupies many, few encounter it. I so often hear people say that they are unfortunate and that other people always have so much good fortune but that they never do. Such people can never know good fortune, especially when they claim to be hounded by misfortune. After all, good and bad fortune are one and the same. Both are acts of chance that change a person. Frequently, it is only much later that a person will realize what direction fortune has taken, though it may at first have seemed good or bad. Everybody is familiar with the banal fact that good luck can turn bad and vice versa. This is because they are the same. In figurative terms you can say fortune gives with two hands: in one hand it presents what can advance a person’s fortune, in the other what can hinder it. Everybody can even choose which hand to take and can even take both hands, or neither. This proves the old proverb true: “Every man forges his own destiny.” Chance is always shaping a person’s affairs, every instant. And because people are generally free in the choices they make, they eliminate the coincidental aspect of chance in relation to their affairs and base them on conscious choices. It is not good fortune that matters but the constancy of a person’s development to become whole. Accordingly, people need to spend more time learning to recognize themselves rather than chasing after good fortune, which, after all, they can force only if they know and force themselves. Good fortune is what a person lacks to become unified. There is a great deal of good fortune in everyone’s purview, but only the smart ones correctly identify it. Good luck! Seek your good fortune within; there you will find it.
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(102) ON GREEK TEMPLES Unpublished typescript, “Über griechische Tempel” (Girgenti [Agrigento], 6 April 1928).
In spring 1928, Schwitters embarked on a five-week excursion to Italy, where he visited Rome, Naples, and Sicily as a guest student of the art history department of the Technische Hochschule, Hannover. He wrote this text and “Appearance” (text 103) during these travels.
(An attempt to explain the lack of logic in Greek temple architecture.) Our architects like to study classical Greece. They build modern houses with elements from Greek temples, or they build in the vein of Greek architecture without realizing that the Greek outlook does not suit our time— which, after all, does not have any Greeks living in it— and that Greek architecture is devoid of logic when considered in abstract terms. Of course, this is difficult to explain, because the strong reverence for authority, even in our democratic age, maintains endless admiration for Greek temples and perpetually associates them with the light of the rising sun. But no matter how beautifully the sun may shine, it must set one day.1 And of all places, it is Berlin, source of this godless tune, that is poised to become the most beautiful metropolis. This is why we must end this temple worship once and for all. First, let’s enjoy a small parable: a painter wanted to make a painting of a man, a boy, and a small child. He painted the man large, the boy half his size, and the child quarter size. — Once upon a time there was a boy who had a gazebo in his garden. When he became an adult, he decided to build himself a house in a park, following the plans for the gazebo; but where the gazebo was made of wood, he now used stone, and where the gazebo left the timber’s end-grain visible, he invented the form of the triglyph. He built a railing right around the entire gazebo using hard-boiled eggs because soft-boiled eggs would have been too soft. And to decorate the triangle beneath the gable of the roof, he carved true likenesses of his childhood playmates from stone, including a butterfly or a mole as well as a big slaughterhouse dog. Of course, the house also had to have an inscription. But instead of “My home is my castle,”2 he wrote: “My house shall be my temple.” And once upon a time there was a Greek tribe that held the sole patent for aesthetic architecture. They lived in wooden houses, and, following the design for these wooden houses, they built their temples in stone, but with wooden roofs. Only bigger and more beautiful.
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What does beautiful mean in this case? The Greeks did not follow our ideal of beauty, which holds that everything must be authentic and that there must be truth to materials— that is, truth to the requirements of stone. Instead, the Greeks found beauty in the perfection of form. With greater or lesser skill, they tried to balance the vertical and the horizontal, the bearing and the resting, and instead of geometric lines more suited to hewn stone, they followed human lines, preferring human to architectural proportions. The individual and the gazebo were the measure of all things. And then there came a time when columns were built to be hollow and without a capital, and instead they rose very high into the sky. It was a time when columns were filled with smoke and poisonous gases, so that there was a lot of smoke where their capitals used to be. It was a time when temples of labor were built using innumerable columns, and there were no longer any slaves to build the temples, for they were all free men of labor. And one man made the smoke, while another man calculated it. However, the man producing the smoke was paid less than the man calculating it, and he was called the worker. Now, the worker wanted to be as distinguished as his director, but when it came time to furnish his small apartment, he found he couldn’t afford real furniture, real mahogany, real Biedermeier.3 So he purchased a somewhat smaller imitation Biedermeier made of pinewood and painted to look like mahogany, along with an oil print of a Defregger, a real linoleum Smyrna carpet painted on one side, and a stuffed fan palm.4 He lived very comfortably surrounded by all this junk, because he believed himself to be as distinguished as his director. In the meantime, his director was having his Biedermeier furniture with its real mahogany veneer, his real Klinger, his real Smyrna hall carpet, and his real stuffed agave removed.5 Instead, he was having Mart Stam decorate his room, without any stucco, without any of the junk, without any art, but just with two-legged chairs made out of bicycle tubing.6 And when the worker went to discuss some business with his director, he was led into this room where he would feel so proud of all his junk, but wrongly so. How shabby this junk looked after a little while! The actual pinewood had started to reappear, the linoleum Smyrna had turned into real linoleum, the Defregger had ripped, and the palm tree had started to become moldy, while the room that Mart Stam had installed was being freshly whitewashed. And there was a time when people had the ability to think objectively, to build simply, but they did not think this was beautiful enough. They wanted to be more than workers; they wanted to be Greek. They had all the requirements for an objective, comfortable, simple architecture. But they could not resist decorating this objective architecture with temple facades and triglyphs, or, at the very at least, building aesthetically beautiful forms in the manner of Greek temples. And as Greeks became great and mighty, they built ever-larger temples, with the size of their temples serving as visible signs for the extent of their power. But as they lacked ideas, they constructed large temples based on the same system as the small
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ones, which in turn followed the design of wooden huts: small temples magnified.— And when the painter stepped back from his picture, he saw that he hadn’t actually painted a man, a boy, and a child, but had instead painted three old people of equal size and age, each just standing at a different remove. But now in all seriousness: You cannot transfer the architecture of a wooden building into stone, as clever as that may seem. Everything that is incorrect provides opportunities for clever explanations, while what is correct is frequently so simple that the modern Greek does not consider it worth lingering over. The modern Greek falls victim to every hoax, because he thinks rather than looks. Honestly, the Greeks were no architects. It’s already wrong to transfer wood architecture into stone, so if you’re going to do it anyway, you should at least transfer it correctly. Why have stone triglyphs if all they do is represent the end-grain of wood? Stone grows differently from wood— it has no end-grain. So the Greeks made three vertical lines to symbolize the missing end-grain. Fine, but then it is impossible to arrange these end-grains of the imitation wood beams to form a band that runs right around the temple. If these were actual wood beams, it is very unlikely that they would all be placed at the same height to form a grid; but even if this were the case, by using dovetail joints for instance, it would simply be unthinkable for two end-grains to burst on one another at the corners. However, Greek temples had two triglyphs stapled together at right angles in the corners, as if they formed the cover of a book. Mere decoration. And if you thought that the actual wood roof would start from the triglyphs, you would be wrong again, and the triglyphs would be fraudulent. Something is not quite right here. Now for the columns. It is just nonsense to make them bulge out at the center as if they were being deformed by the weight of the stone masses bearing down on them. After all, marble is not cake dough. This is what I call modeling-clay architecture. The resulting lines may be beautiful, aesthetically speaking, but this is in spite of the fact that the transfer of this bulge is an artifact of reason, not sensation. The stone figures perched on top of the pediment must have had a head for heights. However, this does not seem to have been the case for many of them, since they’ve fallen down over the course of centuries. But this is a good thing, because it really is utter nonsense to have such a large group of people congregate inside an architectural artwork. What business does a person have inside architecture? Somebody may live inside it, but nobody can ever be a decorative part of the architecture. When people are in a house they shouldn’t be in, this counts as trespassing, and you can have the police throw them out. And however much they may try to contort themselves to fit inside the architecture, they cannot be excused as they neither support nor hold, but merely distract. Once upon a time there was a man who wanted to demonstrate his strength. The whole world marveled at his bulging biceps when he bench-pressed a feather in the air with all his strength; indeed, he must have lifted that feather some twenty times, up and down. The Greeks, meanwhile, built columns measuring several meters in
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diameter that compressed under the weight of the capital and, in the end, only support a light wooden roof. My word, it takes all kinds! To think, thousands of architects look to this as the ideal for the new architecture. This is of great concern, because we should look neither to the form nor to the spirit of Greek temples for our models today. The Greek temple is a monumental decoration. What we need instead is socially relevant, functional building. Another reason why studying Greek temples only leads to confusion: Greek architecture was linear, whereas our architecture balances spatial values. For Greek temples, beauty meant decoration, for us it means truth to material. You can use any material to build; it doesn’t need to be marble or mahogany. Good, durable pinewood furniture is artistically more valuable than the best imitation mahogany. Nowadays we could simply build the largest temple columns in Girgenti using sprayed concrete and dispense with the thousands of slaves needed to transport the enormous stone drums.7 The columns would not even need to be solid, since it is all a sham anyway. Should the worst come to the worst, a small iron girder could be inserted in the column to support the weight of the wooden roof. The capitals could be cast directly onto the columns. All this would give the same impression as the Greek temples. And yet I would vigorously advise against rebuilding the temple of Zeus in Girgenti using sprayed concrete, even though we could build it solidly enough to easily withstand an earthquake.8 And it could even be conceivable to fabricate the entire temple as a single piece. But what would remain of the concepts of bearing and resting? With her legs, a girl enthralls, But I’m a man, I’ve none at all.9
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(103) APPEARANCE Unpublished typescript, “Schein” (ca. spring 1928).
“Appearances are deceiving”— so goes the old proverb, and we always assume that old proverbs are correct. But who is deceived by appearances? Appearances do not deceive everyone; appearances deceive only the person perceiving the appearance. However, as soon as someone perceives an appearance, it can no longer deceive him, for in so far as he perceives the appearance, he knows that it is merely an appearance that seeks to deceive him, and he would certainly not grant any appearance the small satisfaction of achieving such deception. So appearances do not deceive those who recognize them as appearances. But an appearance will deceive those who do not recognize it as such, for they take a deceptive, counterfeited appearance to be reality. The purpose of this booklet, then, is to provide those readers who are frequently deceived by appearances with a few examples of where appearances attempt to deceive and, in doing so, to expose them as appearances. This booklet aims to teach the eager reader to learn how to recognize appearance on his own so that he can avoid being deceived so often in life. This goal will be accomplished once the reader manages to sense that everything in life and in the world is appearance. And this includes the valued reader himself. Hence, let me make this modest request in the hope that it will fall on receptive ears; the reader will not allow himself to be disappointed once he achieves this goal. Because, by recognizing the triviality of all things, the reader will also recognize his own triviality, and that is exceptionally healthy for everyone. Each person elevates himself above the next only in appearance, and only in appearance can he sometimes attain his divine semblance. Accordingly, he should be gracious in light of the divine semblance of other people, animals, and plants, so that they in turn will be gracious to him. There is no doubt that we live in a world of appearance; therefore we should love appearance. Nevertheless, we should not allow appearance to deceive us. Another proverb states: “The world wants to be deceived.”1 This proverb appears to be false, but it contains a great deal of truth. It is, after all, pleasing to recognize an appearance and then voluntarily allow this clearly evident appearance to deceive you. The world needs to be deceived in order to be happy. I don’t want to speak of great things here— of God, kings, commanders in chief, poet-princes, stock market speculators. Rather, I want to begin with the small things, for instance with myself. I once went to Selinunte, where children offered to sell me real ancient coins for spare change. A tourist saw this and decided that I must not be from around there, so he warned me not to buy these coins because 303
they were fake. I turned to this man and told him that, although I was indeed a foreigner, my average intelligence had told me that these were not real Roman coins I was being offered for pennies, and that, for once in my life, I was happy to be deceived in such an open manner, as this normally occurs secretively, and that I was therefore happy to buy some of these coins. And so I bought them. I knew they were forged coins and certain people happily buy such forgeries as a symbol of life. The tourist replied: “My poor fellow, who are these people secretly trying to deceive you in life?” To which I replied: “Well, you for instance, for trying to make me believe that you were smarter than me. But there are many more examples.” One time I was at the opera and heard the Mona Lisa. But I also saw the Mona Lisa, and she certainly was not beautiful. The Mona Lisa I saw onstage was a fat, older, clumsy singer caked in make-up, and I asked myself: “Could it be that this exceptionally fat, painted, older lady, who sings so movingly up there on the stage, is indeed the celebrated beauty from the Louvre? Could this really be her?” And then her lover arrived and serenaded her for her beauty and acted as if he were greatly in love. He was quite fat too, but compared to her he still looked reasonably presentable. So I couldn’t quite understand why this middle-aged man, who could still have his pick of pert, young, and fresh office girls, would want to serenade this rouged and perfumed temptress with such passion. An elderly lady seated next to me, who so far had remained unmoved, dissolved in tears as if her heart had burst, but it left me cold, absolutely cold. She would be better off going to the movies— she’d find some real dolls there. This is what I take appearance to be, since I don’t believe in the beauty of this siren singer. And I have to ask myself whether the singer who serenades her is really in love with her or whether, as he sings, he is merely thinking of that pert little office girl who has gotten him so worked up. Or is his delight written into the score? Is he delighted because that’s what the sheet music says? If he were in a less provincial opera house would he be as delighted with a thinner, younger, more beautiful Mona Lisa, or would he be more so? What is appearance; what is reality? As long as I can rely on them, my senses tell me: “That woman up there is unattractive, sinfully unattractive, and that man must also sense it and he must have his reasons for misleading me.” And my instinct tells me: “Something is wrong here!”
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(104) THIRD PRAGUE LETTER Unpublished typescript, “Dritter Prager Brief” (22 May 1928).
So, as a foreigner, what should you do in Prague? I went to visit churches, because in Prague there are no Rembrandts and no Sistine Madonna as there are in Dresden. But there are many churches. And it is noteworthy that they are not Gothic or Romanesque as they are around Hannover, but rather Baroque and Renaissance. The exception is the cathedral on Hradcˇany hill: this Gothic building is a magnificent edifice that rises with imposing beauty on the far bank of the River Moldau, located on top of a mountain among palaces of days long past. Spanning the Moldau is the Charles Bridge, which is quite similar to its predecessor, the Augustus Bridge, but with numerous figures on the pillars. The Moldau is a wide and calm river, dammed in several locations and with little shipping, save for a few rafts and barges. One can only hope that the narrow bridge will not interfere with river traffic as was the case in Dresden. It really would be a great pity if the beautiful old bridge had to be demolished just like the Augustus Bridge in Dresden. Sometimes I think to myself, when I walk through old towns, we really do seem to be living in a museum— what does all this old stuff have to do with us! In our modern age, wouldn’t it be better if we simply tore down all this old stuff to make room for the new? Or would it perhaps be better to keep what was good about the past to show what earlier generations were capable of? Or maybe we should keep the bad along with the good so that no one thinks that the previous age was better than our own? No, if something is really good, then I am happy for it to stay— in fact, I’m delighted for it to stay— and if it is bad, I am equally happy for it to remain as a counterexample. In fact, I am in such an agreeable mood today that I love everything and want to acknowledge everything, and if I were to run into a close friend today, I would certainly kiss her— I would like to kiss her, even love to kiss her. Blame it on the air in Prague. For art remains art, even if it lasts an eternity. The interior of Hradcˇany Cathedral was being renovated, but it was still possible to look at the marvelous windows, each with an astonishingly beautiful, clear color. On warm summer days I love the many Renaissance churches: no matter how warm and lively it is outside, it is cool, quiet, and peaceful inside the church, as it is in all churches, and, actually, style has nothing to do with it. Some churches are overburdened with altarpieces, caked onto the pillars; some smaller churches smell strongly of incense; some are good and can stay that way. I once went to a social gathering. There was a lady there, and this lady was, for my taste, wearing an unbearable perfume, frankly. The master of the house wasn’t too keen on the perfume’s scent either, but he was too polite to let the lady know. So 305
that he wouldn’t feel ill, he lit half a dozen sticks of incense, frankly, which he kept at the house for such occasions. But I, in turn, found the resulting mixture to be totally unbearable for my emotional well-being, and then, just in time, I remembered that, as luck would have it, I still had a piece of thick string in my pocket, frankly. And so I hid the thick piece of string beneath the table and secretly set it on fire, and it stank— stank to the point where you couldn’t smell either the incense or the lily of the valley anymore. But the lady noticed this smell and sniffed the air in disgust, claiming that the incense sticks had an unbearable smell. But since the master of the house refused to remove the incense sticks, the lady removed herself, and we immediately opened all the windows, while I stamped out the glowing stump of string. I always have to think of this funny anecdote in the churches of Prague, even though there’s no actual connection between the two.
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(105) THE NEW ARCHITECTURE IN CELLE: THE ARCHITECT OTTO HAESLER “Die neue Architektur in Celle: Der Architekt Otto Haesler,” Hannoversches Tageblatt, 3. Beilage 77, no. 239 (28 August 1928).
The architect Otto Haesler (1880– 1962) was a vocal advocate of the Existenzminimum, an ideal of efficient and technologically innovative living that shaped the boom in modernist mass housing in Germany after the First World War. Schwitters wrote this article shortly before the Altstädter Volksschule opened in Celle, a town near Hannover where Haesler realized many of his most important works (see fig. 26). In a series of lectures, “Gestaltung in der Typographie” (Form-Creation in Typography), delivered throughout Germany in 1929– 30, Schwitters regularly referred to this building as a guiding example of rational construction (text 120). He designed printed materials for Haesler’s firm, such as advertisements for the “celle volks-möbel” furniture line that debuted at the opening of the Dammerstock housing estate in Karlsruhe in 1929 (see text 115; WVZ 98). Haesler negotiated contracts for Schwitters with other Celle firms and with the Reichsforschungsgesellschaft für Wirtschaftlichkeit im Bau- und Wohnungswesen (RFG), a state agency that sponsored projects for economical improvements to social housing (WVZ 141 and 147). Schwitters, in turn, made a portrait drawing of Haesler as a token of their friendship (1931; CR 1820).
“The problem of the new style is not a problem of form, as it was in the Gothic era or the Renaissance. The new style calls for spaces that are directly derived from function and for the organization of material in keeping with that function.” (Doesburg)1 The term “organization” is characteristic for Haesler. Today, however, organization is characteristic of several architects, architects from all countries. But it becomes apparent just how isolated these architects still are when you realize that within the triangle bounded by Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main, and Berlin, Haesler is the only architect who rigorously creates a style of rational, international construction. This is highly significant.
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You can certainly find the rudimentary beginnings of a new form-creation scattered here and there, even in Hannover, for instance (such as Siebrecht’s apartment block in Buchholz).2 But they are partially obscured by old attitudes, just as in Magdeburg.3 Yet Haesler arrives at astonishingly new results. Now, the term organization characterizes not just Haesler; it also characterizes Mies van der Rohe, Hilberseimer, Häring, May, Gropius— to mention just some of the most important figures. If you were to write specifically on or about Haesler, you would first need to determine his distinguishing features. But this is not so simple, and it is best demonstrated through illustrations. Moreover, there are no major, distinguishing features that set him apart. Whatever distinguishes him from one is precisely what ties him to another. You could say that Haesler organizes not only in a technical sense, but in an economic and a formal sense as well. And in all three areas his achievements have set standards. But does this distinguish him definitively? And if you were aiming to position him cleanly within the overall development and to distinguish him from Mies, Hilberseimer, Häring, May, and Gropius, you would first need to characterize these architects. This too is just as difficult a task, but whoever knows these architects will at least know what I mean when I write: Mies, who is fundamentally a brilliantly imaginative person, has disciplined himself to strict, architectural logic. Hilberseimer, who proceeds from the dry preconditions established by rational thought, arrives at proper design. Häring, with typical functional sensitivity, builds seemingly fantastical shapes that nevertheless fulfill the highest practical requirements. May and Gropius organize their concepts on a large scale, using new building materials appropriate to the task. They construct houses in series as if on a factory assembly line and emphasize the resulting visual relationships. These are not clear distinctions, since you cannot make clear distinctions with just a few words, and even less so with a lot of words. In the attempt to distinguish Haesler’s qualities from the aforementioned architects, I will point out the following: it was his complete assimilation of certain conditions in Celle and his own historical development— becoming the architect of a city, like Dudok in Hilversum,4 and thereby giving a region its face— that allowed him to develop freely and uniquely in the spirit of international, rational architecture; his own principles were able to develop; and he became Haesler through down-to-earth development. Put plainly, all this means is that Haesler is Haesler, and that is all there is to it. Haesler has gradually developed beyond ordinary, decorative architecture, and every year when you return to Celle, you can discover new advances toward an everincreasing stringency in his latest buildings. His strength is that he does not exclusively follow a preconceived aesthetic or technical goal, but rather he creates a proper composition from all the components.
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With great formal sensitivity, Haesler builds in a sound technical manner with new and, whenever possible, inexpensive materials. The work is what is most important to him, and he dedicates himself to it with great personal humility. Perhaps what distinguishes Haesler is not as important here as his actual achievements. Haesler’s achievements are highly significant and, in the future, they will have a steadily increasing influence as model and example within the areas surrounding Celle. The first large new housing estate in Celle is Haesler’s Italian Garden.5 At the entrance, Haesler still built structures with the usual decorative elements and slanted roofs. This is the one conscious effort to communicate between the old Celle and the estate. Whoever wants to succeed is well advised to communicate. Haesler has been so successful with his building methods that he can now build rigorously modern shop conversions next to the old buildings in the center of Celle. The effect is thoroughly convincing, and the combination probably works better than if he had somehow tried to be stylistically accommodating. What Haesler has understood is how to achieve a comprehensive unity using old and new parts. Haesler drew on all his strengths for the Italian Garden. There is much that was already excellent here, only some details are not quite attuned to the overall design, such as the angled doors of the apartments, for instance. But with his second major construction complex in the new style, the Georgsgarten, Haesler is already a master, one who is fully in command of his material.6 Truly, the Georgsgarten can justifiably be called an international event. The Georgsgarten is a block community and not just an estate with the usual townhouses. It is a complex consisting of six rows of five duplexes each with six apartments. One hundred and eighty apartments total. Added to this are retail spaces for shops, a confectionary and café, a bakery, hairdresser, butcher, shoemaker, tailor, garage, communal parks, washing and bathing facilities, and a garden for each apartment. Thrift and improvement characterize the Georgsgarten estate, and they will characterize the new estate he is planning to an even greater degree.7 Because the main thoroughfare next to the estate would define a north-facing facade, the six row of houses are arranged perpendicular to the street. As a result, the buildings receive light from the east and west. The buildings along the thoroughfare are shops housed in single-story structures. The courtyards between the rows of houses are set up as open parks facing south. The three-hundred-squaremeter gardens have a sprinkler system. The stairwells and alcoves are closed off to the north, and they have windows that face south. Kitchen and bedrooms face east, living rooms to the west. There is a central water heater for all apartments, and because the kitchens have gas ovens, there is no need for chimneys. The flat roof is inaccessible, in order to save unnecessary building costs. The solid roofs are fabricated with hollow clay blocks, insulated with turf sheets, and covered with weatherproof roofing. Each
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apartment has two cellar spaces. There is no unnecessary lumber, which reduces the risk of fire, and while it is true that canalization and electric lighting are no longer rare in Germany, they do raise the quality of these inexpensive apartments. Standard floor: panel parquet, iron doorframes. Each family has an individual locker in the laundry room; only the washing machines are communal, and there are central bathing facilities, a kindergarten with a play street, a paddling pool with a sandbox. Radio, library, gym, and sports field. The courtyards are lit with cubeshaped lamps with frosted glass, which works quite well. The rent for an apartment with an eat-in kitchen, living room, and a single bedroom is 30 marks; for a kitchen, living room, and two bedrooms, 35 marks; kitchen, two living rooms, and two bedrooms, 40 marks. Monthly heating costs for an entire apartment comes to no more than about 5 marks, and each washing cycle costs about 3 marks. After the Georgsgarten came the new primary school and the Waack townhouses, among others.8 Once again, the primary school sets a standard. The school has eighteen classrooms, which convincingly cohere as a total form owing to the vertical and horizontal effects of the windows. Here too the classrooms receive light from the east and west; all the windows take up the entire top section of the wall, providing ample and even lighting; the windows have various, adjustable ventilation settings; there are wide blackboards that fill an entire wall, a movable teacher’s desk, and double- and single-seat benches with footrests (patent pending). The main entrance to the school is level with the ground and has no steps leading up to the entrance. The inner and outer edges of its walls are rounded with a one-meter radius. A large auditorium, a sports and assembly hall, stands between the two elongated classroom buildings. Haesler was able to significantly lower costs by cleverly placing the auditorium in the courtyard. All I want to say about the “Waack” duplex apartments is that the individual apartments in the townhouse complex are divided into two floors in such a way that the kitchen and living rooms are on the first floor and the bath- and bedrooms are on the second floor, just like typical detached houses for single families.
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(106) FORM-CREATING TYPOGRAPHY “Gestaltende Typographie,” Der Sturm 19, no. 6 (September 1928): 265– 78.
Schwitters alternates here between two concepts, gestaltende Typographie (form-creating typography) and typographische Gestaltung (typographic formcreation). Gestaltende Typographie describes design that effectively shapes or gives form to our behavior. Conversely, typographische Gestaltung stresses the formative operations within a given design or composition; it describes relationships immanent to the work. In the end, Schwitters equates these concepts and identifies them with the true ambitions of New Typography, the major modernist reform of graphic design in Europe at the time. This text appeared with a dossier of illustrated examples. These included Schwitters’s advertisements for Handarbeitsgeschäft Buchheister (1925, WVZ 64) and I. C. Herhold (1926, WVZ 67) (see fig. 15), his 1924 design for a signet for Pelikan (WVZ 59; see text 81), and work by Jan Tschichold, Otto Goedecker, and Piet Zwart. When this text appeared, Tschichold had just published his foundational survey of New Typography, Die neue Typographie: Ein Handbuch für zeitgemäss Schaffende (Berlin: Bildungsverband der deutsche Buchdrucker, 1928); translated by Ruari McLean as The New Typography: A Handbook for Modern Designers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). Tschichold championed the functional use of sans-serif typefaces, halftone illustration, and asymmetrical layouts, and he considered such graphic design to be the latest chapter in the history of abstract and constructivist art.
The term “New Typography” is historically if not logically correct. It is not entirely new, nor does it have anything to do with concepts like “fashion” [Mode] or “modern.” It only seems new to us because typography has largely been neglected in recent decades. What most advertisements today urgently lack is form-creating typography; nevertheless, the Union of German Graphic Designers ranks what it calls typographic arrangement very low on its price scale in comparison to hand lettering.1 The term “typographic arrangement” is very plausible when contrasted to “typographic form-creation.” Now you can see clearly the basic difference; arrangement here simply means the common, comprehensible ordering of things. This is a routine task for a professional advertiser, and one with which he will invariably destroy the typographic order he believes he is working toward. Indeed, laying out 311
the elements of an advertisement in an orderly manner is a necessary requirement. However, it is wrong to set this as the goal because it is irrelevant for the effect that the advertisement has on the observer’s senses and so falls short of its purpose. After all, in the end, people can perceive something only with their senses and not with their mind. Typographic form-creation, conversely, strives for and achieves its effect on the senses by combining individual stimuli into a composition to be looked at with the eye and not the mind. Professional advertisers always think that other people also think, and that when other people think, they think exactly like advertisers, but this thinking misses the point. Their thinking especially misses the point whenever they think that other people think before they look. They construct an entire system for themselves that is supposed to reflect how any random observer thinks; this results in the weirdest things. So at the Pressa,2 for instance, in a special room dedicated to professional advertisers, you could read that the old can wear red, that red is also a good color for the young, that red effectively works everywhere. But the fact is, in reality, the color red, like any other color, compliments any age, class, or people and any profession as well as any mental attitude— or not. Much the same can be said about all the pearls of wisdom that exist for advertising: it is surely good to follow them, but in all likelihood you will travel just as far, just as fast, if you don’t. And indeed, advertising professionals are well advised to hire a decent graphic designer to design their advertising projects. He might just convince them that maybe the color red is actually perfect for middle age whereas a bright lemon yellow is fitting for when you’re really old and gray, since it just comes down to how all values are configured to make up a unity. In plain English: it all comes down to composition. Not the what, but the how is important; this factor determines what we see and hear and whether it reaches our mind. After all, the path from seeing to thinking is still a long one, and nobody bothers to think without being forced to do so. And leaving aside the common problem of mental laziness, the modern person hears and sees such a glut of impressions that no one has to force him to block out these impressions so as not to burden himself needlessly with things that do not concern him. Hence, it is above all exceedingly important to capture the general attention of someone rushing past a newspaper stand or a painted advertisement on a building and then to direct it to the advertised object. Here even the best theoretical preparation cannot help; the only thing that can help is proper composition, which can account for all the visual peculiarities and habits of the average person and direct the gaze forcefully to the important spot. In a rather amateurish way, many advertisements cleverly exploit the male tendency to admire pretty women by repeatedly reproducing the advertised object together with an image of a woman. But in the end, the effective element here is not the woman but the repetition, and so the advertising professional banks on the fact that everyone will encounter his work at least once by accident. However, you can have repetition just as well without a woman. For instance, if a company were to paint “Pelikan Typewriter Ribbon” on the wall of every house along all the differ-
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ent railway lines, this would certainly be an expensive advertising campaign, but it would be practically impossible for anyone traveling by rail not to see the words “Pelikan Typewriter Ribbon” at least once.3 Sheer volume always has an effect, but this effect comes at a steep price. One trick that frequently will work is electric advertising, but it is harsh. Any bright patch of light will naturally attract your attention in the dark of night when it is pitch black; but once electric advertisements appear en masse, their effect starts to wane, and only those with the best design will stand out among the numerous ads. Surprise and novelty also need to be addressed here. It is certainly the case that novelties affect people strongly, but nothing stays new for very long, and so the effect is only short-lived. Lasting effect can be achieved only by form-creating advertising, just as a train running on its prescribed tracks is led along a completely specific path. It must run on this path, if it actually runs, whether it wants to or not; it must run on this path just as the tracks have been drawn. In the same manner, form-creating advertising uses form-creating typography to lead the gaze of people rushing past as they read what it intends to high-light. The task of a commercial designer as he creates corresponds to that of an artist as he gives something form; it’s just that the commercial designer pursues a specific goal, whereas the artist creates freely and without a goal. The commercial designer evaluates the way the artist evaluates; if he wants to emphasize this, he must neglect that. The whole must centralize the gaze onto a single thing, and this can be achieved only by means of composition. And once the gaze has been directed at a specific spot, it must then be induced— again, by means of composition— to wander across the different elements to be read. There are no rules for the form-creation of composition. What is required is the kind of sensitivity that can evaluate individual typefaces, masses, and interstices against each other with confidence. Only the artist possesses this kind of sensitivity refined by practice. This is not a special quality that other people cannot possess; rather, it is nothing more than a quality refined by practice that belongs to all people who consciously or unconsciously de-valuate the relationships among different entities. The artist is only more sensitive and more assured in his sensitivity; as a result, he can prescribe the path for other people to follow, much as the engineer lays tracks to prescribe the path for a train. Clear typefaces, simple and clear layouts that are easy to scan, the evaluation of all parts against each other for the purpose of highlighting a single detail to which our attention should especially be led— these are the essential qualities of the New Typography, that is, form-creating typography or typographic form-creation. While I was visiting the Pressa exhibition, I was able to convince myself that the designs from the age of Gutenberg were more assured than they are today. The more the machinery was perfected, the more typography deteriorated. Today the typesetter is no longer able to design; he requires the artist’s help. The Pressa also included an extensive exhibition of printed works from our time: leather, parchment, gilt edging, the best materials, the best work machines could produce— things that, even
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at their best, can be described as nothing other than tasteful. But there was only one medium-sized room, perhaps just a hundredth fraction of the entire exhibition of printed matter, which— in its overall effect— could be described as trumping the age of Gutenberg; this was the room for New Typography. We founded the “ring neue werbegestalter” one year ago with me serving as chairman and with the following members: Vordemberge-Gildewart, Trump, Burchartz, Zwart, Michel, Leistikow, Baumeister, Tschichold, Dexel, Domela, the public works commissioner Meyer of Frankfurt am Main.4 We hope to become ever more successful at convincing consumers of advertising that only form-creation accounts for the value of an advertisement.
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(107) MODERN ADVERTISING “Moderne Werbung,” Typographische Mitteilungen: Zeitschrift des Bildungsverbandes der deutschen Buchdrucker 25, no. 10 (October 1928): 239– 40.
When you hear “modern advertising,” you might think of changing fashions in clothing and dance. But that is not what I mean here. What I mean is advertising that is truly contemporary, that takes into account the specific requirements of our age and that uses new materials specifically available to our age. Advertising that embraces the age in its entirety also completely embraces the consumer. When put in such general terms, many people will agree with me, though they might disagree with me as to what, specifically, is modern or contemporary. After all, what we take to be contemporary depends on how intensely we are able to experience our age and what we can glean from its development, and on whether we can actually tell what development is, what reaction is, etc., in the mishmash of our age. What is contemporary is not what is average in an age (for by its nature, the average is always outdated), but rather it is the apex of a logical development. The sum of all the best attempts that seek to rise above our age, that seek to further and clarify this age on which our future will be built— this is what is contemporary, not the privy councilor in a leather armchair or the boisterous pipe dreamer. The resolution of our age for the purpose of future construction is contemporary, not individual striving. Advertisements that are modern in this sense are contemporary and will certainly conquer our age. Various things define our age. There are the things that distinguish our age from previous ages, because previous ages did not have them, and there are the things that show us the path the future will likely take or, as idealists would put it, hopefully take. Our age is fundamentally different from previous ages because of the massive increase in traffic and the improvements made to all modes of transportation and technology. These developments are due in part to the sober reasoning that has brought about a mental shift in our age, away from sentimentality and toward performance in sports and quality in work. Wherever quality is the result of superb performance based on precision, our age holds to the ideal of simplification based on adherence to the type [Typisierung] and adherence to the norm [Normalisierung].1 Accordingly, the typical watchwords for our age are traffic, quality, adherence to the type, and adherence to the norm. These things define our age and the advertising for them must never run alongside this age. So what would modern advertisements look like? Certainly not like most advertisements that want to appear modern. Motto: “Use thick borders for 315
easy decoration.” Thick borders, whether they are decorative or disruptive, are not what is important. Rather, what is important is that the printed advertisement has an intensive design, which makes use of all available resources based on an intensive understanding of the text that is to be designed. In what follows, I want to discuss individually the demands that our age has for the design of advertisements. First: traffic. The speed of traffic requires that type be clear and quickly legible. Begin by eliminating all superfluous flourishes. Then, guide the gaze in the direction of reading and distribute the type to avoid disruptive gaps and disruptive clusters. Furthermore, bind together everything that is equivalent and highlight everything that is important. This logical structure of typographic material is selfsufficient; it no longer needs the usual thick borders and arrows if it is strictly and correctly composed. Employed sparingly and correctly, such abstract materials can just as easily increase and strengthen the effect as destroy it where they are used incorrectly. They are correctly employed when they accentuate what is important and diminish what is less important. You can see how far such design is from cheap decoration that uses modern, thick borders (in the manner of any old Tom, Dick, and Harry), and that a feeling for design is a key aspect for the new approach to form-creation in advertising. Second: quality. The ability to design already ensures quality. Quality requires that the designer possess manual dexterity and that he is not, effectively, blind and can see colors— which are basic requirements for all drawing. But quality also demands a clear mind that can think through the form of a typeface correctly and conclusively and a delicate sensibility that can design and evaluate the form of individual letters. The typeface and the layout of type must seem self-evident without being banal. Quality in advertising is the visual sign for the quality of the advertised product; therein lies its significance. Third: adherence to the type and to the norm. First of all, as visual signs for different sounds, letters must be characteristically diverse in their distinguishing forms; their differences must be clearly evident. One ideal for the future would be that a visual representation of a sound would differ as much as the sound itself. However, given how our writing has developed out of a historical process, this is not easy to achieve, and our age is far from fulfilling this demand. We could achieve this goal only with the introduction of a new form of writing, a writing for our age. We are, after all, still writing with essentially the same letterforms today that even in Roman times had been a compromise of historical forms. Even today, when we want easy legibility, we cannot use anything other than the contemporary version of these letterforms. But the commonly used sounds of modern, living languages have changed substantially, and it would be very welcome if we at least had a single sign for each essentially distinct sound. We would avoid the situation we encounter in German where the individual sounds ch and sch have to be written with two or even three letters, whereas in the same language we have the luxury of representing diphthongs such as ts and ks just with single letters (z and x). We call this correct spelling, or, put more correctly, orthography, and it is a purely arbitrary rule and has absolutely
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nothing to do with logic.2 In spite of this, advertising must continue to use the customary “orthography” so as not to distract from the specific purpose unnecessarily. I am also inclined to disagree with the argument that we should use only lowercase letters in German because we do not speak in uppercase. This just further complicates reading and, moreover, it remains a petty formality so long as the differences between long and short vowels, between the ch in noch [still] and the ch in mich [me], or between a sharp and a soft s are not reflected in the letterforms. We must follow the basic principle: treat equal things equally, different things differently. These few lines offer a brief note on the necessary elements of contemporary advertising, and I ask that you excuse the fact that a brief note cannot, of course, exhaust the topic.
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(108) WERKBUND CONGRESS IN MUNICH, 1928 “Werkbundtagung in München, 1928,” i 10, no. 16 (November 1928): 73– 75.
Schwitters wrote this ironic report of the congress the German Werkbund held in Munich on 6 July 1928. He relies extensively on the presentation delivered by the sociologist Alfred Weber (1868– 1958), brother of Max Weber and academic mentor to Karl Mannheim. Together with other presentations given by Emil Preetorius, Wilhelm Pinder, and Theodor Fischer, Weber’s speech, “Kulturausdruck und Technik” (Cultural expression and technology), was published shortly after the congress in Reden der Münchener Tagung 1928 am 6. Juli 1928. Werkbundfragen: Flugschriften der “Form,” no. 1 (Berlin: Hermann Reckendorf, 1928), 10– 20. Schwitters surely had a copy of the pamphlet on hand as he carefully and humorously manipulated Weber’s bloated academic rhetoric.
I begin at the end. What does Munich stand for?— Royal capital? Artists’ city? Bourgeois affluence? Bolshevism, like once upon a time in May? Or Weisswurscht?1 Nothing on its own, but in excess instead. They say you can tell a nation’s cultural standing from its sanitary facilities, its Double-U– Cees, for instance. So I closely examined a W.C. on view at the exhibition Home and Technology.2 It was quite gloomy, but everything that was necessary was there, and much more besides, and that was what was characteristic. A tiny little mirror actually hung high up in a dark corner, because actually all the corners were dark.You really couldn’t use it, the little mirror. Mounted above it, however, was an unplaned and unpainted wooden board that served as a mantelpiece, with beveled edges draped with long, precious, handmade lace. An authentic Bavarian tankard rested on it, a Mass,3 filled with flowers instead of beer. Such things are characteristic of Munich: everything is there in excess, but this excess is preciously arranged— you could even say oh-so-preciously arranged. This is what they call applied art [Kunstgewerbe]. Mind you, all the necessary things were there, though dark and hidden away and sometimes overlaid by all the precious superfluities. After all, Munich’s citizens always have taste. So please don’t take it amiss if I point out that they ever so slightly lack the courage for the big gesture that brings everything together into a 318
unity, and that they ever, ever so slightly lack that defining element of our modern age, a good nose. For example, the Central Station in Munich consists of hundreds of different little houses. Everything is very picturesque and oh-so-precious, but it lacks everything that belongs to a cosmopolitan city. Such a grand gesture is also missing in the exhibition Home and Technology, which, much like the railway station, also consists of hundreds of small individual buildings. However, I have been told that there is a lot, indeed a whole lot that Munich housewives could and did learn there. A subscription gives you access to no fewer than 126,496 different events, and for 50 cents you can enter as a guest and see some exemplary signage. Incidentally, it is hard to imagine a citizen of Munich feeling at home in another city; he would even find it impossible to get used to the electric advertising. And now I come to the beginning. What does Werkbund mean? I posed this question to several ladies and gentlemen. Most of them told me: “Werkbund, is just that, Werkbund. There is nothing more to say.” Others said: “Werkbund is Muthesius.”4 But that’s not a definition. Still others pointed out that the Werkbund had something to do with form, and that is true, since their official journal is called Die Form. However, nobody could give me an actual definition for the term Werkbund, and it seems there is none. So then I began to wonder if maybe it was a transposition, that it wasn’t Werk but that the K came to the front to make KWER.5 However, some gentleman then pointed out that the Werkbund does not actually stand at cross-purposes but rather in unison, unfortunately, and anyway, at cross-purposes to what? Somebody else mentioned: “Werkbund stands for dancing.” But that’s an insinuation, since I was able to hear with my own ears that the Werkbund stands for discussion. However, discussions always require an initial question, what one calls a presentation. The whole thing, enhanced with dance and wine, is what is called a Werkbund Congress. Now I am in the middle of it. The Werkbund consists of numerous important personalities. There were some who spoke seriously about important things. Here I take the liberty to reprint a short excerpt of a larger presentation as an example: The presentation:6 The human soul, embedded as it is in its body of history, wrestles, as I said, and wrestles with it, and once this substance has been transformed, it seeks in the most general terms, and what it seeks is a way to give adequate expression to what could be called a zest for life. From this there follows the result. Each new aggregate of life is an aggregate state that calls for a renewed continuity. Please do not understand this too superficially or too simplistically. But put in the plainest of terms, man’s abode has been raised to the fourth dimension. His house has, most certainly, become an emotionally respon-
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sive space of solace. This is, of course, all crystal clear and hardly bears mentioning. However, there is more. Panscientalism and pantapanhistorism have relativized the relationships to all objects, subjects, and predicates, artifacts, conditions, distances, extractions and interactions, as well as the connections and separations with the abode for all individuals rooted in the current day. Our concrescence with things has changed, they have, in a sense, become museum pieces. Such things must be stated quite plainly. Every day we read the newspaper. But within this deep space we remain ignorant. Please do not understand this too superficially or too simplistically. It is a form of clairobscur. Its positive achievements are art historical and culture historical documains.7 One thing is for sure: the spiritual dome that previously swept us up can no longer resound with the same pathos. Such things just need to be said. This is the decisive point. It seems to me that this new aggregation of life consists of a theological8 complex that exists within a different aggregate state. All this together, as I predicted previously, makes evident that the nucleus coalesces with the old symbols of form-creation to achieve a continuity. Put differently, the person with this new feeling is now alone with nature. Will you bear with me and accept another even more daring proposition, when I assert that this human being, in a sense, marks a beginning, much like Adam. Modern purism is nothing other than the expression of a certain nakedness. Much as Saint Francis rent his clothes and flung them down in the market of Assisi, it was this search for practicality that resulted in this act of discarding. Hence, I must mention, just to ensure that what I am saying is truly clear, that all this is just modified wooden architecture. For let me be quite clear about one thing: neither steel nor glass make for a new tectonics, neither are decisive aspects of purist style— indeed, please read Bruno Taut’s book, Woman as Creator 9— rather it is the intimate and cozy embrace in a carefree construct; it is pathetic contentment. Now to come to the consequences, and with these I will close. Because this modern purism bursts forth from the nucleus of modern existence, I merely ask whether this is already a mode of expression striving for determination that can stand as an equal next to previous styles. My sense is that this new will-to-expression contains much negative . . . At this point I must quote Goethe with a Schillerian adage, “Toil by day, guests by night, bitter words and merry feasts,”10 because the City of Munich threw a Lucullan banquet in honor of the Werkbund, which was founded 301 years ago in Munich. This explains the enormous grapes that hung decoratively from the ceiling of the Town Hall, the ones Jakobsohn brought back from the Holy Land in his day.11 And once this substance had transformed itself, we too discovered what is
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generally called a zest for life. Please do not understand this too superficially or too simplistically, but I certainly experienced the dancing in the Regina Bar that followed as an emotionally responsive experience, a permanent space of solace. Along with seventy-two gentlemen clearly fashioned for the Werkbund we met two young ladies in that delicious aggregate state of the first bloom of youth; this is, of course, all crystal clear and hardly bears mentioning. Even the breaks between the sessions were put to good use. We opened an art exhibition with works by schoolchildren. The youngest particularly showed exceptional promise, evidence of the success of art education. With great pleasure we visited the excellent new collection at the Bavarian National Museum led by Baron von Pechmann.12 We listened reverently to a swimming instructor as he slowly but rigorously taught even the least talented boys how to swim. We viewed the Walchensee Hydroelectric Power Station, where a clock borne by an Egyptian sphinx in the turbine hall coalesces with the new symbols of form-creation to achieve a continuity. We acquainted ourselves with the excellent achievements produced at the Master School of German Typographers under the senior teacher Renner and where Jan Tschichold does an exemplary job guiding the students’ typographic skills.13 In Mittenwald we inspected a state-run school for violin construction, and we saw a lunch counter that dated from 100 BC; and last not least,14 or as we would say in German, Ende gut alles gut, we undertook an indescribably beautiful automobile drive with 334 heavy cargo trucks to Ettal Abbey in the Oberammergau, where there is a Blaue Gams guesthouse15 with delicious blue milk from the Alps that goes well with their strawberry tarts. Incidentally, there was another one of those rickety old churches in Ettal, from the rococo period, where a slightly spiritually inclined gentleman waxed lyrical about its indescribable beauty. I looked around for a long time, but I still didn’t notice anything. Suddenly, beauty sat next to me in the form of charming folds in a lady’s stocking gathered just beneath the hollow of a knee. Then I realized that this church was definitely one of those emotionally responsive spaces of solace in an aggregate state that the previous speaker had discussed at such length. Now for the consequences, and with them I will close. I must recall with gratitude those delightful final hours of the congress on the shore of the Starnbergsee, where I spent an expressive summer night with . . . , with another person, it doesn’t matter whom, also a member of the Werkbund.16 We sat on a bench— she way over on the right side, with those folds beneath her knee, me far over on the left side, without the folds (I am a man, after all)— and together we mused philosophically on the term “Werkbund.” The moon, which understood none of this, shrouded itself in clouds, quite unlike Saint Francis in the market of Assisi; and you could say, in a certain sense, we witnessed the first day dawn, like Adam and Eve— though I am not sure if I am permitted to point out that this is the actual center of the modern artistic method of expression. Somewhere behind us, in one of those large private gardens, an indescribably beautiful gramophone played the intermezzo from Ca valleria rusticana by Richard Wagner.17 Hence, I must mention, just to make what I
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am saying truly clear, that I felt like Saint Francis of Assisi, except for the fact that I had forgotten to take off my hat. Nature was in a different aggregate state; the moon was raised to the fourth dimension and coalesced with the bench to achieve a certain continuity. Taking everything together that I have said here, it is perfectly clear that Werkbund describes that feeling of embeddedness in the continuity of the actual center.
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(109) STORIES THAT HAVE RUN THEIR COURSE “Ausgelaufene Handlungen,” Der Sturm 19, no. 8 (November 1928): 306.
Sometimes it isn’t good to depict stories in paintings. Stories can be very nice indeed, but they are also very annoying, and you never know how they are going to run their course. This is annoying, terribly annoying. So if you are going to depict a story in your painting, it is best to depict it as having run its course. For example, there is a really great genre painter, the name doesn’t matter here, but you can always recognize his paintings by the sagging socks worn by the boys. You must all know him; after all, he does always stand out. Anyway, this really great painter paints very beautifully, so naturally, but there is that one painting, the one with the apple, that would be better if it did not depict a story. It is terribly annoying, after all. When you look at it for four weeks and the story still has not progressed, you will start to ask yourself how could this story continue. See how the sister has whispered in her grandfather’s ear, probably to tell him that the boy stole the apple; after all, the grandfather is wagging his finger threateningly at the boy who is standing there with a very willful look. (Silly Isidor is having a highly successful run onstage at the Friedrichstunnel.)1 You would think that the grandfather would finally discover the apple that the boy is hiding behind his back. After a while this kind of thing leaves you dissatisfied. You want to give the grandfather a poke and finally point out the apple to him. It is all very annoying. Yes, it would be much better if the painting were one of a pair. The clamor for the pendant. This is why the great genre painter painted a pendant— a pendant to the painting with the apple behind the back. A masterpiece. But I need to back up a bit. Because the painting with the grandfather is already a pendant; it is the second painting. The first painting shows the boy standing there (of course, you can recognize him by his sagging socks), and he teases a dog with a stick. So you see, this is another one of those paintings that you cannot look at for more than four weeks without asking: why doesn’t the dog bite him? And now we come to the genius masterpiece No. 3. Here the genius painter, his name is beside the point, paints the corresponding pendant. The boy is climbing a fence as the dog conveniently rips off the seat of his pants. This kind of thing is noble, pure, helpful, and good, in a word: genius. But only if it is painted, that is, not if your own children have to experience it. Now we can rest easy; the conflict has been resolved. The stories have run their course, including the one about the stolen apple, and that speaks to the heart. Or put in plain English: pendants. Once you recognize this, you have reached a judgment on art. What am I saying? The 323
judgment on art, and you recognize what is good and what is bad. The dog ripping the seat off the boy’s pants was good; the boy stealing apples and teasing dogs was bad. But we cannot really hold this against him. After all, we have all been guilty of such offenses at one time or another. It is a good thing that eggs are so cheap. This simple method makes wooden windowpanes transparent.
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(110) REVUE BY THREE REVIEWED “Revue zu dreien,” Hannoversches Tageblatt (7 December 1928): 2.
On 8 December 1928, the City of Hannover staged the ambitious Fest der Technik (Festival of technology). It was sponsored by the rubber, iron, and dye industries and organized by the Verband technisch-wissenschaftlicher Vereine, a cooperative union of local technical and scientific societies. Schwitters designed the festival program, which reprised several graphic elements, reproductions, and ideas from Merz 8/9. Nasci (text 60) with the motto that “the greatest teacher of technology is nature.” The festival included the musical revue “Mit Hilfe der Technik” (With the aid of technology), a collaboration between Schwitters, Käte Steinitz, and Friedrich Kranich Jr. (1880– 1964). Kranich was technical director for both the Hannover Städtische Bühnen and the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, where he pioneered methods for standardizing theater technology. In this article about their collaboration for the local press, Schwitters addresses the contemporary obsession with industrial standardization through Format, a word that can refer to the shape and size of an object, the stature of a person, or the quality of something, such as a piece of writing or a product. Looking back on their work for the Fest der Technik, Steinitz wrote: “What an opportunity! Lyrics for the Sprit of Technology! An aria for Madame iron! A Capriccio for Miss Electricity! A Ballet for the Wonders of Chemistry! Girls as microscopic particles, and the same kids to glorify soap and toothpaste. The automobile industry sent a dozen minicars and nobody could prevent me from driving one in the cavalcade through the arena. Footage of industrial films was at our disposal with rotating machines as background for a model of the high-rise newspaper building, with a printing plant inside and the planetarium on top.”1 In addition to their joint publishing ventures, Schwitters and Steinitz had also collaborated on the Zinnoberfest (Cinnabar festival) staged in Hannover in January 1928, and while working on the Fest der Technik, they composed a libretto for an unrealized science fiction opera, “Der Zusammenstoß” (The collision), about the end of the world and interplanetary communication. These ambitious, carnivalesque multimedia musicals recall Schwitters’s early proposals for the Merztheater (text 8) in spirit, and yet, as Steinitz also stressed, “Mit Hilfe der Technik” was ultimately “a kind of glorified commercial, with all the resources and possibilities: light, film, and mechanical tricks.”2
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This coming Saturday the Stadthalle will host the Festival of Technology, which will include a revue. For the Festival of Technology, director Kranich, Käthe Steinitz, and Kurt Schwitters wrote a revue: “With the Aid of Technology.” This occasion begs the question: is it actually possible, good, or even desirable for three people to write a revue together? You’ll recall that poets of caliber [Format] have often collaborated on compositions of caliber, and it’s the same thing here. Who can deny the caliber of our composition, especially if you take into account the fact that it was created for the large domed auditorium of the city hall, whose caliber compensates for the poor acoustics? Who can seriously deny the caliber of our three poetic personalities, especially when you take into account that a clear definition of the word is lacking? All we know is that it is one of those new inventions, like the tango; a modern person has to have caliber, what we used to call “great personality.” I won’t even mention myself, and besides, everyone has some caliber, and if at times it is not as high as expected, then sometimes it is just slightly lower. For the Festival of Technology, we have, of course, introduced the DIN-format; and by the way, that’s another one of those things that several people have collaboratively puzzled over!3 This raises the question: what does a theatrical composition in DIN-format look like, and what are the norms that guide the poet? As for the first, I advise you to come see it in person, while the title of my article obliges me to explain the second. Have you ever gone on a hike in a group of three? One of you will want to go to Pattensen because it’s so rural there, the second will want to visit Celle for the new architecture, while the third person has little understanding of architecture and will prefer to go and see the Thousand-Year Rose of Hildesheim instead.4 Naturally, all three are right. Now if one of them, say the little fat one, can shout a little louder than the rest, then all three of them will go to Pattensen. This is how you determine the goal of a revue, the goal being an agreement based on logical reasoning. At each crossroads the same fight breaks out: one loves straight paths, the other meandering ones; one is certain it’s the path leading off to the right; the other is sure it’s the one to the left. However, since it just depends on the path, people are more easily convinced, and it is easier to convince others too, for there are plausible and rational reasons for saying that a path measuring two kilometers, for instance, is not necessarily longer than one measuring four. You can also fight over how beautiful or comfortable a given path is, and ultimately you can give in quite happily to the rational reasons put forward by your colleague when he declares that unless his arguments are heeded, he will refuse to write another line. This is the kind of persuasive logic that you must bring to bear when it comes to such intellectual collaborations. After all, if all three writers were to heed their own poetic impulses without restraint, they would arrive at twenty different goals. But when the goal is defined in advance, such as the glorification of technology, for instance, it can be
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achieved by very different means and methods. Many roads lead to Pattensen, and it is possible to march united, fight divided.5 Moreover, the revue is best served if every path leading to Pattensen is made available, after all: who brings many things brings something for everyone.6 And the audience is so grateful for even the smallest signpost, since “they would wander gloomily in the dark, were it not for the latest technology lighting their every step.” (Music by Walter Gieseking.)7 That’s the advantage of different writers collaborating on a poetic work: when they respect and understand each other, they can use their poet’s fist 8 to have an immediate moral impact on the audience. In practice, the result is a working relationship built on trust. Over time you learn how much or, indeed, how little one of you knows about this and the other about that, and as a result, one of you becomes responsible for lyricism and another for pathos; one works on plot and another on form [Gestaltung]— after all, a person only has two hands. This is the only way you can strive for emotions that are honest and deep, a plot that is unified and true, and a composition that conveys grandeur, warmth, and whatever other stock phrases there are. Or do you really believe Shakespeare could have composed any one of those plays all on his own? Though he might not have had to churn out poetry on an assembly line the way we modern writers do, he certainly had to rely on earlier poets, like the authors of Italian novellas, for instance, who supplied him with material for his dramas by the mile. That said, some of his works were quite remarkable, and you can always count on their success with the audience. However, now that everybody writes just those bits that best suit their temperament and ability, it follows that the quality of each individual piece is raised significantly, so that today we actually regret the fact that most classical dramas of the past were invariably written by a single author. Add to this the fact that you are more critical of other people’s work than you are of your own. So you mutually supervise each other’s work, sharply criticizing its weaknesses according to the axiom “tit for tat.” Only when the other person allows something of yours to pass do you let something of theirs slip by; it goes without saying that this protects the work from becoming feeble and overblown. And, of course, it will greatly increase the reach the entire thing has. So you can see why we employ many writers when we need to compose works meant for large groups of people nowadays. A revue would not be a revue if many cooks hadn’t stirred the broth diligently to achieve its delicate consistency, and this is also the case for the revue, “With the Aid of Technology” by Kranich, Steinitz, Schwitters. Three eyes see more than two, and so you can be sure that with these three excellent poets at work, the result must be a triumph.
Revue by Three Reviewed
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(111) [REVIEW OF HANS HILDEBRANDT, WOMAN AS ARTIST ] “Prof. Dr. Hans Hildebrandt, Die Frau als Künstlerin. (Rudolf Mosse Verlag, Berlin),” Hannoversches Tageblatt (16 December 1928): [30].
Here, for the first time, we have an exhaustive treatment of the subject of the creative woman, from the earliest times to the present day. The author makes the welcome attempt to distinguish between creative work typical of women and creative work of men. By considering them as two entirely separate fields, the art of the creative woman gains greater importance. Though a woman will never achieve the heroic force of the most brilliant artwork by a man, the work of the creative woman manifests other qualities unattainable for men. Warmth of feeling or sophisticated elegance, not detached, cool clarity of observation, are characteristic traits of feminine art. Female art frequently responds to fleeting impulses. A woman’s sense of color is stronger than her sense of form. Her composition is playful, much as when you idly hum a tune. It does not result from logically working through a problem. The work of a woman is not characterized by invention but by the adaptation of forms that have somehow been appropriated. A woman knows how to make charming small talk, to embellish, and to decorate. Fully abstract art is in no way foreign to women— they have an innate sense for inherently tranquil and balanced harmonies. Feminine fantasy traverses the realm of abstract formcreation with delicate grace. Women are not as critically disposed as men, but they possess a lighter touch. The purely artistic values of feminine expression are often most apparent in artworks that evince a certain naiveté and lack of skill. Women are generally quite talented, significantly more so than men, though their talent hardly matches the greatness of male talent. When left unchecked by criticism, feminine talent can just as easily lead to kitschy pyrography as to high art. Women take delight in what is sophisticated and audacious; a woman’s capacity for great achievement increases proportionally as the imperative for tight structure diminishes. No woman has ever successfully completed a symphony, opera, or monumental building. However, it cannot be said that ultimate genius eludes women. A woman’s genius excels whenever she can involve her entire personality, and then, in every instance, she produces magnificent, dynamic, and warm artworks. These and similar arguments guide Hildebrandt as he develops his case. Much can be learned from his mature reflections. Hildebrandt is one of the few scholars of art who are 328
still able to see with open eyes, which is why he does not shut himself off from new things and why his judgment is truly inclusive. He possesses an innate gift that I sincerely wish all art historians had, namely a critical faculty. The 337 illustrations reproduced in the book include works by our Hannoverian artists Käthe Steinitz and Irmgard Halmhuber.1 Else Fraenkel is mentioned.2 It would have been most welcome had Hildebrandt included a few examples of typical work by male artists together with the illustrations of typical work by female artists to underscore the arguments he developed in the text.
[Review of Hans Hildebrandt, Woman as Artist]
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(112) HANNOVER AND THE ABSTRACT ROOM BY LISSITZKY “Hannover und der abstrakte Raum von Lissitzky,” Das neue Frankfurt 3, no. 4 (April 1929): 83. Published with a photographic illustration; see fig. 24.
Alexander Dorner (1893– 1957) became director of the Provinzialmuseum Hannover in 1925, where he acquired a major collection of contemporary art and developed innovative methods to completely remodel the galleries. In September 1926, he commissioned El Lissitzky to design a room to exhibit abstract art, which opened to the public in October 1927. The space demanded that visitors reflect consciously on their perception and movement, inviting them to slide panels to reveal hidden artworks, rotate drums in vitrines that exhibited typographic designs, and marvel at how the walls changed color depending on their point of view. The doors of this Kabinett der Abstrakten (Abstract Cabinet) were hung with heavy curtains, which isolated the space from the neighboring galleries and, by analogy, from the museum’s historical collections. In 1930, Dorner asked László Moholy-Nagy to design a Raum der Gegenwart (Room of the Present), which would focus on modern design, mass media, and light projection. This room was never realized, however. In 1937, the National Socialists dismantled Lissitzky’s Abstract Cabinet, having confiscated many of its works for the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate art) exhibition, and Dorner emigrated to France and ultimately to the United States, where he directed the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.
Hannover is a curious city. At one time, Hannover made great strides in fostering the arts, with the founding of its Kunstverein around ninety-five years ago, the oldest in Germany. Over time, it fell into an increasingly deep sleep. Then, at the beginning of the First World War, the founding of the Hannover Secession and the Kestner-Gesellschaft suddenly breathed new artistic life into Hannover. They stood alongside the Kunstverein, now loudly snoring in what was undoubtedly the well-earned sleep of old age. For a while, the Kestner-Gesellschaft served as a beacon in Germany, and it is still held in high regard. After the revolution, Herbert von Garvens established a modern art gallery with his outstanding expressionist collection.1 The two exhibitions organized during the first postwar years in Hannover made it possible to learn all there was to know about the latest crop of new art. Hannover became the modern art city and supported the visual arts, painting, and 330
sculpture with particular enthusiasm. Unfortunately, Galerie von Garvens survived only for a few years. Then, under the leadership of Director Dorner, Hannover’s Provincial Museum began to reorganize its art collection and purchase new artworks. In addition to the expressionists, which every museum is currently acquiring, Hannover’s Provincial Museum purchased some abstract and constructivist paintings and sculptures. Dr. Dorner commissioned Lissitzky, who spent nearly a year in Hannover, to design a space for abstract works of art. This room, which has now been installed for two years, is the first room dedicated to abstract art in a German museum.
Hannover and the Abstract Room by Lissitzky
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(113) ABOUT ME BY MYSELF Published in English in The Little Review 12, no. 2 (May 1929): 77– 78. Translator unknown.
This statement appeared in English in the final issue of the American literary magazine The Little Review. The cover advertised that “more than fifty of the foremost men [sic] in the arts tell the truth about themselves in this number.” Contributors were asked to respond to the following questionnaire, devised by editor Jane Heap with founder Margaret Anderson. These questions were printed on page 76 of the issue with a retouched portrait of Schwitters by the Dresden photographer Genja Jonas (1895– 1938; see fig. 14): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
What should you most like to do, to know, to be? (In case you are not satisfied). Why wouldn’t you change places with any other human being? What do you look forward to? What do you fear most from the future? What has been the happiest moment of your life? The unhappiest? (if you care to tell). What do you consider your weakest characteristics? Your strongest? What do you like most about yourself? Dislike most? What things do you really like? Dislike? (Nature, people, ideas, objects, etc. Answer in a phrase or a page, as you will). What is your attitude toward art today? What is your world view? (Are you a reasonable being in a reasonable scheme?) Why do you go on living?
Questions which are important to some people are absolutely unimportant to others. It is of no importance to me that I am a painter; it is, however, important that I have a profession, in which I can create and work. And I believe if I had become an Engineer I would have been quite satisfied with my calling, and if, for example, I had had to be a teacher I certainly believe that I would have worked for reforms in the schools, by which I would certainly have made myself as disliked as I am now for my painting and poetry. Therefore Humanity should be happy that I became just an artist. From the future I expect really nothing, for our earth has a thousand centuries of development behind it, and there is no reason to believe that out-and-out idiots 332
have conducted the affairs of mankind. I am also quite inclined to say in this connection that mankind around me, as to normal gifts, is many times as gifted as I am. If however in spite of this it often seems that one were shut up in a mad-house . . . it is my opinion that many cooks spoil the broth and that they will always do so in the future. If humanity would, once and forever, decide to place its fate in my hands, I would guarantee it heaven on earth. But I fear that it will never do this, so alas, humanity, through no fault of mine, will have to remain in the befogged state in which it now finds itself. The happiest moment of my life was when I discovered that everything is really indifferent, for through that I won the freedom to work only as much as was necessary to satisfy my impulse to work. I remark at the same time, to my regret, that hunger is one of my impulses; and for this reason I often have to work more than my health can stand. The unhappiest moments of my life for me, not for others, are those in which I have to do something that I have absolutely no desire to do, and I might say that for me, not for others, in such cases there is nothing in the work. I consider it my greatest strength that I work in spite of the fact that many times I have no desire to work, and when it is very often useless, and I consider it useless because the future will treat it just as it treats old junk, as I treat the work of the past, unless it can put something better in the place of it. In every case and before all things I strive for results, for even if the striving is of no account, nevertheless the result is important, as the one way of knowing exactly what one has created. I cannot say that I have ever liked one thing more than another, whether it be ideas or objects, for to me objects are only a means of expression and live for me in their form. It would be quite banal to mention that obviously I should rather eat a ripe apple than a sour one. And it is quite a private matter, for instance, that I prefer guineapigs to white mice, because guinea-pigs are often quite droll to watch, while white mice are always stupidly turning in circles just like the whole of humanity, and the old mice are often bald just like men in the prime of life. Then I like salamanders very much, they have a noble repose, they do not spin about in circles, but lie in the damp, eat angleworms, above all things they shed their skins more often than men. The art of today is a remarkable affair. In so far as it is art, it differs in nothing from the art of the past. In so far as it is not art, it differs just as little from the bunk of the past. Art is above all only formation, creation. Therefore it does [not] differ from the growth of a plant or of a crystal, from the life of a star or the construction of a machine.1 Raoul Hausmann once very rightly said, “first art and then pianoplaying.” It is not to be inferred that all that is called piano-playing is art. And so we have, for example, in abstract painting today, in my opinion, the highest development that painting has had in the course of a thousand years, while the music of our day lags far behind that of Beethoven and Bach. Of my world-view I have already spoken. I seem to myself to be a completely
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thinking man who, with other more or less thinking men, and a multitude of absolutely idiotic individuals, is shut up in a sort of insane asylum, in which one passes the time reading classical poetry. If any one asks me why I go on living in this madhouse, I can give him the same answer as to the question why I have visited that museum where “the lemon trees bloom”: in order to observe and to register. Ecco. I could here once more write ecco, but enough and why should one give oneself unnecessary labour.
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(114) A LAYMAN’S JUDGMENT OF NEW ARCHITECTURE “Urteile eines Laien über neue Architektur,” i 10 2, no. 21/22 (June 1929): 173– 76.
The principal faults of contemporary architecture come down to the individualism of the architect and the client’s delusions of grandeur. Every architect, even the most insignificant, has an individualistic way of building, and his building must be individualistic since he can see no other chance to secure commissions. It just has to be something special. This results in a great deal of affectation and foolishness, even unruly caprice. However, healthy and strong individualism can still be tolerated, for if it is very strong, it can sometimes personally generate the few truly strong and healthy innovations. The client’s delusion of grandeur is equally damaging. Every client, regardless of the money he has to spend, wants a castle. Accordingly, the architect’s individualism, together with the client’s delusion of grandeur, produces those tacky castles1 for city dwellers. If only it were a real castle then it would not be so bad. But it is just a cheap imitation, and the inhabitant is not a prince. And so the architect takes from the real castle neither its careful construction nor its material quality but focuses instead on the profusion of useless decoration. He assumes the client cannot distinguish good from bad decoration and simply uses some tawdry junk to stick all over the castle. And simply having a few stones protrude or turned on their side still looks ever so cute and gives the whiff of a castle. But above all, he himself does not have the ability to judge where the decorative elements need to go to create a specific accent, and so his placement is quite arbitrary. Unfortunately, this is how 99 percent of all urban houses are built today. What you have stolen from your fathers you must build yourself to own it. Not every architect is a luminary. But he must put on this act or he earns nothing. There used to be a certain type for houses. This was the type that Meier had and that Müller wanted too. The client would demand this type, and all the architect could do was make minor changes, small improvements to this type. The effects were guaranteed, because they had been thought over and worked through for generations. The architect of today— I mean the average one— is equally averse to thinking, but the type is missing: this is what we are missing today.2 We need to place the emphasis on what is good, not on what is new. Not newer, but better, and the type will emerge of its own accord. But to this end, the architect must learn to think. The excellent farmhouses of Lower Saxony, the townhouses of Amsterdam, the timber-framed houses with overhanging roofs of Hildesheim, they all previously emerged as types. This is how 335
machines, the automobile, all functioning things are developed today. Unfortunately, however, the function of the home is not acknowledged. Here the principle is “improvement,” while new architecture always wants to begin anew without knowing where to start. The old is no longer comforting, which is a good thing: social conditions compel different attitudes. Meanwhile, the minor architect rehearses new beginnings by building tacky castles in the old manner that correspond to his idea of the modern era. Most architects imagine a new form. Only the gifted few know that what we need today is a new frame of mind. The promise of a new beginning lies not with new forms but with the recognition of new social compositions. Facing a chaotic society, the architect requires in ternal discipline. This is not achieved through catchphrases or grand gestures; it is achieved only through thought. And experience. The architect of today must be a leader and not merely satisfy the private whims of clients. Researching new construction methods, satisfying social requirements, recognizing good solutions, and building on experience— these are our castles; these are the goals of architecture. Granted, there are many talented architects who work honestly and correctly, but even some of the gifted ones are restrained by formal inhibitions. This is what I regret the most, as it is this formal inhibition of the gifted few that hampers overall development. Admittedly, it is often difficult to locate the seat of such formal inhibitions. Nevertheless, the architect must know exactly why he has moved a chimney from the center to the front of the house, why he is placing reinforced concrete pillars in a room, why he is using clinker bricks here and there, for instance.3 This may all be correct under certain circumstances, but we must always ask ourselves whether it is just decoration. I am an artist, specifically a painter. I love art a great deal. Even in our age of social architecture, art is not superfluous, but rather very important. However, I am for a clean separation. Architecture is not here to satisfy vague artistic drives. Better to let loose in painting, and once you’ve vented there, you will regard architecture dispassionately and objectively [sachlich].
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(115) THE STYLE OF THE AGE AND THE DAMMERSTOCK HOUSING ESTATE “Der Zeitstiel [sic] und die Dammerstocksiedlung,” Der Dammerstock: Die neue Wohnsiedlung im Süden der Landeshauptstadt; Sonderbeilage zum Karlsruher Tagblatt (29 September 1929): 1.
In summer 1929, Schwitters was hired as the graphic designer for the housing exhibition Die Gebrauchswohnung (The functional home), which showcased the first completed section of the modern Dammerstock housing estate in Karlsruhe (29 September– 17 October 1929). Conceived and financed by the city in response to an acute housing shortage, Dammerstock was intended for the “Masse der Bevölkerung” (mass of the population)— workers, salaried employees, and civil servants. The priorities of economic construction and hygienic living emphasized Rationalisierung (rationalization), Typisierung (adherence to the type), and Normalisierung (adherence to norms or standards), watchwords for industrial regulation guiding architectural and graphic design (see text 107). In contrast to the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart (text 98), Dammerstock emphasized use, economy, and mass building, rather than the variety of modern architectural forms. Walter Gropius (1883– 1969) was the chief architect, and together with Otto Haesler (text 105), conceived the site plan for the entire estate, which rigorously adhered to Zeilenbauten (block or row houses) with flat roofs, white walls, steel construction, and uniform windows. This housing type enforced principles of equality, uniformity, and orientation to the sun. Schwitters, who had strong ties to both architects, designed the graphic identity for the estate and all the printed matter for the exhibition, which included two typefaces of his own design (see fig. 38 and fig. 39; WVZ 111– 19). Schwitters quickly incorporated material from this commission into his collages.1
Objective construction is not yet architecture. Architecture is the formcreation of living space, workspace, the house. Objective architecture does not fundamentally differ from classical architecture. Someone who cannot see the beauty in good, objective architecture cannot see it in classical architecture either. They both follow the same system; in all architecture, beauty grows from order, from the rhythm of
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the unfolding parts, proportions, and, last but not least, the correct and uncomplicated use of building materials. Now, there are many people who cannot perceive order, rhythm, proportions, or construction. Just as there are people who are color-blind, there are a great number of people who are not artistic. For some people, classical music is just noise that cannot be tolerated for any length of time without feeling ill, and this is because they are unmusical. And there is many a color-blind person who paints without realizing that he cannot recognize nuances; his work becomes hard and colorless. So the color-blind person learns to paint according to various methods and formulas, and the formulas for architects who lack artistic talent are earlier styles and habits. Style is the highest form that can be reached by the formative will of an age according to its outlook and materials. But this is not style as inartistic beings understand it. They take form to be the content, the mask to be the person. This gave rise to mask or facade architecture in recent decades. Such architecture could build in any style without having any style. Built into these facades was just one bit of faulty reasoning: it overlooked that we ourselves have no style. How can you attain the highest form of the formative will of an age if you uncritically submit yourself to the will of former times? As time passes, views change; this is a natural law, since nothing can remain constant. Technology invents materials that are better suited to specific tasks or that were previously unknown. The views people hold change, and as they change so does everything that surrounds them, everything they create for themselves. What modern woman would want to wear a long dress that was fashionable in 1914? Our inclination is more athletic; our greatest demand is individual health. The new materials include iron, insulation material that is light and thin while also providing acoustic and thermal insulation, and, especially, reinforced concrete. New building materials demand new methods of construction, just as new views demand new methods of construction, and it is in these that we must look for the fundamental principles of a new style, our style— not in the imitation of past cultural phenomena or historical styles. We can learn from historical architecture only through comparison. The intelligent person can learn from comparison how not to build today. But he also learns that order, rhythm, proportions, and construction methods appropriate to the material and in keeping with the views of the age are the fundamental principles of our contemporary style. Our age does not yet have its own general style. Everything is still too much in a state of becoming. Moreover, too many still cling to empty forms, just as the drowning grasp at straws. But the style is emerging; it is evident everywhere in the courageous deeds of our most brilliant architects. Objective construction is not yet the style of 1929. But it is the only place where this style can grow, since our age demands objectivity [Sachlichkeit]. The Dammerstock Housing Estate in Karlsruhe makes a very strong contribution to the new style, to our style. Ten distinct architectural personalities from
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different creative circles share a common goal, working in an essentially common manner. Their individual differences specifically highlight the vitality of the emerging style. You can build anything with reinforced concrete in formal terms; but it is precisely this fact that requires architects to have a system. Mendelssohn’s [sic] Einstein Tower was a mistake, because expressive lines make no sense in functional architecture.2 The Dammerstock Housing Estate conveys the strong impression that the architects involved know how to build using our materials. This makes Dammerstock a great achievement on the path toward a style befitting our age.
The Style of the Age and the Dammerstock Housing Estate
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(116) FACTS FROM MY LIFE Unpublished typescript, “Daten aus meinem Leben” (Hannover, 17 December 1929), with corrections and additions in Helma Schwitters’s hand.
Schwitters sent this autobiographical statement to the architects Heinz Rasch (1902– 96) and Bodo Rasch (1903– 95), and sections of it appeared as an abridged version with an additional final paragraph in their survey of contemporary graphic design, Gefesselter Blick: 25 kurze Monografien und Beiträge über neue Werbegestaltung [Bound vision: 25 short monographs and articles on the new advertising design] (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Dr. Zaugg, 1930); text 123.
Born 20 June 1887 in Hannover, son of Eduard Schwitters and Henriette, née Beckemeier. Parents ran a fashionable clothing store, where my mother tailored and fitted, my father dressed the windows. I was baptized Evangelical Lutheran, not out of any conviction, since, just a few days old, I was still too young for that. Confirmed at age 14, because that is the customary thing to do; never left the church, because I cannot make up my mind. I was seriously ill from age 14 to 16, St. Vitus’s Dance.1 I still suffer attacks from time to time. Otherwise I am completely normal, except I feel every change within me very deeply. As a result I always think I am sick, though I am actually incurably healthy. It is up to others to decide whether my love of art is an illness; I cannot do so myself. Love of art is too bland an expression. Indeed, I attended the Realgymnasium in Hannover, and my parents made me take the Abitur exam, for they had decided I should continue my studies. But for me, anything other than painting, working in clay, writing poetry was out of the question. If that’s love of art, then that’s what I’ve got. I suffered a year of my education at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hannover and then continued at the Dresdner Kunstakademie from 1909 to 1914. From time to time I put in an appearance at the Kunstakademie in Berlin, until they discharged me as incurably untalented. I never enjoyed great success at art school, since I really cannot learn— that is my misfortune. And the curriculum never included what I wanted and needed to do. For me, art meant creating, not imitating, whether this was nature or, as is frequently the case, more dominant colleagues. It is up to others to decide whether what I create has any significance for them. At first, everybody was outraged, but they have since calmed down. If this keeps up, they will end up loving my works and out-bidding one another for them. The income from my work alone would allow me to finance 340
an entire war. It’s true I am opposed to all wars and my only enemy in the Great War was the sergeant, for I never left Hannover’s Waterlooplatz. But I managed this quite peacefully, too. And why not oblige your sergeants by drawing them, even if they are your enemy? This is art in enemy territory. By the way, my fatherland is Waldhausenstrasse. I have lived here in the same house with my parents for the past 37 years— I am quite conservative, after all. But it is tolerable only if you travel frequently. Hannover is the most convenient city in the world. You can travel anywhere easily. I also have all kinds of good friends and colleagues here. I am well known in Hannover, but nobody has any idea who I am, which is very interesting. Some have heard that I am respected outside of Hannover. They suddenly decide to respect me too, or they suddenly don’t greet me anymore, depending on their disposition. As for me, I always stay equally friendly— that is the easiest way to go about things. I have been married since 1915, after I was engaged for seven years. My wife’s name is Helma, and she was born a Fischer, and she is the best woman I could possibly imagine. Otherwise there’s no reason for an artist to marry. You need to be able to collect yourself, not be distracted. Our first son died; he was called Gerdchen and lived for only three days.2 Our second and last son is called Ernst, and he has just reached the beautiful age of 11. He has started his first year at Gymnasium and has sold more artworks than I have, because he is substantially cheaper. He is attending the same school I suffered at, without complaining, and his classmates are the sons of my classmates— this is how things go in Hannover. There was a terrible ferment within me during the war. What I gained at the academy I could not use, and what was new was still developing, while all around me a stupid battle raged about things that did not concern me. Everything we had to eat was disagreeable, and the topics of conversation never strayed beyond discussing the rather unpleasant Russian victories and who had fallen on the fields of honor as proud fighters for the fatherland. For my part, I was never able to understand how so many people could fight and fall for Waldhausenstrasse. Because I was of no use to the military, I was given a job as a mechanical draftsman, the next best thing to being an artist. This may sound great, but given the current level of specialization, I could master only one single item on the inventory list, and so I specialized in rack-and-pinions for Hill-clutches. You wouldn’t believe how many rack-and-pinions there are. And suddenly the glorious revolution was here. I have a low opinion of such revolutions; humanity has to be ripe for them. It is the wind that shakes the apples from the tree while they are still unripe— what a loss. But it brought an end to this whole swindle that people call war. I quit my job without giving notice and was off. Now the fermentation began in earnest. I felt liberated and wanted to exclaim my joy to the world. I was thrifty and used whatever I could find. After all, we were an impoverished country. You can also shout using garbage, and that’s what I did, by gluing and nailing it together. I called this Merz. It was my prayer to celebrate the victorious end of the war, for once again peace had triumphed. Everything was broken anyway, so the task was to build something new from the shards. This is Merz.
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I painted, nailed, glued, wrote poems, and experienced the world in Berlin. Since Berlin was the cheapest city in the world, millions of interesting foreigners arrived. My Anna Blume triumphed, people despised me, sent me threatening letters, and avoided me. It was like a reproduction of the revolution within me— not as it was, but as it should have been. Incidentally, I am a Sturm artist and love Herwarth Walden for his courageous work. And suddenly the revolution was over. However, things continued to ferment in me, though more like a fine sparkling wine ferments, bottled in Germany. I composed more and was more interested in the composition than the shards. I cannot write anything more about my art. But a man wants to live. And so once again I looked for the next best job, which this time was advertising and designing printed matter in general. Last year alone I designed more than 400 pieces of printed matter. Currently, I am an artistic adviser to the City of Hannover and have been a member of the PEN-Club for the past eight days, which is something you can be.
Text 116
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(117) [THE ART OF TODAY IS A STRANGE THING . . .] Published in Cercle et Carré 1 (15 March 1930): [6]. Translated from French by Eva Morawietz.
Cercle et Carré was an organization of abstract artists founded in December 1929 in Paris by Joaquín Torres-Garcia (1874– 1949) and Michel Seuphor (1901– 99). This brief statement by Schwitters appeared in the first issue of the periodical published by the group, along with texts by César Domela-Nieuwenhuis, Piet Mondrian, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, Fernand Léger, Wassily Kandinsky, Amédée Ozenfant, Enrico Prampolini, Luigi Russolo, Alberto Sartoris, and Georges Vantongerloo, among others.
The art of today is a strange thing: to the extent that it is art, it is no different from the art of the past, but to the extent that it is not art, it is not all that different from the junk of the past. Art is never anything other than structure, creative evidence. As such, it is no different from the growth of a plant or a crystal, from the life of the stars or the construction of a machine.
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(118) THE RING NEUE WERBEGESTALTER “der ring neue werbegestalter,” neue werbegraphik, exh. cat. (Basel: Gewerbemuseum, 1930), 4.
the ring neue werbegestalter was founded in 1928 and was intended to be the union or ring of all advertising designers. it is not complete, but then what is complete on this earth? advertising designers are people who use the design of printed matter to advertise, or who design rather than merely arrange their printed matter. these are beautiful words. such people, you might say, consider advertising and design to be the same. advertising follows directly from the form, and form follows directly from the advertisement. advertising and design become a unity: advertising design. this sounds so simple, and like everything that appears simple, it is very complicated. to advertise is to direct attention to a thing. the advertising designer directs the attention of a viewer to the object he is advertising not by using words, phrases, or artificially artistic ingredients, but simply with the design of printed matter conceived as a unity. design is the creation of a deliberate, unified form, and in this, the designer can rely on rules as general as those available to the musician. this proceeds from the fact that we are all essentially the same and function the same way. unity is the equilibrium among the constitutive parts. imbalances between the parts cause tensions. every part is a weight, a force with a certain direction and a certain strength. the activity of evaluation weighs up the tension between the opposing forces so that they add or subtract to zero. design results from the reconciliation of these forces, not from the forces themselves. in printed matter, the forces set in tension against one another include illustration, script, type, printed and unprinted areas, etc. everything is equally important. but do not think that design is mere decoration with thick lines, for instance, as our imitators seem to think. the members of the ring are: baumeister, burchartz, dexel, domela, leistikow, michel, schuitema, schwitters, trump, tschichold, vordemberge, zwart. guests for the exhibition in basel are cyliax, kassak, molzahn, teige. the address of the ring is kurt schwitters, chairman, hannover, waldhausenstrasse 5. march 1930 kurt schwitters
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(119) ADVERTISING DESIGN Self-published brochure, Werbe- Gestaltung Kurt Schwitters, Hannover, [1930].
In 1927, Paul Renner (1878– 1956) released Futura, a sans-serif typeface based on geometric shapes. Futura was a commission by the Bauer Type Foundry, Frankfurt am Main, one of the largest type foundries of the time. Intended for the massive urban renewal project the New Frankfurt (see text 89 and text 98), Futura quickly became one of the most widely used typefaces of the twentieth century. Renner was an active member of the Werkbund, a major theorist of the New Typography, and a close friend of Jan Tschichold. Schwitters suggests that this brochure would have been the first in a series of publications on typography and design organized under the collective heading “F” (presumably for Futura, which he uses for the design and discusses in detail). Subsequent pamphlets were never realized, however. In addition to illustrating examples of his own design work, he sets down a binary classification of advertising/information (Werbung/Orientierung) for all printed matter, which also structures his lecture “Form-Creation in Typography” (text 120). This brochure concludes with a reprint of El Lissitzky’s design theses, “Topography of Typography,” which Schwitters had first published in Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 47. In his seventh thesis, Lissitzky uses the term Schrift-Steller, which in this context translates as “type-setter” but which also highlights the compound etymology of the German word for writer, Schriftsteller, as a person who sets down script. In this brochure, Schwitters does not reproduce Lissitzky’s final thesis, “The printed page overcomes space and time. The printed page, the infinity of books, must be overcome. THE ELECTRO-LIBRARY.” When he had first published these theses in Merz, Schwitters had appended the following note: “The editors do not agree with all these theses, since they only partly acknowledge the connection between text and the design of letters.” (We reproduce Schwitters’s original design in full on the facing pages of this translation to convey the importance of the visual presentation of the text for its arguments.)
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AdvertisingDesign
kurt schwitters hannover waldhausenstr. 5 · telephone 28746 Please read this booklet carefully and consider whether printed matter designed in this manner could also promote your business. Then come to me. If you want me to visit, please contact me.
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THE NEW FORMCREATION IN TYPOGRAPHY
by kurt schwitters hannover / waldhausenstr. 5 Principle of INFORMATION Letterhead Envelope Invoice Form Handbill Postcard Poster Brochure Book Advertisement Program Catalogue Entrance Ticket Packaging Legal Document Electric Advertisement
Principle of ADVERTISEMENT
████ ██
████ ██████ ██████ ███ ████ █ ██ ███ ███ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████ █
██
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THE NEW FORMCREATION . . . . . . . . . a
informational
Printed Matter
b
advertising
Printed Matter
Function
Means
Literary logical
Optical logical
this is:
and is calibrated for: Understanding
Eye
and results in: Text-Form
Image-Form
Symbol
Sign
CONTENTS Form-creation
Page 3
Relationships
Page 4 through 7
Rules of the Text-Form
Page 8 and 9
Rules of the Image-Form
Page 10 and 11
The suitable typeface
Page 12 and 13
Examples
Page 14 and 15
Topography of Typography
Page 16
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. . IN TYPOGRAPHY The new typography embraces everything through FORM-CREATION The logical, deliberate arrangement of Text-Form and Image-Form and the creation of clear relationships of text and image are persuasive through their quality, they are comprehensible, and they reduce skeptical-critical attitudes. FORM-CREATION is unity from multiplicity, through selection, delimitation, arrangement, rhythm, through an equilibrium that is resting or has directed motion, through system
EQUILIBRIUM or
SYSTEM?
balancing aesthetic
arranging practical
Both are important, but system must be given precedence over equilibrium.
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RELATIONSHIPS
Creating relationships is the goal of all typography. To this end the Text-Form follows literary principles, the Image-Form optical ones. Printed matter should optically express the imagined or spoken text. The Image-Form replaces the Text-Form to prompt the reader to retranslate the Text-Form for himself. It is banal and incorrect to insist on a literal translation, since the rules of literature and optics are different. Nevertheless, the optical form must express clearly and unambiguously what is essential in the text. The Image-Form must correspond to the push and pull of the Text-Form (cf. Lissitzky, page 16). Relationships create order.
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RELATIONSHIPS IN THE TEXTFORM
Words provide a mental orientation. Words are a directed force. These directed forces can be added or multiplied. They can also be subtracted or divided. Addition Multiplication
linear relationship planar relationship
Relationships result from placement above, beside, below, from intersections, from repetitions, from jointly striving for a shared goal. etc. As a tool, language is incomplete.
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RELATIONSHIPS OF THE IMAGEFORM
linear, planar, spatial, dynamic. Typography avails itself of linear and dynamic relationships more frequently than planar and spatial ones. a. LINEAR Instead of an imagined line of symmetry that produces two agitated contours at either end of a block of text, consistently use a straight line to justify the margin of the text where it begins. (Then only the closing alignment is contingent.) Linear relationships at every conspicuous section of the text. No lines, no letters can be without relationships. Skipping part of a sentence enables you to extend part of an important border downward. Linear relationships can be vertical, horizontal, oblique. b. PLANAR Relationships between the entire surface to its parts. Relationships between sentences, individual words, lines, and unprinted interstices. Everything is a positive value. Whereas the tension of the lines run parallel to the printed surface, the tensions
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RELATIONSHIPS OF THE IMAGEFORM
of a planar kind run perpendicularly to the print surface. Each value of color or light is a force directed forward or backward. c. SPATIAL As illusion (reproduction) or reality (gable wall), packaging, shop window, etc. You must evaluate relationships spatially like a sculptor, not in a painterly way like a painter. d. DYNAMIC As illusion (the so-called movement of lines, planes, cubes that are, in fact, at rest) or reality. (Lines, surfaces, cubes in actual motion.) You must evaluate the cause of motion, how the movements and velocities relate. The resting line, the plane, the resting space have a zero value. Relationships of all values to one another. Equilibrium must be achieved. (Unity). Unity can be at rest or have a directed motion. Relationships provide material for the system.
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RULES OF THE TEXTFORM information
.
Information presupposes multiplicity. You inform yourself about each individual thing by comparing different things to each other. Distinct conceptual groups need to be established, which then need to be superordinated, juxtaposed, and subordinated in relation to one another. The conceptual groups add up to the sum total. Sum total is superordinated concept. By adding the sum totals you arrive at the greater sum total. In this way you increase the reader’s ability to draw conclusions. Information is resting, without center, passive, objective. Superordinated concept. Superordinate, juxtapose, subordinate. Rhythmic organization. Clarity. Purpose: To convey a reliable overview.
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RULES OF THE TEXTFORM advertisement
.
Advertisement strives for unity. You advertise a single thing, not for different things at the same time. Distinct conceptual groups need to be established, which then advertise a single thing, together, alongside, or intersecting each other. The conceptual groups multiply themselves to stand for the product. The product is the desired goal. By multiplying the products you arrive at the greater product. In this way you avoid the reader’s negative criticism. Advertisement is animated, centered, active, subjective. The goal to be attained. Repetition, Intersection. Rhythmic arrangement. Clarity. Purpose: To influence judgment favorably.
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RULES OF IMAGEFORM
information. resting without center
therefore balanced
passive objective vertical— horizontal
rectangles
Parts equal, the negative value of each part is essentially equal to its positive value. therefore— informative
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RULES OF IMAGEFORM
advertisement. animated emphasized center
therefore radiating
active subjective parallel or oblique,
any and all forms
Parts different. Negative and positive are essentially different, like convex and concave therefore— advertising
aggressive
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THE SUITABLE TYPEFACE futura
in all sizes and all cuts, for all purposes. light
4 - 84 points
book
4 - 84 points
medium
6 - 84 points
demibold
6 - 84 points
bold
20 - 84 points
oblique light
6 - 48 points
oblique book
6 - 48 points
demibold condensed
6 - 84 points
DISPLAY book
8 - 60 Cicero
DISPLAY demibold
8 - 60 Cicero
DISPLAY demibold condensed
8 - 60 Cicero
DISPLAY bold
8 - 60 Cicero
Bauer Type Foundry · Frankfurt am Main Designed by Paul Renner, Munich
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THE SUITABLE TYPEFACE futura
its advantages: constructive and precise in its expression, clear, exact forms, uniform tracking, without embellishment, elegant, striking, classically pure, noble, harmonious in its proportions, abstract rigor, neutral, very calm typesetting, lively upper case lettering, versatile, easily readable, emphasizes formal oppositions of the individual letters, concise, precise, taut, moves with character, technical, ingenious, despite the clean style of the machine; hence, suggestive. IT IS NOT THE LOWER CASE a that distinguishes Futura, but its form, its richness, its execution.
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EXAMPLE INFORMATION
DIN A 4 Futura
Logo for Karlsruhe designed by Kurt Schwitters
distinct conceptual groups, binding margin, logo upper right, address intentionally small, dividing lines. Letterhead for the Karlsruhe Social Security Office, design Kurt Schwitters.
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EXAMPLE ADVERTISEMENT Effect of spilling water centric movement radiating, active Registered Trademark for Weise Söhne Design Kurt Schwitters Poster by Kurt Schwitters
Oblique arrangement
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TOPOGRAPHY OF TYPOGRAPHY
by El Lissitzky (from the journal Merz, July 1923) 1. Words on the printed page are absorbed visually, not aurally. 2. Conventional words are used to relay concepts, letters should be used to shape the concept. 3. Economy of expression— optics instead of phonetics. 4. The design of the book space using the material of type according to the rules of typographic mechanics must correspond to the push and pull of the content. 5. The design of the book space using the material of clichés, which create the New Optics. The supernaturalistic reality of the perfected eye. 6. The continuous page sequence— the bioscopic book. 7. The new book demands the new type-setter. Inkstand and goose-quill are dead. 8. etc. Save this booklet, other issues in the F series will follow that deal with print design in different specialist areas. KURT SCHWITTERS
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(120) FORM-CREATION IN TYPOGRAPHY Unpublished annotated slide list in shorthand for a lecture on “Gestaltung in der Typographie” (13 February 1930). Accompanying lecture notes in shorthand labeled, “Zu Lichtbildvortrag Typography” (For Typography Slide Lecture, 3 April 1930).
In a letter from 24 October 1928 to the members of the ring neue werbegestalter (text 118), Schwitters announced that he would be “delivering several lectures on typography in the foreseeable future” and urged his colleagues to send him suitable photographs of their work for their communal slide collection.1 This collection, which they had established in May that year, was an archive of their design work that Schwitters kept at his home in Hannover. It could be loaned to members as needed for lectures that would publicize their efforts. While it is unclear to what extent this collection coincides with the 109 glass slides that survive in Schwitters’s archive, all examples of typographic work represented in these images are by members of the ring. Schwitters presented a slide lecture on “vormgeving in de kunst” (formcreation in art) as early as January 1929 at the Amsterdam School of Music at the invitation of the group of architects de 8. A report claimed he projected “a hundred slides,” which he steadily pared down and reordered as he gave various versions of the lecture throughout Germany over the course of the year.2 The annotated slide list for the Hannover venue and the shorthand notes for the lecture in Frankfurt have been translated here, accompanied by reproductions of Schwitters’s glass slides. Two additional slide lists (without annotation) dated 9 June 1929 survive in the archive; they may correspond to earlier iterations he delivered to the Berliner Typographische Vereinigung (in June 1929) and the Graphischer Klub Stuttgart (8 November 1929). These documents show that Schwitters consistently presented the modern graphic design of the ring neue werbegestalter through the lens of contemporary painting, sculpture, and architecture. Modern typography, whether it served the goals of advertising or information, extended the development of abstract form-creation into mass visual culture. In this sense, it enlivens a history of form that moved in an opposite direction than Merz, which had appropriated the remnants of mass-produced, printed ephemera into abstract composition. Schwitters’s lecture “Form-Creation in Typography” should therefore be read as a didactic counterpart to his tireless activities as an experimental poetic performer. It connects to earlier presenta380
tions (now lost) that he gave on “the development of modern painting” and to his later lectures in exile (texts 144– 47).3
13. 2. 30 AAV, Hannover 4 Lecture: Form-Creation in Typography
21 Top left, Slide 1. Buchheister: Einformvariation [Carl Buchheister, Einformvariation 25 V, 1926 (?). Medium and dimensions unknown. Location unknown]. Top right, Slide 2. Kandinsky: Oval Picture [Wassily Kandinsky, Ovale No. 2, 1925. Oil on cardboard, 34.5 × 29.7 cm. Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris]. Bottom left, Slide 3. Lissitzky: Construction [El Lissitzky, Proun (Study for Proun S.K.), 1922– 23. Watercolor, gouache, ink, graphite, conté crayon, and varnish on paper, 21.4 × 29.7 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, Estate of Katherine S. Dreier, 1953]. Bottom right, Slide 5. E. Michel: Drawing [Ella BergmannMichel, Between Black, 1927. Collaged drawing, dimensions unknown. Location unknown]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
1. Buchheister: Einformvariation [Variation on a single form].5 On the picture plane. Circling around the central point. 2 exceptions. 2. Kandinsky: Oval Picture. Again the same circling. Supported by framing oval. Linear movements with the same tendency to emphasize the central point. 3. Lissitzky: Construction.6 Circling. Drawing out along correctly placed lines, oscillating around the central point. 5. E. Michel: Drawing.7 The apparent central point displaced from the actual central point.
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22 Top left, Slide 6. Gabo: Construction [Naum Gabo, Raumkonstruktion C (Space Construction C), 1920; plastic and glass (?), ca. 76 × 91.5 cm. Location unknown (formerly Katherine S. Dreier/Société Anonyme Collection)]. Top right, Slide 7. Moholy: Construction [László Moholy-Nagy, Construction, 1922; oil on panel, 54.3 × 45.6 × 1.5 cm (frame 70.8 × 62.2 × 10.8 cm). Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Lydia Dorner in memory of Alexander Dorner]. Bottom left, Slide 8 (now lost). Schwitters: Das grosse Ichbild [Kurt Schwitters, Merzbild 9 b das grosse Ichbild / Merzbild K 7 [?] (Merz Picture 9 b, The Great I Picture / Merz Picture K 7 [?]), 1919. Collage, oil, gouache, paper, and carton on board, 96.8 × 70 cm (106 × 78.5 cm with original frame). Museum Ludwig, Cologne]. Bottom right, Slide 9 (now lost). Schwitters: Bild mit rotem Kreuz [Kurt Schwitters, Merzbild 1 B Bild mit rotem Kreuz (Merz Picture 1 B Picture with Red Cross), 1919. Collage, oil, gouache, paper, carton, and canvas on board, 64.5 × 54.2 cm (78 × 68.5 cm with backing). Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt am Main]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
6. Gabo: Construction.8 The same translated into sculpture [Plastik]. Continuation into half-space. 7. Moholy: Construction.9 Spatial radiation translated onto the painted picture plane. The integrating red line. 8. Schwitters: Das grosse Ichbild [The Great I Picture].10 Same laws, but with rectangular forms. Repeatedly radiating out over the frame and radiating out onto the picture plane. 9. Schwitters: Bild mit rotem Kreuz [Picture with Red Cross].11 Three important points of the composition beyond the frame.
Text 120
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23 Top left, Slide 10. Schwitters: Abstraction [Kurt Schwitters, Albert Finzlerbild / ALBERT FINSLERBILD, 1926. Oil on wood, 74.5 cm × 61.5 cm. Sprengel Museum Hannover (CR 1358)]. Top right, Slide 4 [El Lissitzky, Proun R.V.N. 2, 1923. Mixed media on canvas on Masonite, 99 × 99 cm. Sprengel Museum Hannover]. Bottom left, Slide 11 (?). Mondrian: Composition [Piet Mondrian, Compositie met groot rood vlak, geel, zwart, grijs en blauw (Composition with large red plane, yellow, black, gray and blue), 1921. Oil on canvas, 59.5 × 59.5 cm. Gemeentemuseum, The Hague]. Bottom right, Slide 11 (?). Mondrian: Composition [Piet Mondrian, “Komposition mit Gelb, Zinnober, Schwarz, Blau und verschiedenen grauen und weissen Tönen” (Composition with yellow, cinnabar, black, blue, and various gray and white tones), 1923. Oil on canvas, 83.7 × 50.2 cm. Location unknown]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
10. Schwitters: Abstraction. Notational [?] forms in the plane. Radiating only across the frame. Integration through the imagined central point. Oscillation [?] back and forth. 4. Lissitzky: Construction.12 Central point drawn three times: 2 circles, gliding line, enclose. 11. Mondrian: Composition.13 All elements are positive, the negative elements essentially the same as the positive elements.
24 Slide 12 (now lost). Lissitzky: Abstract Exhibition Space Hannover [El Lissitzky, Kabinett der Abstrakten (Abstract Cabinet), left-side wall, ca. 1930. Destroyed (formerly Provinzialmuseum Hannover, photographed by Wilhelm Redemann)]. Photo: The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (950076).
12. Lissitzky: Abstract Exhibition Space Hannover.14 Most conducive space for developing these two kinds of composition.
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25 Top left, Slide 13. Huszár: Dining Room [Vilmos Huszár, Ruimte-Kleur Compositie voor een Eetkamer (Space-Color Composition for a Dining Room), 1921. Drawing published in De Stijl 5, no. 1 (January 1922): 15]. Top right, Slide 14. Rietveld: Schröder House [Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schröder-Schräder, Rietveld-Schröder House, Utrecht, southeast facade, 1924. Reproduced in L’architecture vivante (1925)]. Bottom left, Slide 15. Oud: Site Manager’s Hut [J. J. P. Oud, Oud-Mathenesse Site Manager’s Hut, Rotterdam 1923. Destroyed]. Bottom right, Slide 16. Mies: Country House [Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, perspective view and floor plan, Brick Country House Project, PotsdamNeubabelsberg, 1924]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
13. Huszár: Dining Room. Not an example to emulate. I only want to show here how the division and integration of planes can produce an experience. Here space is only intuited as addition. 14. Rietveld: Schröder House. The direct experience of space. Only that this is possible. This is no modern goal of architecture. 15. Oud: Site Manager’s Hut. How you can experience a space through the interpenetration of boxes [?]. The angled [?] house. A purpose [?], style [ . . . ] 16. Mies: Country House. The experience of the house extends beyond itself. The form radiates out into the landscape.
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26 Top left, Slide 17. Schneider: Poßmoorweg [Karl Schneider, staircase in the Wohnblöcke Burmeister, Poßmoorweg, Hamburg-Winterhude, 1927– 28]. Top right, Slide 18. Haesler: Schoolroom [Otto Haesler, view of the teaching kitchen in the Volksschule Celle, 1926– 28]. Bottom left, Slide 19. Schumacher [sic]: Cinema [Karl Schneider, ticket kiosk in the lobby of the Emelka-Palast cinema, Hamburg. 1927– 28]. Bottom right, Slide 20. Häring: Garkau Cowshed [Hugo Häring, cowshed, Gut Garkau, 1925]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
17. Schneider: Poßmoorweg.15 By contrast, boxes, objective form, another important element of modern architecture and for modern form-creation in general. 18. Haesler: Schoolroom.16 Most rational building method. 19. Schumacher [sic]: Cinema.17 A pillar that is technically satisfying is also satisfying for the eyes. 20. Häring: Garkau Cowshed.18 Integration of objective forms result in functional architecture. Only suited to a single purpose. For this purpose it is the best and cheapest.
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27 Top left, Slide 21. Arp: Schnurruhr [Hans Arp, Schurruhr; one of the seven Arpaden prints published as Merz 5 (1923)]. Top right, Slide 22. Domela: Photomontage [Cesar Domela, photomontage for a brochure about the Ruths-Speicher, 1928, 30 × 35 cm]. Bottom left, Slide 23. Zwart: Papierisolatie [Piet Zwart, advertisement for paper-insulated, hightension cables, Nederlandsche Kabelfabriek (NKF, Dutch Cable Company), Delft, ca. 1925. Black and red letterpress on white paper, 29.6 × 20.9 cm]. Bottom right, Slide 24. Zwart: Normaalkabels [Piet Zwart, advertisement for standard cables, Nederlandsche Kabelfabriek (NKF, Dutch Cable Company), Delft, ca. 1927, Black letterpress on white paper, 17.8 × 13.9 cm]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
21. Arp: Schnurruhr [Mustache Watch].19 Centered by circling and directed outward (by the mustache); pay attention to the delicacy of the lines. 22. Domela: Photomontage.20 By means of form-creation, the dance [?], in this case machine, is significantly enhanced. 23. Zwart: Papierisolatie [Paper insulation].21 Symbolism is part of formcreation. Transition from text to image by way of these forms. Strong uniformity of text-image, individual letters, and illustration, as well as abstract image elements. 24. Zwart: Normaalkabels [Standard cables]. The two Os make up the entire optical effect.
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28 Top left, Slide 25. Tschichold: Casanova [Jan Tschichold, movie poster for Casanova, Phoebus-Palast, Berlin. Photo cliché, letterpress on white coated paper, 119.7 × 84.5 cm. Reproduced in Jan Tschichold, Die neue Typographie: Ein Handbuch für zeitgemäss Schaffende (Berlin: Bildungsverband der deutsche Buchdrucker, 1928), 191]. Top right, Slide 26. Dexel: Frankfurt Light Column [Walter Dexel, illuminated advertising column with advertisement for Persil detergent company, Frankfurt am Main, ca. 1927]. Bottom left, Slide 27. Burchartz: Spirals and Coiled Springs [Max Buchartz, sample title page for a brochure produced for the Bochumer Verein steel casting company, 1925; 21 × 29.7 cm. Museum Folkwang, Essen]. Bottom right, Slide 32. Leistikow: Certificate [Hans Leistikow, design for school report, Frankfurt am Main, n.d.]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
25. Tschichold: Casanova.22 Text, illustration, and plane have become a single unit. Avoiding [?] a strange [ . . . ] of the cinema has an effect using colorfully painted images. 26. Dexel: Frankfurt Light Column.23 The lettering is organic, not an alien element. 27. Burchartz: Spirals and Coiled Springs.24 [Photographic] reproduction gray, while the color of the bright yellow is advertising material, not illustration. 32. Leistikow: Certificate.25 A clear difference. A completely factual and objective form-creation for a preprinted form.
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29 Top left, Slide 28. R. Michel: Persil Gable [Robert Michel, painted gable advertisement for Persil detergent, Frankfurt am Main, 1927. Detail of a photograph by Ella Bergmann-Michel]. Top right, Slide 29. R. Michel: Kahl Advertisements [Robert Michel, letterhead and window envelopes for Kahl seed store, Frankfurt am Main, 1924. Reproduced in Das neue Frankfurt 1, no. 3 (January 1927): 50– 51]. Bottom left, Slide 30. G. Trump: b d d b [Georg Trump, signet for the Bildungsverband der Deutschen Buchdrucker, Bielefeld, n.d.]. Bottom right, Slide 33. Hilberseimer: Metropolis Buildings [Kurt Schwitters, cover of Ludwig Hilberseimer, Grosstadtbauten: Neue Architektur I. (Hannover: Apossverlag, 1925; reissued as Merz 18/19 (January– April 1926) (WVZ 36b)]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
28. R. Michel: Persil Gable.26 The lettering is a part of the form-creation of the surface of the gable wall. The form of the lettering is suitable for architecture. 29. R. Michel: Kahl Advertisements. The sign is not literal [?], but typical. 30. G. Trump: b d d b.27 Lettering made up of sentence fragments used on the formed plane. 33. Hilberseimer: Metropolis Buildings.28 Form-creation of the title not intended as advertisement.
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30 Top, Slide 34. Schwitters: Reiseziel und Strecke melde [Kurt Schwitters, “Reiseziel und Strecke melde / Zahle stets mit kleinem Gelde” (State your route and destination / Pay in small denomination), poster for the Hannover public transit system, Ueberlandwerke und Straßenbahnen Hannover A.-G. (Üstra), ca. 1929 (WVZ 100)]. Bottom, Slide 35. Schwitters: Page from the Weise Catalogue [Kurt Schwitters, page from a company catalogue (N1– N8), Weise Söhne, Halle/ Salle, ca. 1927 (WVZ 72)]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
34. Schwitters: Reiseziel und Strecke melde [State your route and destination].29 In the center, the usual general overview by means of the white surface. 35. Schwitters: Page from the Weise Catalogue.30 Formed objectively just for information.
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31 Left, Slide 36. Schwitters: Municipal Printed Matter [Kurt Schwitters, six examples of printed matter produced for the City of Hannover; clockwise from top left: certificate of cremation, 1929, 14.8 × 21.2 cm (WVZ 222); application for assessing school fees, 1929, 21 × 14.8 cm (WVZ 213); detail with design for the city emblem; summons for the Public Relief Office, DIN A6, 1929 (WVZ 245); registration for the Municipal Business School, DIN A5, 1929 (WVZ 206); letterhead for the Zoological Garden]. Right, Slide 37. Schwitters: Municipal Printed Matter [Kurt Schwitters, four examples of printed matter produced for the City of Hannover; clockwise from top left: registration for Municipal Engineering School; examination form for the Municipal Tuberculosis Hospital, 1929, 29.8 × 21 cm (WVZ 231); letterhead for the Chemical Investigations Office; letterhead with city emblem, ca. 1929, 29.7 × 21 cm (WVZ 158)]. Glass slides: Sprengel Museum Hannover.
36. + 37. Schwitters: Municipal Printed Matter.31 To explain the system. Development of all printed matter according to a system. Form-creation of the individual elements according to the system. ∙∙∙
For Typography Slide Lecture 1– 5 Buchheister, Kandinsky, Lissitzky, [Bergmann-]Michel It is quite clear that the direction indicated within an image has a continued effect beyond its limits, extending forward and backward or on the plane itself. Think of a hand with a pointing finger or an arrow. They clearly indicate the direction for everyone in the continuation of our work. Nothing rests that is at rest, everything is in motion, because everything has the ambition to move itself. Here I will begin by showing you images where movement itself is the ultimate goal of the composition and I will explain to you why a centric image will necessarily have an eccentric effect and vice versa.
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1. Buchheister: EinformVariation (fig. 21) Circling around the central point, on the picture plane [ . . . ] the contrapuntal counter-effect [?]. [2.] Kandinsky: Oval Picture (fig. 21) The same circling— the frame supports a straight movement, supports the principle of the central point. 3. Lissitzky: Construction (fig. 21) Circling— Drawing out along opposing lines— oscillating around central point— sliding past the central point 4. Lissitzky: Construction (fig. 23) Central point triply marked, two circles— gliding lines— enclose 5. Michel: Drawing (fig. 21) The apparent central point beside the actual one These images look out within their respective planes beyond their boundaries. 6. Gabo: Construction (fig. 22) The same principle, translated into space, although here the prismatic division of the space actually exists. 7. Moholy: Construction (fig. 22) One such prismatic division of space translated into pictorial perspective. The uniting red line. It’s irrelevant for me whether I think it is right to translate perspectival things to this extent onto the plane or not. Allow me to digress with Moholy. Here you can see a cross of planes. This cross, as the penetration of two planes, is a clear symbol for the new rational attitude of our time. You already find this hinted at with the cubists, and here and in Gabo’s sculptures it has been clearly elevated to a system. The cube is no longer expressed by six walls but results from the imagined veiling of the cross formed by two intersecting planes. Now compare this to architecture, for example, which no longer generally displaces its construction into the wall surfaces but rather frequently constructs space from inside out and only places partition walls around the constructed space. Thus, this new constructive form yields a general practice. 8. Schwitters: Das grosse Ichbild (fig. 22) Here too you can see a radiation forward and backward in addition to the radiation beyond the picture frame, but only suggested, only implied, not banally in perspective. I’d like to digress here and briefly explain that the material is irrelevant for the image. This is why I use any material whatsoever. It is just as irrelevant whether the forms are simple or complicated. Let me remind you that you can just as easily
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balance a one-pound weight against two half-pound weights as you can a heap of sand against the pull of a coil spring. What is important is unity and the rhythm that creates this unity. Consider rhythm, if you will, to be the function of the image. Just as sound is the function of a musical instrument, rhythm is the sound of the image, the music of the image. 9. Schwitters: Bild mit rotem Kreuz (fig. 22) Three important points lie outside the frame. 10. Mondrian: Composition (fig. 23) Here is a fundamental and principal difference in the internal formcreation of the image. The image at rest has no center; it neither radiates outward nor attracts the gaze by optical means. The image at rest has the greatest pictorial logic, but not the greatest effectiveness. All the parts are positive— the negative parts are effectively equal to the positive. At this point I want to mention typography. I have shown you two essentially different fundamental schemas for the formal arrangement of an image. There are, in turn, two fundamentally different types of printed matter, those that advertise and those that inform. Advertising is also in motion, centric, subjective, aggressive, whereas information is at rest, without an overriding center, and it functions objectively and passively. What could be more straightforward than an optical form-creation that is parallel to the intended literary form. You thereby obtain a provisional form [?] that allows you to gauge how strongly the effect of a piece of printed matter corresponds to its purpose. This subjective schema is fitting for printed advertisements, whereas the objective schema is fitting for informational materials, for lists, catalogues, preprinted forms. Of course, a mixture of both schemas is often beneficial. 11 (12) Lissitzky: Abstract Exhibition Space, Han[nover]. (fig. 24) A most favorable space to exhibit pictures, but not an architectonic podium. 12 (13) Huszar: Dining Room (fig. 25) In no way an example worth emulating. Just the formal approximation of the furniture to the forms of the architecture and painted decoration. However, it is possible to bring the entire ensemble into a cogent experience through the division and evaluation of the separate elements. Space becomes addition [?], but beyond this it also becomes a constructive experience through diagonal intersections that you can sense.
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13 (14) Rietveld: Schröder House (fig. 25) Here too the external form of the house is not an architectonic goal worth emulating, but it is a form that directly conveys the experience of space. You can see the house as a space enclosed by walls if you consider it from the vantage of this constructively superfluous vertical wall placed in front of the balcony. It is, incidentally, a very interesting house in terms of its interior details, but that is something I don’t want to demonstrate further here. 14 (15) Oud: Site Manager’s Hut (fig. 25) Here you will also experience the concept of architecture by way of nesting boxes [?]. However, I want to say expressly that this has nothing to do with the new sense of space. 15 (16) Mies: Country House (fig. 25) Here you see a house dissolved into walls, not enclosed rooms. You see the space [written above: the house] radiating out into space by way of the dividing walls, into the garden. Here you have what is probably the most beautiful example of the new experience of space in the sense of the Russians, for instance. I explained it to you earlier with the picture by Moholy. 16 (17) Schneider: Poßmoorweg (fig. 26) You see the new constructive architecture in the latticework of this stairwell very clearly: bearing, loading, dividing, giving direction. 17 (18) Haesler: School Room (fig. 26) In contrast to formal form-creation, here everything is rational; the form is bound by principles of construction and function, which we then experience as a new beauty. There would be better examples, particularly for Haesler, but unfortunately I don’t have any images for those. Now, in no way do I want to give an exhaustive treatment of the subject, “New Architecture.” I just want to show you that a new understanding is asserting itself in architecture, and I wanted to try and indicate the direction in which you will be able to find results in the future. I would be carrying coals to Newcastle, were I, as Hannoverian, to give lecture on the concept of the New Architecture in the most architecturally advanced city in Europe.32 Architecture clearly shows us that the new beauty grows from function and from the most simple and objective constructions to achieve that function. It is exactly the same for typography. I explained earlier that informational printed matter, etc. should be designed as advertising printed matter, in accordance with its goal. I don’t need to elaborate on this if I now show you a few typo-works. I will start with the advertising ones.
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18 (25) Tschichold: Casanova (fig. 28) The effect of this point depends on the aggressive [?] writing [?] line; allow me a digression to draw attention to the use of the photograph. It is precisely the [ . . . ]-cinema that makes use of painted illustration. I hardly need to emphasize the fact that an equivalence [ . . . ] exists among all the elements. 19 (23) Zwart: Papierisolatie (fig. 27) On the left, illustration on black, on the right, lettering on white. The masses of light and dark, the sizes of the letters and white space, illustration and text, all this together defines a unity, the result of placing all the elements in relationship to one another. Notice the optical symbolism of the long H and the short L, the values “Hoog” [high] and “Laag” [low]. 20 (24) Zwart: Normaalkabels (fig. 27) Two points magnified to enormous dimensions create the optical effect. At the same time they symbolically represent the cross section of two imagined cables [?]. 21 (27) Burchartz: Spirals and Coiled Springs (fig. 28) Here I can clearly say to you in what way I understand color to be a tool for advertising. The surface that looks dark underneath the springs is internally [?] yellow, while the depicted object is photographically represented in black and white; the color only serves to emphasize the effect of the advertising, as it symbolizes the strength of the spring. 22 (22) Domela: Photomontage (fig. 27) The photograph depicts, but here it becomes a symbol. With the montage of machine elements, the concept of machine becomes stronger, much as if an illustration of a machine had been reproduced. You can see how the use of abstraction emphasizes the center. 23 (26) Dexel: Frankfurt Light Column (fig. 28) One of the most successful light columns, a unity made up of architecture and lettering with advertising colored surfaces and utter informational clarity. Here the lettering has become organic within the architectonic structure of the clock. It is not a foreign body that has been simply tacked on. 24 (28) Michel: Persil Gable (fig. 29) The character of the lettering and the advertising surface completely adapt themselves vertically and horizontally to the entire [?] [ . . . ] architecture. The inscription, like a banner, flashes at [?] the eye of the hurried passerby. 25 Michel: Kahl Advertisements (fig. 29) Completely novel creation of a symbol as trademark. It’s an abstract sign, a curve with a semicircle, starting as a straight line, continuing as a
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straight line, which culminates in an arrow. This is a system in which every single application is unrestricted. The sign is sometimes black, white, or red, it runs from the right, the left, top or bottom, it always seems new, but it is always recognizable as a symbol for Kahl [seed company]. What is new about this kind of trademark is the fact that it is conceived as a system, mobile, not rigid form. (21) Arp: Schnurruhr (fig. 27) I could also imagine this form, conceived as a pure abstraction, to be a very effective sign. It does not actually have any meaning in itself, but it is effective and distinctive. Again, it is centric, and it draws you in toward the center by way of the two attached hooks. Please also note the exceptional unity of the lines, how the apex of the curves do not match each other. The form derives its suggestive force from this deliberately composed irregularity. (32) Leistikow: Certificate (fig. 28) Here we have purely informational printed matter. Objective design, the size of the different kinds of type is used only for information, not actually for [ . . . ] What would appear to be most important for informational purposes is printed larger. Lines support division, writing, underlining; the entire printed sheet can, in principle, be compared to a Mondrianesque picture. (35) Schwitters: Page from the Weise Catalogue (fig. 30) The strong internal division is the most important aspect for informational purposes, hence the strong lines inside, the weak ones outside. Various strong lines hold the entire group together. (36) Schwitters: Municipal printed matter (fig. 31) Not every single piece of printed matter here has been designed optically, rather all the printed matter has been placed in a system beforehand, of which each individual item is itself only a part.
The system is based on stationery with margins that take the addressee into account. In a file for correspondence, nothing should be jammed or illegible. You should find the insignia of the city in the spot where your glance will initially fall once the printed forms have been filed; this is the upper-right-hand corner. This accounts for the line that runs up the left-hand side, turns, and ends at the sign on the right. 3 April 1930, Frankfurt, in the same little café at the railway station.
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(121) PAINTING Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Malerei” (ca. late 1920s/early 1930s).
I have been asked to speak about painting. I am to talk without slides, quite generally, on the meaning of painting, on what the viewer should pay attention to when looking at pictures. This is difficult because we have many possibilities for how to paint pictures, and because the results are so varied, and because a counterexample can always be found for each example. So, you see, it is quite impossible to provide generally binding guidelines that cover all the options open to painting; nor would I want to come down in favor of any specific type of painting, such as classical, impressionist, expressionist, cubist, or constructivist painting. The result of the activity of the artistic painter is the painting, and this probably is the only thing all painters share, the fact that they produce paintings. I am disregarding borderline cases, such as the fact that a painting, insofar as it is a relief, is also a sculpture, or that it can become an integral part of architecture. I am speaking only about pure easel painting here, i.e., about painting on a delimited surface that serves as a painterly ground. The primary thing is this painterly ground, i.e., a surface that is delimited, on which you paint. You could object that the primary thing is the mental idea, what it is you want to paint. Someone could also claim that the primary thing is the painter’s signature touch. All three perspectives have their legitimacy, and it is just as possible to proceed from the painterly ground as it is from the mental idea, the goal, or from the painter’s touch. Of these three things— the painterly ground, the goal, the individual touch— you can select only two, then the third will follow of its own accord. That is to say, if you have a painterly ground and you work with a signature touch, a goal will necessarily follow, which can then be shaped further. Or you have a painterly ground, i.e., all the material with which to paint, and you wish to achieve a goal that you have already intuited, then all you need to do is choose the corresponding touch, i.e., the appropriate method of applying this material to achieve these ends. Or if you proceed from a personal touch or a particular formative will, and you try to achieve a particular goal, then you need to employ the expedient materials to do so, rather than just any material whatever. Now before I examine these three things individually, the material, the formcreation, and the goal, I want to draw your attention to two fundamental differences among paintings, since I am discussing only paintings in this lecture. A painting can either picture or copy something. These two concepts are mutually exclusive. 396
That is, a picture, a construction [Gebilde], a form-creation does not depict anything beyond itself; it represents nothing else; it simply stands there, whereas a copy does not intend to be itself, but rather something else, namely the depicted object. Here I will discuss only the picture, i.e., that delimited unity that does not want to be anything beyond itself. I will first talk about the painterly ground. Different materials with different limits can be used as the painterly ground. The condition is that it must be a plane. In general, this painterly ground is rectangular, but oval-shaped painterly grounds are also not infrequent. Generally, it is rectangular simply because rectangles are easier to fit into houses that have a rectangular construction. A rectangular painterly ground can, of course, be square, i.e., all 4 delimiting sides are of equal length. But this is rare. People who have experience working with the Rolleiflex, a camera that uses square negatives, will admit that it is considerably more difficult to frame a motif within a square format than in a portrait or a landscape format.1 The singular advantage of the square image is that it can be hung diagonally in a living room, so long as this is consistent with the composition. Usually, the 2 opposite sides of a rectangular painterly ground are equally long, though there is nothing against making them different lengths and working on a painterly ground with four sides of different lengths. The sides generally stand at right angles to each other. The difference in the length between the sides can certainly be small or large; in principle, you can have a ratio of 1:10 or 9:10. However, in practice, both these ratios would be inconvenient. A ratio of something like 3:4, 4:5, or 5:6 appears most convenient and beautiful. This is because, in order to visually grasp the unity of the picture, it is necessary for the eye to survey the entire plane, without being forced to wander back and forth across it and without seeing too many distracting things beyond the limit of the picture. An elongated format would force the eye to wander laterally across the surface, and so it would not be able to perceive the unity of the picture; it would only be able to reconstruct it conceptually. Or if it were to survey the entire picture without wandering, the eye would need to have a sufficiently great viewing distance. However, then the overly large area with distractions along either long side of the image would confuse the eye. The square surface is inconvenient because the 1:1 ratio of the sides is boring.
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(122) ON THE UNIFORM DESIGN OF PRINT MATERIALS “Über einheitliche Gestaltung von Drucksachen,” PapierZeitung 55, no. 48 (1930): 1436– 40.
The City of Hannover has hired the local graphic designer Kurt Schwitters to redesign its printed matter. The impetus was not an aesthetic one, but rather the fundamental need to give logical form to necessary official documents. Mr. Schwitters has spoken about his activities and approach to design at various professional associations in order to encourage book printers to produce similar work. We gave Mr. Schwitters the opportunity to present his point of view and to publish his results. The first step in a logical design for printed forms is to assess the text in terms of its brevity, precision, and clarity. Form delivers the intended and required effect of the analyzed text. The City of Hannover’s printed matter includes preprinted application forms, bulletins in the form of pamphlets or posters, letterheads and envelopes, postcards, press announcements (particularly those pertaining to municipal utilities, the theaters, etc.), admission tickets, and commemorative plaques, as well as books and similar printed matter. It is not easy to group them all under a single banner. To further complicate matters, each official department has different requirements. There are about a hundred departments and approximately seventy different printers that produce printed matter for the city. However, it is not necessary for all these different kinds of printed matter to have the same schematic form so long as it is possible to recognize a certain shared uniformity. This gave rise to the objective to give equivalent things an equivalent design, distinct things the most characteristically distinct design possible, and similar things a similar design. It goes without saying that the overall design intention must take precedence over the frequently private requests of the individual official departments and the customary practices of the various printers. The mayor appointed the Press Office to supervise the editing of printed matter, the Department of Organization to rework its content, and the Building Department to draw up formal designs as the ranking authority over the separate departments. This was a good thing, because otherwise it would have been nearly impossible to achieve even a rough consensus on a common design, given the numerous approaches and practices of the various offices involved. The first step toward a uniform design was for the Building Department to choose a uniform typeface. This elicited resistance from the Printer’s Association
32 (facing) Image 1. Header and Footer for full (DIN A4) and half sheets (DIN A5). / Image 2. Announcement (DIN A4). / Image 3. Large Envelope (128 : 194 mm). / Image 4. Preprinted Form (DIN A5). Reproduced in Papier-Zeitung 55, no. 48 (1930): 1436.
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because it forced some printers to purchase the chosen typeface. I presented the Building Department with different variations of Fraktur, Antiqua, and Grotesque typefaces; the Building Department selected Grotesque, as it was the simplest and clearest type. Of the different Grotesque typefaces it chose Renner’s Futura produced by the Bauer’sche Giesserei in Frankfurt a. M.1 The dozen or so printing presses that did not own this typeface purchased it. Based on my suggestion, the emblem of the city, which to that point had rarely been used, would appear on all future municipal printed matter. The original emblem had long been based on a circular form. I took this emblem and gave it a stylized triangular shape to achieve a horizontal line that I then could relate typographically to the lines of text. In the meantime, however, the city commissioned Wilhelm Metzig to produce a stylized emblem that was also required for use.2 I chose the same shape for all writing paper, envelopes, and official publications. Whenever printed matter is intended for someone else, it needs to be convenient for the recipient to use. He needs to be able to locate the document easily in his files; accordingly, the emblem is placed on the upper-right-hand corner. A line on the left defines the page margin that is to remain free from writing or printing. The margin line turns to run horizontally along the top of the page, so that the letterhead is clearly separated from the content. This line optically governs the subdivision of the entire sheet. I found that a two-point [Viertelpetit]3 line was effective for writing paper, whereas for forms or announcements with a lot of text, the six-point [Nonpa reille]4 line worked better (see images 1 and 2). The only suitable formats were DIN A4 vertical or DIN A5 vertical or horizontal. For half-sheets, which are generally filled out by typewriter, DIN A5 horizontal seemed more practical since the typist would not need to start a new line so frequently. For DIN A5 vertical I simply used the city emblem and a horizontal line to indicate the page margin. The extent to which the writer is willing to abide by these margins depends on his personal preference. My subdivision of the letterhead only partially follows the guidelines for the DIN business letter. It would seem that a good typographer or graphic designer was not consulted when these guidelines were drawn up; hence, the DIN standard resists any possibility of designing a good, clear letterhead. Only rarely was I able to place the address for window envelopes as the DIN standard required without wasting a lot of space. This was especially the case where, for economic reasons and on account of the envelope window, the same typeset was to be used for the header of the DIN A5 sheet. The space provided for the company’s address on the DIN standard size is clearly too large. The address format for the different official departments is, for the most part, the same in all the designs, starting with the exact title of the department, followed by the street and building number, then the room number, then the telephone number and extension, and then the post office account. The title is large and bold and, where feasible, set in capital letters. Additional information about the sender is included only when the department wants the recipient to use it. Because the
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date is part of the letter itself, it is placed beneath the dividing line; in a preprinted form where space is necessarily limited, the date is placed above the line. The ┴ indicates the place where the person dictating the letter and the typist are to insert their initials (images 1, 6). The title for the text, its grouping, and the emphasis of its key points is decided case by case. In general, I make a new design for the first commission and then use this design as the model for similar forms used by the other departments. Because I work with many different printers, I now include similar, preprinted forms as sample designs with all new orders. The more rigorously you employ means for emphasis, the more restrained they can be; lines should be used sparingly, while decorative lines are to be rejected. You can use a line to divide, to connect, to underline something in order to emphasize it, or, through its force, to allay the effects of multiplicity. For lines that serve to guide writing, I mainly use a semi-fine, one-point [Achtelpetit]5 line rather than the dotted line that used to be common. When laying out tables, I generally draw the framing lines thinner than the internal ones, because it is more important to distinguish the different internal elements from one another than to delimit the entire table from the surrounding sheet. Rather than emphasize the center of a block of text, as was previously the norm, I now place greater emphasis on the border on the left and pay little attention to how it concludes on the right. This makes it clear that objective considerations guide the design, not decorative ones. The entire text is shifted to the right for the same reason, leaving the margin empty and allowing the rest of the sheet to be fully utilized (cf. images). Many preprinted forms do not need to be placed in filing cabinets; in such cases, the margins are emphasized only for the sake of uniformity. Printed matter is frequently made up of many individual elements that resist uniformity. In such cases, I have the start of the different sentences correspond to each other or I draw distinct lines between the elements to establish their relationship. Postcards require an upper margin of 2½ centimeters free of printing or writing so that there is space for the postmark. I generally leave extra room as the postmark frequently requires additional space. Postal regulations state that the left third of a postcard must remain empty for the sender. Here too, in order to separate the sender’s address from the postmark I use a vertical six-point [Nonpareille] line along the left border of this empty third. This line then turns to run horizontally to delimit the field for the postmark. The emblem of the city in the left-hand section is level with the end of this line. The address of the sender in this left-hand section is positioned at about the same height as the line for the destination city, unless further information requires it to be elsewhere (image 3). The side of the postcard reserved for text is organized in a fashion similar to the writing paper, with an angled line and page margins. The design for the address field on windowless envelopes is similar to that on postcards. For envelopes with windows, you will want to use the DIN format, because they have a small section for the address, which works well for this format. To ensure the address always remains fully visible, even when the letter has been
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poorly folded, it is advisable to make the address field smaller than it needs to be. Moreover, a thick line defines the left and right of the address to prevent people from writing outside the designated space (image 4). As mentioned above, I made the suggestion that all municipal printed matter use the DIN format, especially where it offers an improvement. Previously, the folio format was generally used, alongside various quarto and DIN formats. Because some preprinted forms require a lot of space for text, the folio format is more accommodating than the DIN format. In these cases, I kept the folio format. The use of Futura should not become formulaic either, and the Building Department has also allowed theaters, savings banks, and maintenance facilities to use other typefaces as a way to leave work for those printers who do not own the FuturaGrotesque type. You cannot set down general rules for designing posters. Their uses are too varied, and, correspondingly, so are their solutions. As with all printed matter, the text should begin on the left margin; lines are not indented following paragraph breaks, unless the final line of the preceding paragraph is the width of the page and ends at the same height as the print area. I have applied the same rule to books. It is unnecessary to say the same thing twice: where a partially complete line already indicates a paragraph break, indenting the opening line of the subsequent paragraph would be a double and, accordingly, unnecessary emphasis. However, where the following paragraph should have particular emphasis, I will use a slightly wider line spacing and, where appropriate, fill it with a one-point [Achtelpetit] line (semi-fine). When reworking the posters for the municipal theaters, it was necessary to take into account the available resources of the printing presses, the very tight editing deadlines, and the enormously diverse requirements of the theaters with their varied texts. After many attempts, a temporary form was found; the text was simplified wherever possible, the names of actors omitted, and the performance dates generally set at the same size. Because the schedules for the opera and the theater are posted alongside each other and because the performance dates should remain on one line, the overall space, which needs to be greater for one of the two theaters, also needed to be increased on the other schedule. Unlike the previous method used for typesetting, which emphasized single words by making them as big and bold as possible, frequently resulting in confused layouts with unnecessary points of emphasis, I used as much empty space as possible for the title of the play and aimed, as far as possible, for the same effect with the typography. I eliminated the border between the day of the week and the name of the play, because it was superfluous. Only a vertical bar one pica [Cicero]6 wide sep33 (facing) arates the two schedules. Nine horizontal lines, each measuring Images 5 and 6. Front and back view of a preprinted form in postcard format. / Imone pica, branch left and right from this bar and indicate the upage 6. Header and footer for a memoranper and lower border of the space for the eight days, Sunday to dum. / Image 7. School report card (booklet) (DIN A5). / Image 8. School report Sunday. With repeated tests I discovered that the predominant card (sheets) (DIN A4). Reproduced in Papier-Zeitung 55, no. 48 (1930): 1438. colors on advertising columns are red and yellow, so I chose a
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blue colored paper for the theater posters. However, because this paper quickly fades, I now ask that the printers use blue color on white paper (image 10). The admission tickets for the municipal theaters were also reworked in a logical manner. One critic complained that the tickets were poorly designed; however, he never noticed that attention was paid only to the most important aspects, that all the same things are now always in the same place and are always the same size, and that here order is more important than form. It would be wrong to try and create a formal pattern for newspaper advertise ments; here, the point of the design is to advertise something effectively, and only what is new and unusual attracts attention. However, it is also important to remind readers of previous advertisements by using the same type of arrangement and design. All typographic works can be divided into two main design categories corresponding to the two main types of requirements. In the first case, an item must be in the service of the strictest practicality [Sachlichkeit]; in the second, it must be an effective advertisement and capture the viewer’s gaze.7 These two types roughly correspond to a = the list, b = the printed advertisement. Two fundamentally distinct solutions follow from this separation: the list must consolidate the gaze and direct it within the printed surface, whereas the printed advertisement must draw the gaze to the printed surface. In the first instance, the result is a typographic design where all the elements are equal and the image achieves an internal state of rest; in the second instance, the result is an assertive appearance where the image radiates outward to capture the gaze of the viewer. It would go too far to discuss this further here; what is evident is that it is advisable to maintain a strict vertical-horizontal layout for lists, whereas finding a rhythm or balance when using diagonal elements greatly supports the effect of printed advertisements.
34 (facing) Image 9. Preprinted registration form for a preparatory course for a master’s exam (DIN 4). / Image 10. Theater performance schedule, actual size 35 × 40.5 cm. Reproduced in Papier-Zeitung 55, no. 48 (1930): 1440.
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(123) KURT SCHWITTERS Published in Heinz Rasch and Bodo Rasch, Gefesselter Blick: 25 kurze Monografien und Beiträge über neue Werbegestaltung [Bound vision: 25 short monographs and essays on new design in advertising] (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Dr. Zaugg, 1930), 88– 89. This text combines material from two typescripts written at the end of 1929. It opens with a heavily abridged version of “Daten aus meinem Leben” (Facts from My Life, see text 116). The final paragraph reproduces, in full, a statement dated 9 December and sent in a letter to Bodo Rasch (reproduced in WVZ, p. 69).
Born 20 June 1887 in Hannover. I attended the Realgymnasium in Hannover, and my parents made me take the Abitur exam, for they had decided I should continue my studies. But for me, anything other than painting, working in clay, writing poetry was out of the question. I suffered a year of my education at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hannover and then continued at the Dresdner Kunstakademie from 1909 to 1914. From time to time I put in an appearance at the Kunstakademie in Berlin, until they discharged me as incurably untalented. I never enjoyed great success at art school, since I really cannot learn— that is my misfortune. And the curriculum never included what I wanted and needed to do. For me, art meant creating, not imitating, whether this was nature or, as is frequently the case, more dominant colleagues. During the war there was a terrible ferment. What I gained at the academy I could not use, and what was new was still developing, while all around me a stupid battle raged about things that did not concern me. And suddenly the glorious revolution was here. I have a low opinion of such revolutions; humanity has to be ripe for them. It is the wind that shakes the apples from the tree while they are still unripe— what a loss. But it brought an end to this whole swindle that people call war. I quit my job without giving notice and was off. Now the fermentation began in earnest. I felt liberated and wanted to exclaim my joy to the world. I was thrifty and used whatever I could find. After all, we were an impoverished country. You can also shout using garbage, and that’s what I did, by gluing and nailing it together. I called this Merz. It was my prayer to celebrate the victorious end of the war, for once again peace had triumphed. Everything was broken anyway, so the task was to build something new from the shards. This is Merz. I painted, nailed, glued, wrote poems, and experienced the world in Berlin. Since Berlin was the cheapest city in the world, millions of interesting foreigners arrived. 406
My Anna Blume triumphed, people despised me, sent me threatening letters, and avoided me. It was like a reproduction of the revolution within me— not as it was, but as it should have been. Incidentally, I am a Sturm artist and love Herwarth Walden for his courageous work. And suddenly the revolution was over. However, things continued to ferment in me, though more like a fine sparkling wine ferments, bottled in Germany. I composed more and was more interested in the composition than the shards. I cannot write anything more about my art. But a man wants to live. And so once again I looked for the next best job, which this time was advertising and designing printed matter in general. Last year alone I designed more than four hundred pieces of printed matter. Currently I am an artistic adviser to the City of Hannover and have been a member of the PEN-Club for the past eight days, which is something you can be. My main principle in typographic design is to give specific expression to what I want to express each time. More detailed description could take us very far— for example, a description of what the goal of typographic design can be. But I also want to state clearly that for me there are no rules, such as a schema, that we can apply to our work over and over again. Sometimes you can create a system that fits a specific job, but even in such cases exceptions are not uncommon. However, do not be deterred. It is the nature of ideals to be unattainable. You can employ these principles anywhere without exception. What is important is to attend to the correct interpretation in each individual case. All you need are two eyes to see and a mind to reflect properly on what you see. Practice makes perfect, which is also the case here; and so, while working on similar things, you will usually find you need to correct yourself and your system. Also, there is much to be learned from working in related fields, since analogy, much like experience, is the best teacher we have. Kurt Schwitters
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35 Kurt Schwitters, Merzwerbe-Verkehrsreklame envelope, 1928 or earlier, 15.5 × 40.2 cm (WVZ 47). Reproduced in Heinz Rasch and Bodo Rasch, Gefesselter Blick: 25 kurze Monografien und Beiträge über neue Werbegestaltung (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Dr. Zaugg, 1930), 89.
Business envelope. The word “Merz,” large and conspicuous, the lines below create a close connection to the address. The content for the whole is fixed, making it an image, and accordingly, it is composed as a single block. The word “Merz” stands out with particular force and clarity against the thin vertical lines. The vertical structure of the image serves as the backdrop to the horizontal orientation of the address, which itself is always subject to change, and, as such, has a horizontal structure.
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36 Kurt Schwitters, brochure cover, “Vollautomatische Asphaltplatten-Pressen,” Rheinhütte, Wiesbaden-Biebrich, Karlsruhe, after 1927/28, 21 × 29.6 cm (WVZ 80). Reproduced in Heinz and Bodo Rasch, Gefesselter Blick: 25 kurze Monografien und Beiträge über neue Werbegestaltung (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Dr. Zaugg, 1930), 90.
Brochure cover. Organized visually: image, surface, color, line, type, title, company, item name. The item is depicted against the backdrop of a brightly colored field that looks like an excerpt, like a shop window. The arrow, which has also been cut out to have a window-like quality, induces the reader to turn the page. The arrow continues to the last page, prompting the reader to begin at the front again, once the last page has been reached. The angular shape of the typeface gives the text an architectural quality: It effectively becomes an element of the rectangular surface and merges with it to form a unity. (Colors: violet and yellow, black lettering.)
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37 Kurt Schwitters, advertising flyer, “Rheinhütte Säurepumpen,” Weise Söhne, Halle/Salle, ca. 1927, 30 × 22 cm (WVZ 78). Reproduced in Heinz Rasch and Bodo Rasch, Gefesselter Blick: 25 kurze Monografien und Beiträge über neue Werbegestaltung (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Dr. Zaugg, 1930), 91.
Advertising leaflet for a machine factory. Acid pump depicted in cross section. Cut surfaces have DIN standard colors, allowing the material immediately to be deduced from the color. The original colors have not been used here. The angular typeface integrates itself seamlessly into the black plane until it no longer comes across as an alien body but simply as an architectonic detail of that plane. Much like the gray horizontal lines below. The overall design is based on the cross section of the machine: the large 6 derives from its neck, the bullet points and their negative repetition below. A logical relationship connects the word “Points” [Punkte] and the red lettering listing the six points below. The image in the black plane and the large 6 dominate.
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38 Kurt Schwitters, letterhead, Dammerstock Siedlung, Karlsruhe, 1929, 29.7 × 21 cm (WVZ 116). Reproduced in Heinz Rasch and Bodo Rasch, Gefesselter Blick: 25 kurze Monografien und Beiträge über neue Werbegestaltung (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Dr. Zaugg, 1930), 92. Courtesy Typografische Sammlung Jan Tschichold, Bibliothek für Gestaltung Basel.
Writing paper. DIN norms observed. Again, the angular, architectonic typeface has been used. This typeface closely merges with the paper format, so closely, that you see it like a picture. The plane clearly subdivided by lines.
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39 Kurt Schwitters, folded flyer, Dammerstock Siedlung, Karlsruhe, 1929, dimensions unknown (WVZ 114). Reproduced in Heinz Rasch and Bodo Rasch, Gefesselter Blick: 25 kurze Monografien und Beiträge über neue Werbegestaltung (Stuttgart: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Dr. Zaugg, 1930), 93.
Folded brochure for the Karlsruhe Dammerstock Exhibition. Printed inside is a site plan, a plan of the exhibition, pictures of the exhibition and of the surroundings. Written information. Everything montaged together. Pictures arranged vertically like a film strip separate the site plan on the left from the information on the right. The paper surface has been drawn apart like a curtain. You look through it as if into a landscape. The information on the right has the appearance of being a separate, freestanding sheet. The same goes for the site plan. What is interesting is how this spatial rupture gives the site plan— a simple, schematic drawing— a plastic quality. The lines along its right border have a relief-like effect. The small picture of the overview reproduced in the lower left underscores this impression. A tiny detail helps to reinforce the spatial separation and isolation of the right side of the brochure: the small embossed black dots. This really highlights the actual surface quality of the paper in contrast to the spatial depth of the picture-film-strip.
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(124) [THE BIG E IS FINISHED . . .] Unpublished shorthand manuscript (ca. 1930– 33).
The Kathedrale des erotischen Elends (Cathedral of Erotic Misery), or K d e E, was one of several columnar structures Schwitters built in his studio in his family’s home on Waldhausenstrasse in Hannover. According to his own testimony in “Myself and My Aims” (text 125), he began work on this massive assemblage in 1923. Visitors to the studio could enter this column to become a dynamic part of the artwork. They were thereby transformed into found material and temporarily incorporated into the largest of its many “grottoes,” which Schwitters refers to here. This text makes clear that Schwitters also considered his guests to be participants in the ongoing production of the work, and over time, the K d e E became a key component of his environmental sculpture, the Merzbau. The column housed a small “library” in which Schwitters could write and, from this hidden perch, look across the space to a section of the Merzbau he called the “Great Group,” which had a reciprocal crawl space and window (see text 129 and fig. 41).
The Big E is finished. It is the negative function of the K d e E. It is the monument to pure art. It is the purposeless form of things that once had a purpose. This makes it Merz. It is the result of ceaseless, consistent work over seven years. The Big E is finished. All that remains are a few details here and there. I still require some material for these, and so I am turning to you. Important artists have already collaborated on essential parts, artists such as Walden, Hannah Höch, Vordemberge-Gildewart, and others. I would be greatly obliged if you were to donate the creation of a small grotto. There are also some large grottoes still available. Though what is missing from these large grottoes is internationally significant material, such as tram tickets, coat check tags, business cards, ballot paper, playbills, advertisements, and especially photographs. What I am missing most are appropriate photographs of you and your relatives as well as of your work. Many significant individuals have already been included with pictures in my Big E, for instance Haarmann,1 Hitler, Hindenburg,2 all the Roman gods, Captain Dreyer of the sunken Monte Cervantes,3 Conrad Veidt,4 Mussolini, my wife and I, my son, Professor Wanken and his son Punzelchen, Frau Elisabeth Klenner, and many, many more. Please also consider donating things to the Big E from your sphere of activity that you have come to love— art, kitsch, or what you like. A Collection E accompanies the Big E. It aims to provide information about what is artistically new. 413
(125) MYSELF AND MY AIMS “Ich und meine Ziele,” Merz 21. Erstes Veilchenheft (1931): 113– 17.
In this issue of his journal Merz, Schwitters presented “Myself and My Aims” together with an excerpt of his major sound poem the Ursonate, and two fictional prose pieces, “The Lottery of the Zoological Garden” and “Schacko.” Here he calls all these texts “violets” and gives the entire issue the subtitle, “First Violet Issue,” using a bold typeface to emphasize specific words and phrases throughout. “Myself and My Aims” is one of Schwitters’s most important and substantial statements about his views on art and politics, his relationship to art critics, and his work in a wide range of media, including poetry, prose fiction, collage and assemblage, and commercial typography. Published shortly after his father died and he inherited the family home, this text makes public for the first time his Kathedrale des erotischen Elends (shortened to K d e E; Cathedral of Erotic Misery), which became a key component of his environmental sculpture, the Merzbau (see text 124 and text 128). In the original publication of “Myself and My Aims,” he included a photograph of the 1922 collage Der erste Tag (The First Day) on the facing page. This collage had been mounted in a frame on the base of one of the sculptural columns in his studio, which was topped by the death mask of his first child, Gerd, who died as an infant in 1916. This column was eventually absorbed into the Merzbau and is partially visible in surviving photographs, but the collage was likely fully encased from view and, eventually, destroyed with the house when it was firebombed in 1943.
Why shouldn’t I write about myself for once, even though at this point no one is asking me to? I am not vain, since I am aware of the insignificance of all things. My only reason for writing now is to give a collective answer to all those who are always asking why and how come, e.g., why were these “violets” completely different in the end from how they were planned in the beginning? For I am such a violet myself, one who deliberately blooms in hiding because there I am convinced I have a more lovely fragrance.1
At first I simply wanted to publish a collection of new poems as a “violet,” to give all those people who are always asking where they can buy my latest things an opportunity to do so. Now that they know they can buy them, they will probably stop 414
40 Kurt Schwitters, Der erste Tag (The First Day), 1922. Destroyed. CR 1040.
asking, since people like to ask but don’t like to buy. But why should I only ever think of others and do them favors? As an artist you so rarely get a chance to publish anything. The world is full of different factions, and each faction thinks any artist who values something other than its agenda lacks talent. Every faction denies art its internal justification unless it is in line with its agenda or supports the execution of its agenda in some way. “Influence” is the motto of the day, but art requires contemplative “immersion.” Art wants to create and does not want to have any influence other than through the fact of its existence. “So why don’t you want to have an influence at the same time?” members of one faction ask me, thinking of the beneficial propaganda I could develop for their ideas that would thereby prove to them my legitimacy as an artist. But I know that any work can have only one aim, and art is far too precious to me to be abused as a tool; personally, I prefer to keep my distance from current political events.
I do hope that the current age can continue on politically without me, whereas I am certain that art still needs me for its development. Art is a strange thing; it needs the entire artist.
Like any unity, the work of art is not a sum, but a state, much like a chemical substance is not the sum of its elements. H2O only describes the relationship between two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen. This means that every two parts hydrogen maintains a balance with one part oxygen. When I add SO3, I get H2SO4, a new substance that is no longer water but sulfuric acid. In the same way, the nature of a purely artistic construction will change if I introduce an influence for or against
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something into the rhythm of its components. And so from art, we get compromise. You must see that I cannot agree to this as an artist. Balance alone is the aim of the artwork, and art its purpose.
Art wants no hand in persuasion and influence; it wants to liberate— from life, from all the things that burden people, such as national, political, or economic struggles. Art wants the pure individual, unencumbered by the state, party, and anxieties about sustenance.
You may counter that I am not a witness to our age if I do not somehow reflect it in my artwork. I maintain that abstract art, and only abstract art, reflects our age, for it is the final logical phase in the development of art over all recorded time, and it is not a matter of years or decades, but rather it will likely be the art of the next thousand years. The so-called New Objectivity in painting is a passing, temporary, and partisan reaction; moreover, the name is used completely incorrectly, because the new and objective art of our age is abstraction.2 Every subsequent development can only build on the foundation of abstraction; representational art is possible in the future only as a reaction, because the development of art has passed it by. As an abstract artist, I may indeed stand apart from current social and political events, but I am more in tune with the age than all the politicians, who merely think in decades.
You may accuse me of not taking into account the youth of our age, who want nothing to do with abstract art, regardless if they lean to the left or to the right, because they are concerned with other things. I do not believe that the youth of today are exclusively concerned with other things. But I have noticed that both extremes, the right- as well as the left-wing parties, are making every conceivable effort to draw the young into politics in line with their respective ideals. And so it can happen that these young people, brought up to think in line with their elders, do not take much pleasure in art; but this is changing. Because there is nothing so valuable as immersing yourself in the strictly ordered clarity of art. Do not think it is blasphemy to say that art is closely related to the concept of divinity, which has consoled humanity through millennia and across all national and social barriers. The immersion in art is tantamount to worship in that it liberates people from their everyday cares. This is precisely why art offers more the more it maintains a distance from national and social issues, the more it seeks out that which is purely human, the act of selfimmersion, the act of seeing and hearing, the act of self-forgetfulness. Certainly, art does not exist for the senses alone, but the aim of art is not to depict or evince, even though these were part of its repertoire for a long time. Any technique and any
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material can, as such, be evaluated and equilibrated within the work of art. However, this depends not on the techniques or the materials themselves, but on the work of art that comes about through their evaluation within rhythm.
Now that the development has shown that you can create a work of art with an abstract image, i.e., an image that does not re-present but rather makes present, we have once again reached a further stage in the development of art, and this development cannot be reversed.
Here I want to stress expressly that this latest developmental stage does not produce a more valuable artwork than was possible in previous developmental stages, only that it produces artworks that are in keeping with our time. The artwork at each developmental stage is infinite, and as infinity equals infinity, you cannot value one work of art against another.
It is hardly possible to carry out pure abstraction in literature, as conditions are not yet ripe for this. The Ursonate is the most purely abstract of my poems, whose scherzo I have included here.3 Here I want to forego the proof; instead I want to point out the structure of my story “Schacko,” to indicate the abstract principle of its composition.4 I myself heard a woman tell the story of Schacko, word for word— the entire tale — and at the time I also saw the poor little animal. I was moved by this woman’s fate: she had lost her dearly beloved husband, and now all she has left to remind her of him is this repulsive animal, which she hates like sin. She continues to love her husband through the animal she so despises. This made the material more accessible to me on a human level, but in no way was it an artwork yet. This story became a work of art only through form: the way the woman’s statements were juxtaposed, how they repeated or complemented each other, how they preempted or affirmed each other, how they came together as a whole to give greater clarity to this woman’s love for her husband, an abstract concept, and to make increasingly evident her despair, also an abstract concept. And that is the content of this tale. You can analyze all my poems this way, and you will have to admit, that in this sense, their form is always abstract: Statements are evaluated against each other.
I like to use scraps of everyday trash for composition in painting too, just as “Schacko” was made up of things said by the bird’s owner. This is how my Merzpictures were made, and this is especially how my large column materialized. — What, indeed, is the column? First of all, it is but one of many, ten or so. It is called
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the Cathedral of Erotic Misery, abbreviated to K d e E; we live in an age of abbreviations. Moreover, it is incomplete, and on principle at that. It sort of grows according to the principle of a city: somewhere a new house needs to be built, and it is the building department’s responsibility to make sure that this new house does not spoil the entire cityscape. Similarly, I will find some object, know that it belongs on the K d e E, take it with me, glue it on, plaster it over, paint it in the rhythm of the overall effect, and one day it turns out that some new path needs to be opened that crisscrosses the corpse of the object, either completely or partially. So everywhere there are things that are either completely or partially intersected, clearly signaling the devaluation of their own unity. The growth of ribs creates valleys, hollows, grottoes, which in turn lead a life of their own within the whole. And as planes connect the intersecting vectors, screw-like twisting forms develop. A system of cubes with the strictest geometric form is poured over the entire thing, over hidden or dissolved forms, until everything completely dissolves. The title K d e E is merely a name. It indicates none of the content or very little, but this is the lot that it shares with all names: e.g., Düsseldorf is no longer a village, and Schopenhauer isn’t someone who hits the bottle.5 You could say that the K d e E is the construction of all things, with a few exceptions, which over the past seven years of my life have been either important or unimportant to pure form but into which a certain literary form has crept. It measures 3½ by 2 by 1 square meters, and at one time it had an extensive electric lighting system, but a short circuit inside destroyed it. In its place there are now building lights everywhere, which are those small Christmas candles that are used to illuminate corners when building or painting; they are not actually part of the composition, but when they are lit they give the whole thing the impression of an unreal, illuminated Christmas tree. All the grottoes are characterized by some major components. There is the Nibelung Hoard6 with its gleaming treasure; the Kyffhäuser with its stone table;7 the Goethe Grotto with one of Goethe’s legs as a relic and several pencils composed down nearly to their stubs; the lost personal union city of Brunswick– Lüneburg built using Feininger’s houses from Weimar;8 advertisements for Persil soap along with the insignia I designed for the City of Karlsruhe;9 the sex-murder cave with the badly mutilated corpse of a pitiful young girl, dyed using tomatoes, and a wealth of votive offerings; the Ruhr district with real brown coal and real gas coke; the art exhibition with paintings and sculptures by Michel-Angelo and me, whose only visitor is a dog with a veil; the dog kennel with the red dog and an outhouse; the organ that has to be turned counterclockwise to play “Silent Night, Holy Night” (it used to play “Ihr Kinderlein kommet”);10 the 10-percent- disabled war veteran, who is missing a head but is otherwise in good shape, accompanied by his daughter; the Monna Hausmann made using a reproduction of the Monna [sic] Lisa with Raoul Hausmann’s face stuck in place of hers, which means that she has completely lost her stereotypical smile;11 the brothel with a three-legged lady, designed by Hannah Höch; and the large Grotto of Love. The Grotto of Love alone takes up approximately one-fourth
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of the column’s base; a wide flight of stairs leads up to it, and beneath it stands the female lavatory attendant of life in a long, narrow passage, which also has camel droppings. Two children greet us and step into life; because of damage, only parts of a mother and child remain. Shiny and rough-hewn objects set the mood. In the center there is a loving couple: he has lost his head, she both arms; he holds a large, blank cartridge between his thighs. The large distorted head of a child with syphilitic eyes above the couple makes an urgent warning against excessive haste. But it reconciles with the small round bottle with my urine, in which immortelles have been dissolved.12 I have described only a small part of the column’s literary content here. And many grottoes have long since disappeared beneath the visible surface, such as the Luther Corner. The literary content is Dadaist; but this is a matter of course, since it dates from the year 1923, and at that time I was a Dadaist. But because the column has already taken seven years to build, the form has changed according to my intellectual advancement, developing ever more stringently, especially in the ribs. Accordingly, the overall impression somewhat recalls cubist paintings or Gothic architecture (not one bit!).
I have described the K d e E quite exhaustively because this is the first publication about it and because its ambiguity makes it very difficult to understand. I know of only 3 people who I suspect will understand me completely with regards to my column: Herwarth Walden, Dr. S. Giedion, and Hanns [sic] Arp.13 Everybody else will not completely understand me, I fear, not even with these instructions. But perfect understanding is not necessary when it comes to such extraordinary things. The K d e E is just one of those typical violets that blooms in hiding. Perhaps my K d e E will stay hidden forever, but I will not. I know that I am an important factor in the development of art and will remain so for all time. I say this with all due emphasis so that people do not say afterward, “The poor man did not know how important he was.” No, I am not stupid, nor am I shy. I am convinced that a great age will come for me and for all the other important figures of the abstract movement and that we will influence an entire generation; I only worry that I will not live to experience it personally. This is why I collect, place poem upon poem, sketch upon sketch, and picture upon picture, everything carefully packed up and signed, in various places, safeguarded against fires and hidden so that thieves cannot find them. This is my legacy to the world, and I do not blame it for not being able to understand me yet.
What I predict here with cool, considered reason is, in reality, nothing more than a banal matter of course. Because what we express in our work is neither idiocy nor a subjective game, but the expression of our age, as dictated by the age itself. And the age has influenced us free artists above all, for we are the most agile. Through us
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and along with us, it has also quite clearly influenced applied forms of expression, such as typography or architecture.
I certainly do not want typography or architecture to be considered applications of abstract art, because they are not. You cannot apply a free, purposeless approach to form to a functional form. The manifestations of typography and architecture stand parallel to abstract art. Typography must not be designed for visual reasons alone. Moreover, typography will always have a purpose beyond itself; it wants to influence or inform.14 And the purpose of architecture is to create a home or some space similarly determined by its function. I do not deny that whatever the architect constructs will necessarily have a visual expression as well, but the intended aim is and remains the construction of space.
But despite all their differences in intention, great similarities remain between the new form of architecture and typography, on the one hand, and the new form of abstract painting and sculpture, on the other. Both forms develop directly from what we take to be the typical formal intention of the age. Humanity always thinks in outmoded forms, and so it does not yet love the form of our age. Nevertheless, the new style is emerging, unnoticed by the general public and recognized by only a few talented art historians. Later, this style will achieve general acceptance, and then we will be pulled from our hiding places, perhaps only when the future has long had other needs. Because in general, humanity is destined to err, and it should be left to do so, because this makes it feel good. Even today there are not many people who like living in houses stripped of ornament and designed from the inside out.15 People prefer those old, overly ornate baroque houses, because they believe they deserve a little beauty in their lives. Only a later age will be able to recognize that it is precisely these spare houses, if they have been built by a gifted architect such as Haesler,16 that not only meet all requirements for comfort and health, that not only offer the best technical solutions, but also are the most beautiful forms visually. Relatively speaking, the New Typography finds general acceptance quite easily. It is true that there is little love for its more simple forms; but they meet with approval when they are used in conjunction with an intense clarification of content, which is the main purpose of the New Typography. In general, New Typography is steadily gaining in appreciation, because it informs readers with greater ease, it advertises better, and it saves time and money.
And now back to today’s youth and mankind in general. I ask all of you to leave me to bloom in my seclusion. This serves me quite well. I do not strive for fame and honor, nor do I want your recognition. I am content if I am left to work undisturbed
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and in peace in my studio or at my desk, unaffected by street noise and untroubled by worries about sustenance. I am supported by my job as a typographic designer and consultant to numerous administrative bodies and factories. In this capacity, I work on more than five hundred items of printed matter a year. I’m all right, Jack, and you can all just shove off, not least because I am happily married. The appreciation for my typographic work continuously increases. And slowly I am becoming more acquainted with the extraordinarily complicated and multifaceted field of printing.
My art is a different matter. First, because nobody knows much about art since this field is even more complicated, and, second, because I lack personal recognition. The bad reviews persist, because the critics stay the same at heart. And when a young critic who attended one of my recitals writes that I am quite impossible, then this is a matter of complete irrelevance to me.17 It would have been just as irrelevant if he had described me as the best orator of the day. And though this last claim is also not quite correct, it would have certainly made him look a little less foolish. My time will come; this I know, and then those same critics will write: “How stupid those people must have been when they did not recognize Schwitters, and how clever we are by contrast, since we can recognize him now.” I have no intention to insult people who are not yet born, but I already know that if they are critics, they will be just as harmless as their colleagues today and will recognize just as little, which, on the whole, is quite human, and no one can change that; only they shouldn’t put on airs, then. But if you people of the future want to do me a special favor, then you should make the effort to recognize the most important artists of your age. This is of greater importance for you and is a greater pleasure for me than if you were to discover me at a time when I have long since been discovered.
But you, you political people on the right or the left, or you centrist types, or whichever blood-stained boot camp for the mind that you call your own, if you find yourself really fed up with politics one day, or if you want to take a break from your daily toil, even just for one evening, then come to art, to pure, apolitical art that has no bias, neither social nor national, bound neither by time nor by fashion. It can refresh you and will gladly do so. 27 December 1930.
Subscribe to the next MERZ MAGAZINE, 22: Development, price 3 reichsmark; to be published in early 1932.18
Myself and My Aims
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(126) [WE KNOW THE DOESBURG OF “STIJL” . . .] Published in the final issue of De Stijl (January 1932): 55– 57.
We know the Doesburg of “Stijl,” of composure, of rigorous development, of logical form-creation, but only a few know about his significance for dada. He actually introduced Dadaism to Holland in 1923 with unprecedented success and accomplished quite a bit of dada in the process. He already demonstrated his great knowledge of all things dada with his journal Mecano,1 where every sentence conveys his real enthusiasm for dada, whether he intended it or not. At the end of 1922, Theo van Doesburg invited the most important Dadaists to a congress to be held in Holland in 1923. However, he sorely overestimated how receptive Holland would be, and so I was the only other Dadaist apart from Doesburg to attend the rehearsal evening at the Hague Art Circle.2 Theo van Doesburg presented an introductory lecture on Dadaism, and I was to appear as a representative of Dadaism. On the evening in question, Doesburg looked just dada enough as he stood at the podium, dressed in a tuxedo with his distinguished black shirtfront and white necktie, his face powered white, a monocle squeezed in his eye, and with a look of formidable earnestness playing across his face. He embodied his self-minted proverb: “Life is a wonderful invention.” Since I did not speak a word of Dutch, we agreed that I would demonstrate Dadaism as soon as he took a sip of water. I was sitting anonymously in the audience, and when Doesburg took a drink of water, I suddenly started to bark in the most terrible fashion. My barking bought us a second evening in Haarlem, which actually sold out, because everybody wanted to watch Doesburg take a sip of water and hear me bark suddenly and unexpectedly. On Doesburg’s suggestion I didn’t bark this time, which bought us a third evening in Amsterdam. Audience members had to be carried from the hall unconscious, and one woman broke down into a fit of giggles that distracted the audience for a quarter of an hour while a fanatical man in a loden coat prophetically called all the audience members “idiots.” At this point, Doesburg’s campaign for Dadaism won a decisive victory. Countless evenings in every Dutch city were the reward, and Doesburg managed to whip up the most vigorous opposition against himself and his followers. Every evening, all of us— Petro van Doesburg and Vilmos Huszár also formed part of our little troupe— dared to approach the frenzied audience, which we ourselves had driven to a frenzy. And every evening Does was the red flag despite his black shirtfront. It was precisely 422
Doesburg’s tuxedoed nobility that the Dutch audience found so provocative, which meant that he could plow the audience again and again, cultivating the ground so that important new things could grow there. The best experience for me came in Utrecht. I was in the process of declaiming on the great, glorious revolution while Does was in the dressing room.3 Suddenly a few unidentified, masked men appeared onstage, presented me with a bizarre bouquet of flowers, and took over the presentation. The bouquet stood about three meters tall and was mounted on a gigantic wooden framework; it consisted of decaying flowers and bones, and towering over it was a calla lily, which unfortunately had been removed from its pot.4 This was accompanied by a very large, rotting laurel wreath that had been taken from Utrecht’s cemetery for the bourgeoisie and was placed by my feet, with its faded ribbons spread out. And then one of these men sat down at my table and started to read from a large Bible they had with them. Being German, I could not understand him, and I felt duty bound to inform Doesburg so that he could exchange a few friendly words with the gentleman. However, things unfolded quite differently. When Doesburg arrived, he saw and he conquered. That is to say, when he saw the man, he didn’t hesitate and, without any introduction or ceremony, toppled him, his Bible, and his bouquet into the orchestra pit. It was a success without precedent. Though this man had left, the whole audience now rose as one man. The police burst into tears, and the audience started fighting each other in the hope of getting even a small part of the bouquet. Bloodied bones were everywhere, and people passed them around to congratulate themselves and us. It was an unprecedented Dadaist success. I would have wanted many more opportunities to perform with such a gifted Dadaist as Doesburg. With Doesburg, global Dadaism has lost one of its greatest experts and masters. Kurt Schwitters (Hannover, June 1931)
[We know the Doesburg of “Stijl” . . .]
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(127) MERZ-PAINTINGS “les merztableaux,” abstraction, création, art nonfiguratif 1 (1932): 33. Translated from French by Eva Morawietz.
Founded in Paris in February 1931, Abstraction-Création was an international organization of abstract artists committed to concrete art and constructivism, broadly conceived. The group organized exhibitions and published an annual review, which ran until 1936. The first issue consisted of statements from forty-one members with a preface by Jean Hélion (1904– 87), who defined nonfiguration as the “cultivation of pure plasticity, to the exclusion of any explanatory, anecdotal, literary, or naturalistic element,” achieved “directly through a conception of purely geometric order.” Schwitters’s text included illustrations of two painted reliefs from 1926, MERZ 1926,3. Cicero (CR 1343) and Albert Finzlerbild / ALBERT FINSLERBILD (CR 1358; see fig. 23).
if a country’s delegate turns to the assembly of the league of nations, he has a program; he has a goal he would like to reach. if a first-year pupil has to write an essay, he will begin by laying out a plan. if the good bourgeois steps out, he has a goal, but this is not merz. if merz were at the league of nations, there would be no goal beyond the intention of saving what can be saved. if merz were to write a composition, he would place one word after the other, and, with the creation of a rhythm along these words, he would discover a previously unknown goal. if merz were to go for a walk, he would aimlessly twist his legs and collect what there is to collect. ask someone how he is doing, and he will tell you what he intends to do. ask merz what he is going to do, and he will tell you that he is doing well. you can destroy a world with goals, and you can construct a new world from the debris guided by knowledge and the structure of possibilities. thus diplomacy destroys, as does the first-year pupil; thus merz creates. because merz knows no goal and besides, goals remain inaccessible; because merz works without a plan and because plans remain illogical. because merz would twist his legs until something is formed, until a goal appears from a logical development. the basic material is freely chosen; the goal that is achieved is irrelevant. the brief space of time that is given to us can be today, tomorrow, or yesterday,
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only this time must recognize itself, balance its tensions, construct itself, poetize itself, conduct itself justly. as for yesterday, tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow, it does not matter where and how we are born or what we carry with us; all that matters is how we carry it and what we do with it. but even this is merz. and these paintings are merz-paintings. and he who paints them is merz. the day before yesterday, yesterday, and tomorrow.
merz-paintings
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(128) [STATEMENT ABOUT THE MERZBAU ] Published in abstraction, création, art non- figuratif 2 (1933): 41. Translated from French by Eva Morawietz.
The artists’ statements assembled in this issue of abstraction, création, art nonfiguratif responded to this questionnaire: The Committee of the Association “Abstraction-Création” asked its members the following questions: 1 2 3 4 5
Why do you not paint nudes? What do you think is the influence of trees on your work? Is a locomotive a work of art? Why? Or why not? If a work looks like a machine or technical creation, does this add to or subtract from its artistic effectiveness? If a work looks like an animal, does this add to or subtract from its artistic effectiveness?
These two photographs show some sections of the Merzbau in Hannover: Die große Gruppe (The Great Group) and Die Goldgrotte (The Gold Grotto). The Merzbau is the construction of an interior using sculptural forms and colors. In the glass grottoes there are Merz compositions that form a cubic volume, and these merge with white cubic shapes to form an interior. Each section of the interior serves as a mediating element to its neighboring section. None of the details form a delimited composition that could stand as a unity. There are a large number of different forms that serve to mediate between the cube and indefinite form. Sometimes I have taken a form from nature, but more often I have constructed the form as the function of different parallel or intersecting lines. This is how I found my most important shape: the semi-helix (Halbschraube). I draw a clear distinction between artistic logic and scientific logic, between the construction of a new form and the recording of a form found in nature. In constructing a new form, you are creating an abstract and artistic work of art. In recording a natural form, you are not creating a work of art but are merely studying nature. There are a great number of intermediary limbs that come between constructing form and recording nature. 1. It is certainly possible for an abstract artist to paint nudes as well.
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41 Kurt Schwitters, details of the Große Gruppe (Great Group) and the Goldgrotte and Grotte mit Puppenkopf (Gold Grotto and Grotto with Doll’s Head) in the Hannover Merzbau. Photographs reproduced in abstraction, création, art non-figuratif 2 (1933): 41.
2. In my abstract compositions, there is the influence of everything I have seen in nature, such as trees, for example. 3. A locomotive is not a work of art since there was no intention to make a work of art when it was constructed. 4. and 5. Reproducing a machine, an animal, or the Mona Lisa has no impact on artistic effectiveness.
[Statement about the Merzbau]
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(129) [EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS TO SUSANNA FREUDENTHALLUTTER ABOUT THE MERZBAU ] Unpublished manuscripts (Hannover, 28 February and 30 March 1935).
Schwitters met Susanna (“Suus”) Freudenthal-Lutter (1908– 86) in 1934 while she was on holiday in Norway with her husband, the mathematician Hans Freudenthal. He stayed with the pair at their home in Amsterdam in winter that year, and at this time he began a love affair with her. Schwitters’s letters to Freudenthal-Lutter in advance of her visit to Hannover in April 1935 contain unusually specific and unique information about the Merzbau.
I am sitting here in the library, a room that takes up no more than one square meter in a corner of my studio. I like sitting here, because it is high up and so quiet. This is where my bookcase is. Content: 20 books, approximately, with things stuck and nailed to the surrounding walls. I continue my work on the space, and later on I want to use it to do my writing. There is a kind of winding staircase that leads up here, and it is very narrow. When I sit up here, my legs dangle, which must be healthy. With the thorough spring-cleaning of my rooms, new things always get made. Just today I finished two grottoes, one with the theme “yearning” and the other “circus.” In one of them, Mr. Remmer looms large in the foreground, and you can tell by looking at him that he certainly knows nothing of yearning, while a poor, kitschy girl with flowers stands in the background. There’s an oriental landscape, a Buddha, a girl in the circus, and the words: “Easy come, easy go.” The circus grotto is complete kitsch. A tawdry blue glass bauble from a Christmas tree in particular is what gives it its character. I glazed both grottoes today myself. I am proud of this achievement. And so slowly, very slowly, work on the whole studio progresses. ∙∙∙
I am sitting in the library as usual. It’s an important moment, because the balcony is being glazed outside. This will make it a room. I will sketch a rough floor plan for you: [Text in top floor plan, clockwise for each room:] [Top room:] my bed, window, door, door
42 (facing) Kurt Schwitters, sketch of the Merzbau with the library in the K d e E from a letter to Susanna FreudenthalLutter, 30 March 1935. Nachlass FreudenthalLutter.
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[Bottom right room:] balcony, old glazing, courtyard, to be glazed [with arrows rounding the corner] [Bottom left room:] atelier, library, window [Above the arrow pointing to the ground plan:] This is my realm here in Hannover. [Text running vertically:] Very high wall [Text below the floor plan:] Small ditch Ditch with running water Forest: The Eilenriede. It is more than 10 km long.
43 Kurt Schwitters, drawing of the reflection in the mirror in the library in the K d e E showing the Hildesheimer Tower and two cyclists, from a letter to Susanna Freudenthal-Lutter, 30 March 1935. Nachlass Freudenthal-Lutter.
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I’ll make a separate sketch of the library: [Text in bottom floor plan, clockwise from left:] window to the atelier, writing desk, window to the balcony, cupboard, wall made of stone, stairwell, seat You see, there is no direct light here. It is also quite cold, because the heating has to go through a long, thin corridor. But when I sit there for any length of time, I heat the room myself, because it is so small. I also just place a blanket over my legs, just like on our drive through Amsterdam with Karstens. Now you are not here, which is a pity. There is just as much to see here otherwise. The window looking out onto the forest has a large mirror that faces me and allows me to see the forest. The undergrowth is already turning green, and the first flowers are growing between the leaves on the ground. In the winter and at this time of the year when only a few leaves are on the trees, I can look in the mirror and see Hildesheimer Street through the trees. There I see the old watchtower, the Döhrener Tower. [Text and arrow at left:] To town And just now two cyclists are passing by. You’ll be arriving in this direction. I’ve just noticed that the mirror reverses everything it shows. Actually, you will be arriving from the right, and not the left. There are anemones in the window, and I am including one for you. Just next to it is a cup of “Wahren Jakob,” a bitter tea I like to drink. On the balcony outside, the glazier, Hengstmann, also called “Kitt,”1 is standing on a ladder, and I’m constantly running outside to help him, because he is putting the glass into a very difficult wall. But it’s very important, since it will make the third room. But it is just an initial shell. The other window has a wonderful view of the “Great Group” in the studio.2 This is probably the most beautiful view I can show you.
[Excerpts from letters to Susanna Freudenthal-Lutter about the Merzbau]
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(130) [EXCERPT FROM A LETTER TO SUSANNA FREUDENTHALLUTTER ABOUT LANDSCAPE PAINTING] Unpublished manuscript (Djup[vasshytta], 20 July 1935).
Whether I paint from nature or paint abstractly, or whether I am building, for me, what is essential is the light, and this is what connects all my works. Imagine a large landscape, with distant mountains covered in snow, clouds in the valley, and a sundrenched house in the middle ground, with some rocks and greenery in the sun and, in the foreground, rocks and greenery in the shade, with a small river in the immediate foreground. So, I paint front and back; that is, I paint the way the light changes in the atmosphere and humidity, or I paint contrasts, the black rocks in the foreground against the greenish-white glacier, just like in an abstract painting. Air and eye furnish me with complementary color contrasts, and I must retrieve them from nature. Painting the contrasting elements in nature is abstract. But when I am building my studio, I make cavities and surfaces for the light and increase them with color. When the light outside shines through the willow shrubs, I can observe what I am constructing in the grottoes of my studio. The objects are not what is essential for me; rather it is the music that the light plays on them.
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(131) THE WORK OF ART Unpublished manuscript (ca. 1937– 40).
The Work of Art is the rhythmic form-creation of an appropriate material to achieve expression
A
A B C
A }C
B
B }B
C
}A C
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(132) IMPRESSIONISM/ EXPRESSIONISM Unpublished manuscript (ca. 1937– 40).
Impressionism
Renaissance Rembrandt Manet (impressionism) Leibl
Expressionism
Futurism Cubism Marc (expressionism) Brücke Abstraction (Merz, dada, surrealism) Constructivism (Advertising I) (Purism: ArchitectureII)
Generally recognized so far: I. New Advertising (Commercial Art) II. Constructive Architecture
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(133) THE TIN PALM TREE Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Die Blechpalme” (5 July 1937).
Inspired by Hannah Höch’s effusive account of her trip to the North Cape, Schwitters first traveled to Norway in 1929. He returned the following year and visited the Djupvatnet, a glacial lake on a popular tourist route from Geirangerfjord to Dalsnibba Mountain. Schwitters returned every year to Hotel Djupvasshytta on the shore of the lake to sell his landscape paintings and portraits (see text 130). During these visits, he became acquainted with a Sami family, Anna and Heuka Partapouli and their thirteen children, who spent the summer months near the hotel and sold craft objects to tourists. From 1935 to 1939, he drew and painted several portraits of the couple (CR 1967, 1981– 84, 2425, 2548).
Do not underestimate the tourist; his habits reflect the level of education that people have in general. When people travel, they are liberated from their everyday ties, from the constraints of their origins; they are not responsible for their taste, and they express their taste with impunity. There is no difference between people in this regard; rather, they are all the same— utterly the same. When a tour boat sails for Spitsbergen and unloads its passengers on land, there will be only a few who find it tasteless to be photographed with a small iceberg. The vast majority does not realize that they have no relationship to the iceberg whatsoever, that they are in fact ruining the greatness of nature with their esteemed presence. But I’m sorry to say that what constitutes our culture is nothing other than a lack of culture. Dadaism went to great lengths to provide other examples of things that, with the best intentions, do not go together. It staged a concert where a typewriter and a sewing machine played music together. The public (the same, it can be said, that photographs itself standing next to icebergs) went wild with indignation because it realized that the combined clattering of these two machines cannot produce a concert. It sensed the hypocrisy of genuine music in a Dadaist concert. But it could not sense the identical hypocrisy of the visual arts when confronted with a photograph of Mr. Meier with an iceberg. And this, despite the fact that the two cases are identical— with the sole difference being that, in the first case, this disavowal was an act of stupidity and, in the second, the deliberate imitation of the general public. However, it is precisely this imitation of the average man of culture that offends the cultured person. Suddenly, he sees himself objectively, and says: “I can’t be this stupid, can I?” and continues: “So it must be the artist who performed the concert 435
who is stupid.” Nobody takes offense at his own stupidity. Stupidity in others, however, is intolerable. You could gather such inanities into a collection called “The Tin Palm Tree” to serve as a repellent and a warning. But what is a Tin Palm Tree? It is an abstraction, a backdrop to be photographed against. If Mr. Meier doesn’t fit into the landscape, the palm tree needn’t fit in either, and so neither fits. I recall a very popular tourist destination in the high mountains of Norway. It is about 500 meters above the timberline— only dwarf trees thinly cover the mossy ground with their branches. All that draws the crowds is a lake that thaws only in summer and a glacier. The tourists drive up the mountain in the comfort of their cars; they stop for fine coffee and cake in a fine hotel. And then there is something else that attracts the tourists: a family of Lapps living in a tent. There aren’t actually any Lapps in this southern part of Norway, aside from these Photograph-Lapps.1 But there is no harm in this. Even if the one or other notices that a Lapp does not really belong in these surroundings, they are still happy to have their photograph taken next to him and his family, preferably arm in arm and laughing. And so, when the tourist shows the photograph to his friend, he will be able to see how on his world travels he made friends with indigenous tribes he still believes to be wild. After all, this Lapp has no more or less taste than the tourist— at least, earning money is a more important matter than a desire to brag. Now, considering this Lapp does not belong here and given how Mr. Meier likes having his picture taken with things that don’t belong somewhere, I suggest that the hotel provide a palm tree for such occasions. I must admit that no palm trees grow here, but this will only make it all the more attractive. People love taking photographs under palm trees just to show they have traveled to the South. So what if this South is up north? Stupid people with no knowledge of geography are quickly found. So bring on the palm trees! And since they don’t grow here, I suggest you hammer them from sheet metal and paint them nice and palmy. Art or nature is all the same for the photograph, and sheet metal stays sheet metal— that goes without saying.
Text 133
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(134) [I ONCE SAW A FAMOUS SINGER IN A FILM . . .] Two unpublished manuscripts (Molde, 12 December 1937).
I once saw a famous singer in a film where he sang and acted. Singers don’t necessarily always have to be Chinese. This singer wasn’t Chinese either; his face didn’t look Chinese even with make-up. But he played a Chinese character. The camera underscored with relentless clarity that he was not Chinese. But he made every effort to make us believe that he was Chinese. He acted as if his ties to China ran so deep that he had to suffer the strictures of certain Chinese customs like a real Chinese person. This gave him a welcome opportunity to sing with gusto, and his singing was supposed to be admired. This led me to ask, why didn’t he play what he really was instead of what he absolutely could not be? Well, isn’t that the case? ∙∙∙
The singing in the movie frequently drove me to distraction. Everybody should sing, if they need to. For instance, there is no valid argument against a cook caterwauling all day as she goes about her business. You could fire her, but she has done nothing wrong, morally or artistically. It’s not her problem if musical people can’t stand her caterwauling. However, if someone starts to sing in a movie simply to show off his beautiful and trained voice, and he chooses to sing just where the plot absolutely cannot tolerate any interruptions— such as when he gathers a girl in his arms and, rather than kissing her, he starts to sing around in front of her mouth— then that is a serious crime. It must be made clear that in a film, which uses filmic means to give form to an everyday action, good singing has no greater value than any other expression of the human voice, such as a servant girl’s caterwauling.
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(135) [ANYONE WHO WANTS TO WRITE ABOUT PEOPLE . . .] Unpublished manuscript (Molde, 12 December 1937).
Anyone who wants to write about people must be good-natured and go about his work with good cheer. He must try to consider both the small weaknesses and the big faults of his peers objectively, including those of his great contemporaries, whose faults naturally are greater to match their greatness. He must even try to love his contemporaries, enjoying their weak faults. Instead of condemning a person on account of his weaknesses, the objective optimist can use these charming faults, both small and great, to poke his contemporaries precisely where a normal person holds reason in his heart. And if you were to ask what this is, I would say: Poetry.
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(136) SHEET 1. FOR MY NEW STUDIO Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Bogen 1. Für mein neues Atelier” (6 April 1938).
From 1937 to 1940, Schwitters and his son lived in exile in Norway, where they were tenants at Fagerhøyveien 22 in Lysaker, a rural suburb of Oslo. At the time, this steeply sloping, woodland property was bordered by Fagerhøyveien to the north and by Drammensveien to the south.
First it is important to mention the name. It is called “Haus am Bakken.”1 My studio in Hannover bears the name “Merzbau.” The Haus am Bakken was initially conceived as a studio that could be dismantled and transported. My intention was to partition each section so that they could then be disassembled from the side facing the road for possible transport. This is why I attached a large section of the wall facing the road in such a way that it can be removed. But as work continued, it turned out that for the sake of the abstract formcreation, the sections had to be connected and interlocked. The studio remains transportable, but it would have to be hoisted by crane in one piece onto a truck and then loaded on a ship in Lysaker. Of course, only the upper room can be transported; the cellar, which has been shaped by the cliff, is too difficult to carry away. Because I am a foreigner, not a Norwegian, and because I didn’t get a permit to build a house here in Norway when I started constructing the studio, I built it in secret and hid it among the spruce and fir trees on the slope, keeping it out of sight as much as possible. However, I had to build on a site that could constantly be observed from the Lysaker police station. This meant I was always anxious when someone stopped on Drammensveien below or even when a child asked what I was building. I gave just about every board, as soon it was nailed in place, a patchy coat of paint and covered it with mud and pine needles to age it. I built the main window to face the sea. The house was oriented according to this window, which happened to roughly face south. This meant the studio effectively pointed toward my old studio in Hannover. The last piece I had formed in Hannover made this connection even stronger. Between Christmas and New Year 1936, Ernst was already in Norway, and I had just worked up above on the Schäfersteg [Shepherd’s Bridge].2 Suddenly I recognized that the resulting form was a horseshoe. Horseshoes signify luck, and my horseshoe pointed north, approximately to the spot where the Haus am Bakken now stands. But at the time I had no idea that I would be relocating to Oslo. 439
(137) SHEET 2 Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Bogen 2” (6 April 1938).
Shortly after the Nazis assumed power, Ernst Schwitters joined the Socialist Workers’ Youth (Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend, SAJ), whose Hannover chapter was organized by Walter Spengemann, son of Schwitters’s close friend, publisher, and collaborator Christof Spengemann (1877– 1952). Ernst worked as a courier for the SAJ, smuggling information about the Nazi dictatorship for publication abroad in England and Norway. While Schwitters and Ernst were traveling in Norway in the summer of 1936, authorities broke up local SAJ cells, and the entire Spengemann family was arrested in August. That autumn, the Schwitters family made plans for Ernst to emigrate to Oslo. Here Schwitters refers to a law that passed on 1 December 1936 that made membership in the Hitler Youth compulsory. As it was set to go into effect the following month, Schwitters suggests it prompted Ernst to accelerate his departure. However, because Ernst was already eighteen years old, this legislation would not have applied to him. Rather, he would have been immediately affected by a different law, the Reichsarbeitsdienstgesetz, which had passed on 26 June 1935 and stipulated that all men between eighteen and twenty-five years of age were required to serve the nation for half a year, to be conscripted in the calendar year they turned nineteen. In Ernst’s case, the earliest date he would have been called up would have been 1 January 1937, making it all the more imperative that he leave the country for good before the New Year.
Before Ernst left Hannover, he dedicated two days to my studio to photograph everything he felt was important. I helped him and thereby experienced my studio once more in its entirety. I was not especially happy with this, for much of what was in the Merzbau studio seemed outdated to me. But I did not feel I had it in me to build a new studio all over again. Ernst said he was really enjoying the forms— it was his farewell, of sorts. I did not need to say farewell, since I did not intend to leave. Shortly before Ernst was set to depart, we read in the papers that new laws would make it impossible for him to leave the country after 1 January 1937. So he cancelled his trip by train and we hastily booked him a berth on board a ship. He had to leave no later than Boxing Day. Christmas was a horrible experience. On Christmas Eve, all three of us, Helma, 440
Ernst, and I, placed candles by my father’s grave, and Ernst said goodbye for the last time. They burned poorly in the storm. When we drove to my in-laws to exchange gifts, we found a cat that had been hit by a car on Güntherstrasse. So we were there just briefly and then took the poor animal to the veterinary college where it had to be put down. The attendant was none too pleased that we had interrupted his Christmas Eve. I gave Ernst all sorts of small presents for Christmas, with the motto: “You never know.”1 After lunch with my in-laws on Christmas Day, we left before the festivities. On our final afternoon together, we didn’t want to endure my mother-in-law’s endless carping, which was so typical of her. At this point, my father-in-law said to Ernst: “I wish you all the best for the rest of your life.” It was strange that he had said, “for the rest of your life,” as he couldn’t know that Ernst was leaving Germany for good. But this intensified the mood at that moment for us. On our last evening we went to see Ni[tzschke (?)]2 and ask his advice. He advised us to focus on the immediate departure and handle everything else as necessity required. But I did not want to emigrate; I only wanted to follow Ernst a week later with the things he couldn’t take along and to stay for two months to help him get everything set up. From Ni[tzschke’s (?)] place we biked along our favorite path past the Steuerndieb3 and through the forest, 10 kilometers. I think we both greatly enjoyed our time in the dark. On Boxing Day we drove to Hamburg through the early morning darkness. It was ice cold, there was a smattering of snow, and frost covered the trees. Day broke as we passed through Lüneburg. I said hello to Bardowick.4 Thick fog lay over Hamburg. The sound of the ships’ foghorns was absolutely dreadful. It began to drizzle. I approached the passport and foreign currency officer as a fellow human and talked to him about his own affairs— he had had a goose for Christmas. No, it was a duck, not a goose. The man was touched by my interest. That afternoon I left for Retelsdorf and picked up Lore to bring to my mother-in-law as a replacement for Ernst with the news that Ernst had left for Norway.5 She took it well. Lore, whom I quite like, sweetened my last week. I had a lot to pack, and so I didn’t think too much. Saying goodbye didn’t cross my mind. On 2 January 1937, I left Hamburg with as much secrecy as Ernst, to avoid my mother-in-law having me detained. Ernst stood on the quay in Oslo. He was sad, with no place to live.
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(138) MERZ Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Merz” (10 April 1938).
A man who had a great sensibility for art once asked me why, in the years around 1919, I used any old material as material for my paintings, some of which was found in the trash; and would I still consider it appropriate to use such materials today; and what was I thinking when I made such images, which are more akin to trash cans than anything like eternal works of art; and why couldn’t I just have used oil paint to make such pictures anyway. I will gladly answer these questions since everything that once belonged to me obviously still belongs to me. At one time I was a child and will one day be an old man, and my life unfolds in between, and that is what I am. — I myself would have asked the same questions had I (much like this gentleman, it seems) not seen the reason why these arbitrary, apparently randomly found objects had been glued and nailed to a plane set within the four sides of a frame, for a work without reason is nonsense. And so, at the time, I generally succeeded (though quite without my intention) in getting the press and visitors to my exhibitions to declare me insane. — But, thank God, I was not. Had I not recognized the reasoning behind my Merz-pictures, I myself would have felt compelled to say: “What feeble-minded nonsense, assembling together such repulsive waste taken from the trash, which is so utterly worthless and all the more unaesthetic for it, and besides, what a downright impertinence to place this junk in an art exhibition alongside paintings destined for eternity, and how can a museum buy something like this with money that people, who do not value such rubbish, earned through hard work and by the sweat of their brow?” — Even I would have cried out in indignation, if . . . well, if I had not known full well that the goal of my work at that time had absolutely nothing to do with creating small heaps of trash for the salon or museum. Then as now and forever more, my goal was to make serious art, though of course I cannot know for sure if I have been successful. Indeed, you often know yourself the least. — Could it really be that I have a slight inclination to nonsense?! So what is a work of art? What distinguishes the work of art from the artistically indiscriminate appearances that surround it? What nature has created is not art, though it has instilled an enthusiasm for making art in countless people. Nature delights artists; it is a masterpiece of our Creator, but it is not an artwork! Works of art can only be created by people and for people! Let us consider a 442
landscape. The blue in the distant mountains comes from the actual color of the air, while haze gives distant objects a reddish hue, and sunshine drenches all local colors in a yellow gleam. This gives the local gray and green colors of the fields and forests on the distant mountains a blue, red, or yellow hue. The light brightens them, while the air and haze darkens them. What results is a highly nuanced but entirely unambiguous color that you can see only as it is and not otherwise.— But color changes over the course of the day and with the increasing and decreasing pressure of the atmosphere, humidity, or the air, and with the orientation of the sun. — The color of a mountain in the distance is therefore an entirely indeterminate factor in its natural surroundings, and the factors of its surroundings are equally indeterminate. And so it can happen that a partial excerpt of nature is, at one moment, an exceptionally fitting basis for a painting, while the same excerpt, at a different moment, is completely unsuitable. But in a work of art, the resultant colors, as parts of a composition, are utterly determined and modified values. A work of art distinguishes itself from nature by means of composition within a delimited space, for it is only within a delimited space that all the elements can be evaluated in relation to each other. In the case of a painting, such evaluation happens only visually. Evaluation can happen only visually because you cannot smell or taste or hear or feel a picture. — The job of the artist is to arrange the visually evident elements of the picture in such a way as to create the most fitting, strongest overall composition possible, which conveys his intended sensory values [Gefühlswerte] with clarity. Then the task of the beholder is try to gain insight according to the spirit of the composition by using his eyes to palpitate the visual elements the artist has assembled and by comparing and summing up the elements he has perceived in this way. Merely recognizing the composition is not enough to understand a work of art completely. You will understand it only once you have managed to use the recognized composition to travel with the artist through the land of his imagination. It does not matter if the viewer obtains the same experience that compelled the artist to create the work of art. Beethoven did not write his sonatas so that a specific set of tones would resonate within a specific segment of time. Rather, he wrote these sonatas to arouse [sensory] values in the listener. In turn, the music lover listens to these sonatas because he finds these sensory values agreeable. — Perhaps the unmusical person can only hear notes being struck, maybe at the same time [or in sequence]. This leaves him terribly bored, and he busies himself by twiddling his thumbs. Just as there are people who are unmusical, there are, unfortunately, people who do not have the ability to receive the sensory values that painterly compositions convey to them. They may indeed perceive the composition that results from the juxtaposition of contrasts of light and dark, from the balancing of complementary colors, and from the appropriate guiding lines. But because they cannot feel it, they
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ask why someone would do something like this at all.You cannot reproach them for being so disposed, just as you cannot reproach unmusical people for being unmusical. However, people who cannot understand a composition because they cannot feel it cannot go on to assert that a purely abstract composition is pointless. Electricity is not pointless just because people in the Middle Ages had no use for it, and music is not pointless just because it bores the unmusical person. Just as the unmusical person will twiddle his thumbs out of boredom, a person who has no ability for making [visual] connections will search for something to lean on, because a person’s mind always wants and needs to work. If he cannot recognize what is being depicted, he occupies himself with something else. Looking at a landscape painting, he will wonder whether he knows the place, whether it is a nice place, whether the aerial perspective is correct and well executed, and how thickly the paint sits on the surface. And in the case of a glued and nailed Merzpicture, he will try to make out the individual pieces that have been assembled, noting the use of a broken old funnel and a worn-out old wheel from a baby stroller, [for example]. Of course, this is not the way you should examine pictures, and I believe such a viewer would probably miss any artistic value that a landscape painting might have too. So, to sum up: the goal of art is sensory value, and the means to reach this goal is composition. Sensory value cannot be explained; composition can easily be explained. In paintings, the only compositional values to be considered are lines, colors, light, and dark. — How these compositional elements have been selected and distributed corresponds to the character of the artist who created the work, and artists differ from each other. What is conveyed depends on the artist’s ability to experience, the force of his compositions, and not least the receptiveness of the beholder. This receptiveness, in turn, depends on the effort the beholder has already put into the study of art. But since the distribution of colors [within] a delimited space is all that matters, I did not ask, when making the Merz-pictures from the years around 1919, where did these colors come from, who produced them, and whether they had ever been used for a purpose other than as parts of an artwork. And there is probably no law that states you can make works of art only from just one very specific type of material. When I made these Merz-pictures alongside other pictures painted exclusively with oils, my intention was not to assert that, from now on, we should make pictures only using trash. Rather, all I did was use materials that other artists, such as Picasso, had been including in their pictures, except that in some pictures I used these materials exclusively. If I have succeeded in making [vibrant] compositions using these materials, then I believe I have managed to extend the field of art somewhat, without the slightest intention to disturb the reserve of the great artworks of history.
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(139) [I FIRST SAW THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD IN THE YEAR 1887 . . .] Unpublished manuscript (Lysaker, 16 June 1938).
Schwitters prepared this autobiographical statement for the Exhibition of Twentieth Century German Art, chaired by Herbert Read, which opened at the New Burlington Galleries in London on 8 July 1938. The Swiss artist and exhibition organizer Irmgard Burchard (1908– 64) wrote to Schwitters on 15 June 1938 with instructions on how to submit his work and asking for “precise biographical notes” for the catalogue and the press. “Since this is the first German exhibition that will be mounted here,” she added, “it would be good, if you could send us some anecdotes from the circle of your friends.” On this letter, Schwitters noted the titles of five works he decided to send to London, all of which he mentions in this statement. However, his correspondence indicates that a year after the exhibition opened, he still had not received confirmation that they had been received, and they remain lost to this day. Of these works, only The Golden Ear (ca. 1932; CR 1825) was exhibited, together with an untitled collage lent from an unnamed collector. Exhibition of Twentieth Century German Art was initially conceived to respond to Entartete Kunst (Degenerate art) and to protest the suppression of modern art by the National Socialists, even though it was staged at a time of British appeasement of Hitler’s government. While the sales that it generated were donated to relief efforts for refugee artists, the catalogue acknowledged Germany’s defamation of modern art in decidedly tempered terms: “The organizers of the present Exhibition are not concerned with the political aspect of this situation; they merely affirm one principle: that art, as an expression of the human spirit in all its mutations, is only great in so far as it is free. Art has its disciplines, but these originate in the mind of the artist, and cannot be imposed by the indoctrinated will of a statesman, however wise. This is the only principle we maintain, but in virtue of this principle we can offer the persecuted artists of Germany the prospect of appealing to the unprejudiced eyes of the world.” This introductory statement concluded with the caveat, “In no case has an artist still living in Germany been asked to participate in the Exhibition: they are represented by works from private collections outside Germany without the artist’s knowledge or consent.”
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I first saw the light of the world in the year 1887, on 20 July, and despite everything it remains so beautiful that I never tire of seeing it. Even today, at 52 years of age, already with a somewhat green mind, I find nothing more beautiful than light. It is so soft and gentle at night, so intoxicating in moonlight, so dramatic when received directly from the radiant sun behind dark trees, and there is no human sensation that light and its children, the colors, cannot vividly express. I was born on the cusp of Monday, just after midnight. My mother had hoped I would be Sunday’s child, but it seems I took my time and just missed the sun’s day. But for those who seek the light, each day is a sun day, and the painter always has a sun day when he is painting. But this is how things frequently happened in my life. When Marc, Klee, Kandinsky began working in the vein of abstract form-creation, I took my time, and only in 1917 was I so advanced myself. But that is not how it began. As a small child I called myself Kuwitter, and so simplified my name. I loved to count the canal openings on the streets and, later, to place symmetrical shapes on the ground using flowers, stones, and unripe fruit, frequently giving these figures the names of cities. But my father, who in his free time liked to use colored glass and bent sheet metal to assemble objects and arrange brightly colored wildflower bouquets, served as my best encouragement. Then, I had to learn something, and so I went to the Realgymnasium I in Hannover, where I also passed the Abitur exam. But being a high school graduate is not a profession, and so I became a portrait painter. At the Dresden Art Academy, where I studied for five years, my teacher Professor Bantzer provided rich stimulation, especially from Leibl and Frans Hals.1 However, Bantzer’s strict views that art should be true to nature proved to be a great obstacle to my own drive to abstraction. Bantzer considered an artwork good only when it could be placed next to the model and then, when seen from a great distance, would look exactly like it in terms of color, form, chiaroscuro, and outline. My previous studies with Professor Kühl, who was more open in his opinions, also made me more open, until I came to the conclusion that the brush must be used to conjure, not just to paint. I made one of my first abstract pictures when, during a visit to my studio, Professor Kühl sat on a palette I had accidentally placed on the chair. This earned me his enduring animosity. However, I must state here quite clearly that though such a picture may indeed be abstract, that is, nonobjective, it is not an artwork, because it has been formed arbitrarily and so does not convey any sensory values [Gefühlswerte]. This is possible only by skilled composition. I frequently thought of this while studying with Bantzer. And whenever I painted nudes, I always tried to make good compositions, by balancing the proportions of the background elements, for instance, or by creating passages of light and shadow, and I strove for a harmonious linear effect. I increasingly became aware that nature is a very constraining model and that
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all you can do is begin the composition, but in the end, the demands of the natural object will be greater. If you want to complete the entire composition, you must work abstractly. Abstract form-creation is a German concern. German philosophy favors abstract thinking; the consequence of all methods of thought is abstract and German. In place of abstract painting, the French discovered cubism, the Italians futurism, the Dutch Neue Gestaltung, the Russians constructivism. But I realized this only later on. At the time, what I knew in the studio was that I wanted to compose abstractions, pure constructions, without the burden of imitating nature and with the greatest possibilities for conveying sensory values. Just because you want to paint abstractly does not mean you can straight away. And so all my attempts in those first years, from between 1912 and 1917, ended in failure. Visitors to the exhibition should not be disheartened when they cannot immediately understand abstract pictures, despite their best intentions. Explanations will certainly not help, but I am sure that after five years of constant striving to understand, everyone will arrive at a positive result. After all, you cannot learn a foreign language in a day, even though it may be as easy as your own. At first, I just reflected on the problem of abstract painting, and why should I not reflect? Then I began to see how lines in nature come together to make a complete composition. Soon I also started to notice how complementary colors created strong effects, and I realized that they could define the tonic chord [Grundakkord] for abstract paintings.2 This was when I started to compose with daubs of oil paint. All this led to nothing. It was not until 1917 that I successfully managed to transfer certain natural facts into a new rhythmic order. This concept of transfer is key. The picture is a symbol for sensations [Gefühle], as with good musical compositions. However, only people who have the ability to understand can comprehend this symbolism, just as only musical people can understand music. Abstract art, by contrast, addresses everyone. In 1917, I also successfully made my first expressionist transfers of sensation that can rightly be called both optical and abstract. This is why I am including Resound ing Glass from 19173 in the exhibition. As I tried to gain an understanding of all expressive possibilities, I began to occupy myself with the other arts. But I am merely mentioning this in passing, as this exhibition includes only pictures. Poetry developed in me with particular force, as much an expression of the postwar moment as of Dadaism, and as such it is indeed a strong expression of the times I lived through in 1919. As I strove for totality, intoxicated by my success with achieving strong, abstract compositions that had a vivid effect, I took everything that had color and radiated light. And so, my most important works of 1919 and 1920 consist of nailed bits of leftover wood and glued scraps of paper.
[I first saw the light of the world in the year 1887 . . .]
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These pictures were not intended to mean anything; they were merely supposed to be strong color compositions. As an example, I am including The ScrapofPaper Picture.4 By 1919 I had arrived at the approach to abstract form-creation that was appropriate for me. This approach remains true to me to this day, except that calmer pictures reflect calmer times, and my ambition is to achieve forms that are simpler, larger, and calmer. Machine Against Its Will (1921)5 — which still has a Dadaist title (it could more simply be called “Picture with 3”)— leads to The Golden Ear (1935),6 where everything is painterly, and then to White Relief (1927),7 which is predominantly cubist in its form-creation. In recent years, my work has become increasingly sculptural. The goal is the same, light. I paint after nature, the play of colors that light conjures over objects, and I use abstract form-creation to construct objects that give light an opportunity for colorful conjuring. By 1918 I had already found support for my work from collectors in Germany and elsewhere, and some museums here and there made purchases. Miss K. S. Dreier came to my studio once and said something like: “Dear Mr. Schwitters, in America, when we love an artist, we love him very much. I own 24 abstract works of yours, which I bought at Der Sturm, and I am coming to purchase another 25.” My thoughts wandered to the skyscrapers with 50 stories, while Miss Dreier only had 49 of my pictures. So I replied: “Miss Dreier, here, in our Deutsche Bank, when a client buys 49 pictures, we offer the fiftieth free of charge.” I was happy that she now had 50 of my pictures. And Miss K. S. responded: “Done! Then I’ll buy the fifty-first.”
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(140) [ONCE WE REALIZE THAT, BASICALLY, EVERYTHING IS FUTILE . . .] Unpublished shorthand manuscript written on an envelope postmarked 16 December 1939.
Once we realize that, basically, everything is futile, we gain the proper basis for life. However, we do encounter an ideal here, namely the ideal of having no ideals. And though we may lack all ideals, we should nevertheless do everything as well as possible, as this makes our lives easier. Self-improvement replaces ideals. We must understand that the human being, who is born with faults, cannot do anything well. All he can do is improve— that is, he can raise himself up, he can improve his lot, without ever reaching a state that cannot be improved. Accordingly, we human beings cannot even imagine an ideal of ideals. Someone could argue that if everything is futile, then life itself is futile; above all we wouldn’t need to live. This is correct. However, death is just as pointless, and it is futile to take our own life, which we did not give to ourselves. We can die, and so we can also live. Without ideals we can cope better in life as in death. We expect nothing and are not disappointed.
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(141) TRUTH Unpublished manuscript, “Wahrheit” (ca. 1930s).
Few concepts have as many rumors circulating about them as the truth. You tell others the truth when you get tough with them. Many associate the concept of truth with nobility. Untruth is supposedly the opposite of truth, what you say when you lie, even when this lie leads to heaven. Truth claims to be eternal and divine. But let me tell you the truth: “Truth is a liquid.” You are thinking of wine. There is truth in wine, but because all there is to wine is liquid, it must be a liquid for better or worse. I am of the opinion that truth is a liquid that is more akin to crude oil. I can provide evidence for this. A competent authority I know recently said to me: “I have always wished I could tap people in order to extract the truth.” He said it just like that, word for word, which is why I believe him when he says that this experiment would succeed if the government would allow human vivisection for the sake of elevating the truth. This truth would then flow spontaneously from this borehole, proving again that truth is a liquid. So I asked myself, if there’s truth in people, why doesn’t it flow from the many holes that already exist, that don’t need to be drilled first. To begin with, there’s a legion of pores that don’t need to be drilled. But that’s the way it is with petroleum, which could also flow from many holes that already exist, from water mains or the canal for example, without actually doing so. No, petroleum and truth want someone to tap them. But an existing opening could occasionally give truth a course to follow, just as petroleum could flow by chance from a water main, for instance. The mouth, for example, could proclaim the truth. But what does the mouth do? It just gobbles and gobbles, and every once in a while, whenever it actually spews something, it is, in the main, precisely (or also imprecisely) in order to conceal the aforementioned truth. And what about the ears. Sure, at least they allow the truth that has been filled in to flow out again. After all, whenever you tell someone the truth, it generally goes in one ear and out the other. The eyes, however, skillfully skirt the truth, even where the truth is substantial and plainly visible.
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(142) ART Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Kunst” (18 January 1940).
Schwitters appears to have initially given this text the title Gestalt (Form) but crossed it out in the manuscript. In these fragmentary reflections, he opposes malen (to paint) to abmalen (to paint by copying or depicting a natural referent). He thereby aligns painting with the more general activities of gestalten (to shape or form) and Gestaltung (form-creation). Schwitters’s focus is on abstract, formative painting that has been released from the traditional imperative of art to represent (darstellen) something other than itself.
A word. A concept too. Everyone knows what it is; it is difficult to define. Everyone knows that there are different kinds of artistic expressions, different kinds of artworks. We speak of: Architecture Painting Sculpture Poetry Music. You could find many other kinds of artistic expression. Here I will only speak about painting. I take painting to be the creation of an artwork that is composed of colors, planes, lines, and a delimited plane. It is important that the plane is delimited, because an artwork can be only a self-contained unity. My intention is not to write on painting in an exhaustive manner, merely to offer a few suggestions on this topic. The painting of previous millennia depicted nature on the picture plane. This does not interest me in this text either. Abstract painting in the period after 1900 gave form to this plane. On this matter I wish to offer a few remarks. This is not to say that, in keeping with the Old Masters, you cannot depict and give form to the picture plane at the same time— that is, simultaneously present and re-present. Here, I will speak about painting only in the sense of presentation rather than representation. Music too can, in a certain sense, represent. In the teaching of harmony and counterpoint, music theory is not concerned with representation, but rather with the principles that govern musical form-creation. We speak of natural, melodic, and harmonic connection. This is where we find that this teaching is dependent on melody and harmony, on what the theoretician takes to be natural. New
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composers with new ideas continuously demonstrate how what was previously regarded as unnatural suddenly becomes natural. The intention here is to reflect on form-creation in painting in a similar way, that is, seen from my personal point of view, seen from the year 1940 and in a partial way. I ask that you think with me, that you correct me when I make mistakes, that you help me fill gaps, so that through our collaborative work, we can find a key that will aid the general public in understanding the abstract formative possibilities in painting.
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(143) MIXING OF ARTISTIC GENRES Unpublished shorthand manuscript, presumed lost (ca. 1940). The original manuscript was never deposited in the Schwitters Archive, Hannover; this translation is based on the published transcription in Friedhelm Lach, ed., Das literarische Werk (Cologne: DuMont), 5:371– 72.
The first sentence of Alfred Richter’s Elementary Knowledge of Music, an important book on musical pedagogy that most German musicians probably use when they begin to study music theory, reads: “Art affects us through the senses, music especially through the ear.”1 No one will deny the accuracy of this sentence. But if I add: “Painting especially through the eye,” many will dispute this, because even today, in 1940, there are few people who understand that painting has an exclusively optical effect. This can easily be proven when you inquire after the meaning of an abstract painting that represents nothing. Meaning?! The picture wants to mean something; it wants to be something other than what it is. The picture is a canvas or a wood panel that has been coated with paint and shows a young woman at her morning toilette in the forest, for example. You feel as if you can hear the little birds hopping about in the sunshine as they chirp and trill. All representation is unnecessary literary baggage. Representation is permissible where it is used together with the actual optical means of painting to compose; but then it is no longer pure painting. For representation is always literary. Even music is frequently representational, just less clearly so. You cannot tell what you are hearing through it, whether it is moonlight or roaring water. By contrast, when looking at the painting depicting the morning toilette by the river, the girl seen there can be so specific as to be recognizable were you to encounter her elsewhere. Of course music can dispense with representation, as can painting. Representation is also common for sculpture. These three artistic genres are generally considered literary, that is to say, painting and sculpture are predominantly literary, so literary that the general public cannot understand them when they occur in pure form. You could even claim that nonfunctional architecture is representational, that it seeks to pass, in a literary manner, for the age of the Greeks, for instance. There is only one genre the general audience believes should not be literary: literature. In your eyes I read the startled question: “How so?” Literature is in the habit of painting. Rather than focusing on its medium, the “word,” literature begins to arrange words according to their meaning until they appear to render an impression
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of nature. Of course, this can be done better with paint and a brush than with words, because it is less ambiguous. Now, I do not want to challenge this mixing of artistic genres. Here, all I want to do is discuss pure (abstract) painting. In this context, plane and color is just plane and color, a (rhythmic) composition of colors arranged within a consciously delimited plane.
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(144) THEORY IN PAINTING Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Theorie in der Malerei” (22 January 1940).
Theory is essentially a dry affair, and you will think it has absolutely nothing to do with art itself. Correct. You can also think of theory in music, and no one will deny that the great masters, such as Beethoven, knew theory. Of course, you cannot compose using theoretical knowledge alone, for composition, much like invention, is a talent that either you have or you don’t. Nevertheless, it is always useful to know the theory, even for someone with talent, since it spares him the trouble of going off in too many false directions and wasting too much time discovering rules that are already known. You can argue that these rules and thus the entire theory may not be appropriate for him. Correct. But it is a well-known fact that theory has been subject to continuous change and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Harmonies that were considered discordant in the Middle Ages sound very pleasing to our ears, and I am convinced that the augmented triad, which still sounds discordant to us today, will seem melodious in the not too distant future. This brings us to a very important matter. The augmented triad remains the same, but our ear becomes more refined and can draw distinctions with greater subtlety. Sounds that were considered beautiful in the Middle Ages seem too simple and banal today, while the continuously increased understanding of harmonious connections allows us to easily grasp things that the Middle Ages could not comprehend. So when theory permitted the use of the augmented triad only in exceptional cases for transitions, it was not wrong, but since then, it has been extended. In this way, much has become superfluous; other things have been added; the whole has changed. Accordingly, the rules in painting that this theory is trying to find may soon be superseded, or they may remain valid. However, you cannot begin right away at the end. Rather, you must proceed analytically. First you must slowly get to know the medium before you can talk about effect. Only the effect gives us cause to talk about general rules. Dry as this work may be, the initial goal is to acquire an elementary knowledge of the medium of painting, which tries to organize what is self-evident into a system.
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(145) PAINTING (PURE PAINTING) Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Malerei (reine Malerei)” (7 October 1940).
Schwitters was interned as an “enemy alien” in Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man from 17 July 1940 until 22 November 1941. The inmates ran an informal “artists café” in a basement laundry room, where they met and held soirées. They founded a kind of “university” that had a regular schedule of lectures. Schwitters prepared these unedited notes for this program, where he would have spoken to an audience of imprisoned artists, academics, journalists, and scientists (see also text 146 and text 147).
To paint is to fill a delimited shape with color. There is nothing else you could do to finish a painting. But how? First of all, you can choose any shape you like, and the color can have any origin, and the filling in can be sensible or senseless, depending on whether it fulfills a purpose or not. Perhaps it doesn’t even have a purpose. So something new is added: purpose. For simplicity’s sake, I will assume that the delimited shape is a rectangular plane. Everything inside this shape belongs to the picture; what is outside this shape does not. It does not matter that there is no actual plane, and even if there were a plane, that any applied color would effectively destroy this plane because of its physical substance. What matters for painting is the intention to remain within the given surface— in contrast to sculpture, for instance, which intentionally departs from the surface— and its task is to make it possible for the viewer to imagine himself inside this intended surface. In practical terms, you can use any colored material as color, but this does not always serve the purpose at hand. Let us assume that we are using tubes of paint, produced by a good factory and developed over decades as the most luminous colors possible, colors that do not influence each other chemically, that do not lose their luminosity, and that come as close to the colors of the rainbow as possible. For the primary colors of the rainbow include everything that we can see as color. Unfortunately we cannot paint with the actual colors of the rainbow. Now I would like to turn to the purpose of painting. Painting can illustrate something that poetic language describes. This is fundamentally wrong because you should not mix artistic genres. Literature can better express such things in words than painting can with color. You can also depict something, i.e., reproduce 456
any existing nature, a head or a landscape, with greater or lesser accuracy in color. Or you can distribute color on the canvas in such a way as to produce a rhythm that does not depict anything or that only partially depicts something. All depictions of nature translate nature into a material that is foreign to it, and therefore they are bound by the rules of these materials. To sum up once more: the type of painting I want to explain here involves filling a delimited, rectangular surface with color taken from tubes for the purpose of creating a depiction or a rhythm or a combination of depiction and rhythm. All the possibilities available to painting lie between pure depiction and pure rhythm and correspond to different styles: naturalism, impressionism, expressionism, abstraction. There is no value judgment to be made between the different kinds of styles, i.e., naturalism is no better or worse than impressionism, expressionism, or abstraction, and vice versa. Dadaism and surrealism should not to be considered pure painting, but a mixture of painting and literature, and are fundamentally distinct from history painting or propaganda painting, for instance. You cannot compare their value to pure painting, i.e., from a social standpoint, their value can be greater or lesser. Logically speaking, their artistic value must be less than that of pure painting, because neither design nor objects foreign to art are included in pure depiction. Because things that are ideal must be 100 percent, such inclusions diminish the possibilities open to pure painting. Whether the result is a work of art or not depends on the painter’s skills, of course. Some are artists; some are a burden on art. The purer and more exalted the goal of the artist, and the closer he gets to achieving this goal, and the more opportunities it has to be understood by an audience, especially an educated audience, the closer this artistic direction gets to its goal. So you see, creating a work of art is not at all easy, even if you have it in you. To attain the goal is a special blessing, and only a few artists in only a few works have completely achieved it. These greatest artworks of all time are simple, unsurpassable, and equal in value, just as all concepts of infinity are equal for our understanding. Apart from these cases, it is entirely possible to make value judgments about works of art and distinguish between good, passable, and unacceptably bad works of art in every artistic style. To think that someone could achieve something out of the ordinary simply because his artistic style expresses his affiliation to a specific worldview [Weltanschauung] is wrong. As important as any worldview and style may be for an age, what counts for the infinity and timelessness of art is the skill of the artist. Here I repeat: rectangular delimited surface, fill with color. And since the topic splits along these lines, I will consider the depiction of a natural object on the one hand and the form-creation of a rhythm on the other. This initially yields four different observations; hence, four chapters will follow this introduction.
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(146) [THE PORTRAIT] Unpublished shorthand manuscript (7 October 1940).
At Hutchinson Camp, the commanding officer, O. H. Daniel, arranged studio spaces for artists, and when Schwitters’s caught fire, he was granted permission to paint in a garden shed just outside the camp’s enclosure. There he made portraits and landscapes, while in another attic studio, he worked with refuse to create collages and sculptures verging on formless heaps of matter. Schwitters exhibited only his non-abstract paintings in the camp exhibitions, and he cultivated a healthy business painting the portraits of officers at Hutchinson and the neighboring camps. Klaus E. Hinrichsen (1912– 2004), a young art historian and fellow internee, recalled how the artist “had a long academic training and a businesslike approach: he painted well-known camp personalities on spec to attract commissions. His charges were fixed: £5 half figure with hands, £4 ditto without hands, £3 head and shoulders only. This mercenary approach was not shared by the other artists but enabled him— having arrived penniless— to live in comparative luxury.”1
The portrait is the artistic expression of a depicted individual, or The portrait is the artistic expression of a given nature in an artwork (put more broadly). 1. The nature to be depicted can be anything: flowers, animals, a landscape, a person, sounds (such as the roar of the ocean, the pealing of bells), the habits or customs of animals or people, spiritual powers, or abnormalities. 2. The artwork does not repeat nature, neither in a literal sense nor in appearance. Rather, it is a new unity that is independent of depicted nature. It can emphasize the characteristic traits of nature, and by doing so it is a portrait. But without losing its character as artwork, it can portray what is typical or freely interpret the nature to be depicted. 3. I call it the expression of nature— that is, nature is depicted with another material; it is expressed in another material. For instance, a picture plane covered in oil paints is the expression of a living human being made of flesh and blood. In the broadest sense, the material and the artist’s touch shape the expression. I repeat: The artwork is the artistic expression of a depicted object. Now we need to look at what the distinction between portraits in the different arts means.
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a) I will first discuss painting. I give form to color on the picture plane in order to express the painted portrait. This depends on the painterly appearance— that is, the appearance of the depicted individual as he or she is seen in the light, because you cannot see in the dark. You can feel sculptures, but you can only see paintings. Light initially separates the appearance of the object to be depicted into areas of light and shade. It colors illuminated areas more than shaded ones, and it produces the complementary effect for the beholder’s eye in shaded areas. This is because shadow receives less light, which influences the stronger light color. Highlights shape the illuminated areas, reflections shape the shadows. Both are the reflections of the surroundings. For example, the head of a person standing on a lawn in full sunlight that has a local color of pink will include yellow as an additional color in the light, and blue plus yellow equals green in the shade; in the highlights, blue will be the reflection of the sky; green will be the reflection of the lawn. Details are unimportant here. What is important is that you recognize that you cannot paint any object without also painting the environment and the light in which it stands. The painted portrait is therefore closely tied to its surroundings, which is why painters like to include surrounding objects in the background. b) The modeled portrait, the sculpted portrait, behaves differently. Not only can it be seen; it can also be felt. Here, reflections and highlights as well as the type of light are irrelevant. The sculpture is completely detached from its surroundings. It would seem to me to follow that the sculpted portrait can be far more general, far more typical than the painted portrait. You cannot simply translate a modeled portrait from a painted one, or vice versa. Because the modeled portrait is detached from its surroundings, it also allows for the choice of a material that appears completely different from nature. You can depict the same person in clay with a dark brown color or in wood with a light yellow color or in bronze with a greenish color or in tinted clay with a brick-red color or in marble with a speckled white color, and the beholder will always recognize it as the same person with their pink color. c) I don’t think it is possible to make an architectural portrait, but perhaps the discussion will inspire me. It seems debatable to me that you can depict anything other than architecture with architecture, because the artwork is essentially different from its motif. A lump of clay can depict Mr. Meier, for instance. d) I now turn to the literary portrait. When a person is the motif, a painting might underscore the illuminated appearance of the face, for instance, and in the process use correct placement and lighting to emphasize certain facial features that have been especially imprinted by his being, his habits. Sculpture would depict these same traits that express a person’s character directly as form. It would be utterly uninteresting were literature to do the same. If literature attempted to depict the external appearance of a person as it is seen by the eye, it would need to report for hours on end, telling us how many millimeters long and wide and deep the nose, the eye, the ear, etc. are or how the contour line indicates changes in direction, etc.
[The Portrait]
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You can talk about a nose alone for hours, and it would still be impossible to paint or sculpt it accordingly. But literature can speak directly to the character of a human being. It can establish that character by describing a specific person’s actions, or it can describe a few characteristic details of a person’s form and color that are the result of his very being. Were I to characterize the portrait of Ehrlich accurately, I would have to say: He is in the habit of raising the eyebrow over his right eye in conversation, which causes the folds on his forehead to form a circle around his eye. For the English doctor or marshal I would place particular emphasis on his habit of first turning his head to the left before speaking to someone, a habit that is the result of his being deaf in his left ear. Or you can create a portrait of someone in literature by repeating with greater frequency the statements that he habitually makes, such as: “You know what so and so says to this?” Anyway, you can see that it is impossible to translate a literary portrait into an optical one, or vice versa. e) On the possibilities of a musical portrait, I ask for your esteemed advice. So, to repeat: The portrait is the artistic expression of a depicted individual. Furthermore, you cannot translate a portrait from one art into another. Now I would ask you to stay on topic in the discussion and not digress. To this end, I have had notes circulated with the sentences I want to discuss. This is also why I didn’t speak freely. This way, when someone asks a question, I can read out exactly what I said in a specific case.
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(147) EUROPEAN ART OF THE 20TH CENTURY Unpublished shorthand manuscript, “Europäische Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts,” written during Schwitters’s internment on the Isle of Man (between 17 July 1940 and 22 November 1941).
The form of 20th century European art is highly diverse. It is the expression of the most recent developments of the family tree of art. I have expressly chosen to use the term “family tree.” As with any family tree, hereditary aspects determine the development of individual members, such as opposing traits that stem from deliberate decisions, from conviction. When you trace a family tree over centuries, you will always recognize evident similarities during a specific era between individuals in different countries or art movements, especially once this era has become historical and has thereby gained distance from the present. We think that tremendous chaos exists only in our own time, because we cannot yet make out the forces that shape it. European art is but a branch on the family tree of art, but one that is clearly different from the Japanese or Egyptian branches, for example. Development moves quickly, and changes can often happen faster in one year than in an entire century. Why are you surprised, given the quickening pace of development in all fields? Currently, there are two countries, Germany and Russia, where the state has exerted strong external influence on development, although it is not supposed to have anything to do with art. But even this is not a new phenomenon. After all, in the past the purchasing power of capital or the church influenced art. However, in those cases, nobody pruned the last shoots of the development, but rather cut them off from the water supply and let them slowly dry out instead. What, then, is the situation in the totalitarian states? In Germany as in Russia they say: “The tree of art in front of our window was smaller a few decades ago. We had a more beautiful view, and we loved this tree more, because the youngest shoots seemed more beautiful. All we need to do is cut off those shoots that have grown since then, and the family tree of art will be beautiful once again.” How great was their surprise, and the world’s, when nothing but bare twigs without buds, flowers, or leaves remained jutting into the air once those new shoots had been pruned. In the meantime, people were pleased with the beautiful vista, and, more importantly, they thought the overall shape of the tree had improved decidedly. I have seen how trees in nature, when cut back to a tenth of their original size, again grow beautiful and strong, with new twigs emerging the following spring. However, a large, naturally growing willow, for example, has then become a so-called 461
pollarded willow with a blockhead. What does the family tree of art in Germany and Russia look like now? You want me to say, freely and frankly, what I think: in principle, I see a similarity, possibly even an identity. These new individuals on the family tree of art were born of the marriage between two principles. In both cases, academic, naturalistic art is the father, and propaganda is the mother. So you see, they cannot be 100 percent art. Apart from beautiful flowers and fruit, the family tree of art also has some runts [Quadderbälge]. I don’t know if you are familiar with this word from my hometown of Hannover, but it is not 100 percent— it is propaganda art, not pure art. Pure art— I am thinking of work by such artists as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Leibl, Hans Arp, etc., etc.1 — exists 100 percent for the pure, unbridled joy of people, without any intention of changing them. It is directed specifically to the senses of the people, and it can provide them indescribable pleasure if . . . they are receptive to it. Propaganda art addresses reason by way of people’s sense perception. Reason cannot feel; it can only think, and this is the rationale behind propaganda art. The goal here is not so much to satisfy the senses as to influence the beholder of propaganda art in keeping with the way national propaganda is already influencing him: in an extremely ethno-nationalist [völkisch] manner in Germany, in a communist manner in Russia. In both countries, the manner of painting is similar, even identical. Nevertheless, a Russian worker would not understand a Nazi picture just as a worker influenced by Nazism would not understand a Russian picture. This is because they are missing the additional influence of propaganda aimed in the same [ideological] direction. Propaganda art is no more than an element within an entire propaganda system, and we can assume that once it has achieved the goal of its influence it will become meaningless as artistic expression and disappear. Pure art, to its own detriment, is no more than a handmaiden at the beck and call of propaganda. This is not to say that art cannot emerge once again in these countries at a later time if, for some reason, propaganda is no longer deemed necessary. I now want to look at what happened. Art has been leveled. The most recent stages of development have been ruthlessly cut off, and new, uniform twigs have been allowed to grow on the stumps. These bear only a fleeting resemblance to the twigs that grew there before. The new shoots are not pure art; perhaps half of them are propaganda. The same propaganda already influences the intended audience, which means they quickly feel at home and only rarely criticize the form. In any case, the form is not difficult for them to understand. And so, everything is hunkydory, except that this is not art nor does it prove that the people [das Volk] are able to understand such leveled art with greater ease than art that is developing freely. After all, in authoritarian countries the public has also been reduced to the lowest common denominator. Moreover, the component of pure art is of little consequence in propaganda art. But what about England? The same methods would lead to an entirely different result there. In England, the public has not been leveled, and propaganda in art
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would always affect only a few small groups. The public would pay greater attention to the form than to the content of art. And thus art would more closely follow English traditions that dictate what is beautiful, especially water colors.2 I now need to consider what an audience recognizes and considers to be beautiful in works of art. This is a purely human matter, not a social one. No audience reacts uniformly. All we can do is outline how similar individuals might possibly react. We need to bear in mind that individual people of a given time and cultural background are not that different as human beings, despite all their social differences. Generally speaking, an impartial observer will hold a purely naturalistic reproduction in greater esteem the closer it comes to nature. The adolescent boy idolizes the Panoptikum, which has criminals and sovereign princes reproduced in wax and colored naturalistically, with real actual hair, glass eyes, real spectacles on their noses, and real [illegible word ] and ladies wearing perfume and lipstick.3 At a later stage of his development, he is able to understand naturalistically painted reproductions. Of course, it is the local colors that need to be painted, not the colors of illumination nor the tonal modulations resulting from air and humidity, nor even the painter’s complementary impressions or changes made to facial features for specific artistic reasons. These things require the receptivity of a more developed viewer. And it is quite clear that he cannot understand any of this before he has acquired the necessary receptivity. Unfortunately, everybody thinks that they are fully developed in their current state, and because they cannot recognize the new values of the intensely painted picture, all they can see are the apparent imperfections, the fact that skin is not painted with proper flesh tones, for instance. You see, you cannot take a group of people, such as a nation [ein Volk], and level them to the same artistic understanding. Where one person is satisfied with a given level of artistic development and is scared of any higher form of art that he cannot comprehend, another will be disgusted by a lower form of art whose mistakes he easily perceives and who, instead, prefers a higher one. Every artwork addresses only a specific group of people, and the quality of an artwork cannot be based on whether it addresses the greatest possible number of people; the criteria must be that it addresses the greatest number of educated people. But speaking practically, the education of the large majority is middling to poor. Hence, mediocre and academic pictures suit large-scale major exhibitions. And here in England such art is all right,4 just as it is in Russia or Germany. The institutions that cultivate the dominant art take this into consideration. But the highest developments remain for those with more education, to ensure that they too have some pleasure. Nor should we forget how large an influence avant-garde pictures indirectly exert on people who cannot understand them. Let’s describe these as experimental works— after all, the name is not what matters. Just because Hitler described certain pictures as degenerate it does not make them any less good; this description is appropriate here only because it returns a sense of selfconfidence to the beholder. He knows he doesn’t really need to understand these
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pictures, and yet he can still consider himself an educated person. Let’s confine them to small exhibitions and give them an experimental value for a small circle of people. Finally, we need to consider the latest shoots of this development, Dadaism and surrealism. Shouldn’t we prune these twigs after all? I say: “No.” After all, they are significant within their own sphere of influence— perhaps they are still; perhaps they used to be. Dadaism was a revolutionary art. What was revolutionary was its épater le bourgeois. But it also served as a mediator for pure art. To a degree this was politics, but it was especially artistic politics. The most sanctified beliefs of the respectable citizen were deliberately affronted, since such hallowed sentiments were of course absolute drivel. The intention was to convince him to give up his sentiments by making them seem laughable. And I am convinced that Dadaism achieved much that was good in the epoch after the last war, for both politics and artistic politics, insofar as it opened the path for the new that was good. This gave rise to altruism. Because Dadaism confronted the vacuity found in art, it had to function on a poetic level in order to be understood correctly by the correct audience, i.e., it frequently required the means of pure art: composition in color, form, line, light and dark. And then a strange thing happened: the means previously employed by the vacuous aspects of art now obtained their own direct artistic expression. Now for surrealism. We cannot condemn it lock, stock, and barrel. It famously developed from Dadaism, but without its combative aims. Accordingly, it also lacks Dadaism’s sense of responsibility. It was not rigorous in its choice of artistic means, and without a target to attack, it became nonsense for the sake of nonsense. Pure surrealism is unformed nonsense. Thank God it isn’t pure everywhere. When, at the outset of surrealism, my good Dadaist friend Hans Arp asked me to accompany him to a meeting of surrealists in Paris to join Breton and the surrealists, I went along, but I didn’t join. I said I first wanted to explain what I considered surrealism to be. I said that you can find wire baskets in Paris that are used to wash vegetables. Superficially, these look like a goldfish bowl, aside from the fact that they are not made of glass nor are they watertight. A real goldfish could not live inside them. But there are also celluloid goldfish that could live without air because they do not really live. I then explained that to make a so-called [object], I would tie one of these celluloid goldfish horizontally inside one of those vegetable baskets and call the whole thing “Birds among Birds.” Roaring applause greeted this suggestion, but I did not join the surrealists. And the development of surrealism has borne out my suspicions. Surrealism is unformed nonsense, [utterly] extravagant colors, which any theory of artistic harmony would deem unnatural. This branch of the development should really be cut off, not least because abstraction, constructivism, and other new developmental branches could be misunderstood after surrealism. To the European eye most Japanese people look the same, but the trained viewer of art can learn to make distinctions. So we can let surrealism live in peace, because it too has beautiful flowers, and who knows, one
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day it may even father a more beautiful flower. The imagination alone with which it joins things that do not really belong together is an artistic factor, and the muchmaligned Dalí made an unforgettable painting, one of the most beautiful in all art history. The painting shows clocks that have become soft, perhaps because of a heat wave or perhaps because they were washed in hot water.5 These are now being dried and hang limply over objects, like cloth hanging over a ledge. This is divine and unsurpassable humor. You can equate this painting with Kleist’s The Broken Jug or Molière’s comedies. And so you see, art once again enters surrealism from another side and whose morals I have just explained. All you need is a sense of humor. Just think of a surrealist like Tanguy, who has achieved the most beautiful and pleasant colors in his imaginative compositions.6 Do not cut away at the tree of art; allow things to develop, and try, through assiduous study, to understand what you do not yet understand.
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(148) [STATEMENT DECLINING MEMBERSHIP IN THE FREIER DEUTSCHER KULTURBUND] Unpublished shorthand manuscript (after November 1941).
In December 1938 a group of German and Austrian émigrés met at the London home of the painter Fred Uhlman (1901– 85) and pledged to establish the antifascist Free German League of Culture (Freier Deutscher Kulturbund, FDKB). Uhlman had been interned with Schwitters at Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man, and Schwitters had painted his portrait. The FDKB officially convened on 1 March 1939 with four honorary presidents, Alfred Kerr, Berthold Viertel, Stefan Zweig, and Oskar Kokoschka. Its members were dedicated to the following goals: To preserve and advance Free German Culture; To further the mutual understanding between the refugees and the British people; 3 To emphasize and strengthen the solidarity of refugees with all democratic, freedom-loving, progressive forces; 4 To look after the social interests of the refugees; 5 To cultivate and to develop relations with other friendly organizations and personalities.1 1
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The FDKB was organized into five sections (dedicated to art, literature, music, theater, and scholarship) and eventually grew to sixteen chapters across Great Britain. Although the FDKB was established as a party-neutral organization, a strong faction within the artists’ section consisted of committed communists, most prominently John Heartfield and Heinz Worner. Prior to its dissolution in 1946, it generated important opportunities for exiled artists to exhibit their work and received substantial support from British intellectuals, artists, and associations.
You have sent me an invitation to join the Deutsche Kulturbund. There was no specific reason why I stayed out of it; I merely had a feeling it wasn’t really right for me to join. After I read Kokoschka’s article it became absolutely clear to me that my work is not typically German.2 I am German— that is, I was born in Germany. My work proves that I have moved further and further away from a German standpoint 466
to a more general one. I make my pictures [and sculpture] and poems for everyone who can see and feel, regardless of whether they are German, Russian, or Japanese. You do not need to be German to be particularly open to understanding them. Of course, in terms of my role models or schooling, my entire education is German, but in my work, in my art, I try to be as universal as possible. My artworks are not part of a typically German cultural sphere. This is why I am now completely sure that, despite being interested in the Deutsche Kulturbund as a native German, I do not need to join this alliance now that I am a refugee in England. Please don’t be upset with me, but now that I feel settled in England, I am far more interested in understanding English sentiment and English character than the German one, which I have known since birth.
[Statement declining membership in the Freier Deutscher Kulturbund]
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(149) ABSTRACT ART Unpublished typescript; original in English (after November 1941). Schwitters included the heading, “from MERZ 25” above the title on this typescript, suggesting he intended it for a possible issue of his Merz series. This issue was never realized, and the last installment remained Merz 24. Ursonate, published in Germany in 1932. Every attempt has been made to preserve an émigré voice with a tentative command of English. Minor changes to punctuation, capitalization, and spelling have been made for clarity.
Abstract art is a way, it is one way expressing one’s feelings. As any other art. It is not an aim, because there don’t exist final aims. Every aim of the future is only on the way to the next aim. In 1917 I invented a new manner of painting abstract pictures, and of doing abstract art at all, sculptures, poems and so on. I called this new manner MERZ. A MERZ-picture starts with the material, every possible material for painting, and uses it as paint. The MERZ-picture sticks its material together after the rhythm of a compositional scheme and does not bother about the fact that parts of its materials to begin with had been done for quite another purpose. A bus ticket has been printed for controlling the passenger, the MERZ-picture uses it only as colour. You must not read it on the picture. The 3 for example is only a line consisting of two bows.1 If necessary this 3 may be painted partly over, or there may be put another thing above a part of it. Deciding for the composition is the rhythm. The picture is finished when you can’t take away or put on it anything without disturbing the present rhythm. Of course such a composition does not represent anything outside itself. Therefore the title does not mean much. You may call it “Christoffer” or “London” or “3,” it is only a name. The name may fit more or less to the rhythm. One material gives a certain movement, another may assist or fight it, and the composition collects all single movements to a rhythm. Perhaps one can feel the rhythm of London and give in an abstract picture a similar rhythm. MERZ-pictures, sculptures, or poems give a rhythm. There is the possibility for every spectator to find in them a guide for his thinking or feeling. But there is no difference from the kind of guiding in an abstract picture or a sonata of Beethoven, except that more people are used to read[ing] the sonata. But when a hundred men hear the same sonata, they hear it in a hundred different ways.
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(150) MATERIAL AND AIMS Unpublished manuscript; original in English (after November 1941).
As people ask me very often about the materials I use to take for my art and about the aims, I put here some of my materials to look at. Principally, there is no material excluded to be used for doing artworks, but I exclude all materials which don’t keep and prefer those mat[erials] which lead me easily to my aim. I use very often–––––– for Exhibition
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(151) [KURT SCHWITTERS] Unpublished manuscript; original in English (after November 1941).
Kurt Schwitters the famous international artist, painter, sculptor, poet, lives at the moment in England. He was the first real abstract painter in the world and invented the well known Merz-pictures. As well he is well known as a clever portrait painter and offers to anybody his services. Take the opportunity of his short stay in England to have your portrait done by him. I suggest it as a duty of people loving art to supply artist of the avantgarde as it is Kurt Schwitters . . .
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(152) THE ORIGIN OF MERZ Unpublished manuscript, “Der Ursprung von Merz” (after November 1941). This manuscript exists in two versions: one written in ink and another written in pencil with ink corrections. Between the two versions, Schwitters adjusted the wording but not the substantive content or presentation. The corrected penciled version is unfinished and may have been the earlier draft; the clean ink version may have had a final page, but it has not survived. This translation is based on the penciled version, which preserves more lines from the intended ending of the text.
Schwitters recounts the creation of his first assemblage, Merzpicture 1 A (The Alienist), 1919 (CR 425), a portrait of Karl Aloys Schenzinger (see text 46).
I had what one calls a friend. He was a doctor. His name was Schenzinger. I was supposed to paint his portrait. Now, he was always very busy, always working. And so he wanted to play on my piano while he sat for the portrait. He said that if he moved around a bit, I would be able to capture his character better. A beer mat lay next to me. So I worked fervently to discern his character from his movements and to have it crystallize in the image. He played the Moonlight Sonata, the closing phrase. A beer mat lay next to me. I thought, “Everything can be characteristic of everything else, so long as it is characteristic. This is all that matters. If it isn’t characteristic, you are out of luck.” And I tried to discover if his, that is, Schenzinger’s, movements were characteristic of the Moonlight Sonata. A beer mat lay next to me. Such a beer mat is characteristic, for instance, of a beer glass with beer and of a beer drinker, but not Dr. Justus Bier, the Riemen Schneider.1 And the circular shape . . . Suddenly I had a brilliant idea, at least a slightly brilliant idea, in any case, an idea. I stood up, covered the back of the beer mat with red paint instead of glue, and, while Schenzinger continued playing the Moonlight Sonata, I glued the beer mat with oil paint to the cheek of the profile I had already painted. It extended from ear 471
to nose, if you can speak of an ear and a nose when talking about oil paintings. Mr. Schenzinger suddenly stood up. The Moonlight Sonata broke off. Suddenly Dr. Schenzinger asked: “What have you done?” “What have I done?” I answered, my voice trembling. “What I have done, I have done,” I said with determination. “You stuck a beer mat to my cheek!” said Dr. Schenzinger, furious. “Not at all, I stuck the beer mat to the cheek of the painting, insofar as paintings can be said to have cheeks— of the painting that is supposed to characterize you,” I uttered with difficulty. “Take it off,” ordered Dr. Schenzinger. “I am delighted it is on there!” “Take the beer mat off!” “I won’t!” “Then I’ll remove it!” “You won’t. You would destroy the unity of the artwork.” “The beer mat is an insult to me!” “The beer mat characterizes you somehow.” “How can that beer mat characterize me?” “I cannot say how, but it does. I feel it.” “Because it’s round?” “And matty. Perhaps.” “And made of carton?” “Because you aren’t made of carton.” Then he attempted a ruse and said: “Does it also express the Moonlight Sonata?” “The Moonlight Sonata?— The Moonlight Sonata by Dr. Mondschein?” By the way, I know Dr. Mondschein; he was originally a dentist and works according to the motto: “Mondschein— Schont Mein.”2 “He may have written it originally; it’s possible. However, it was Mr. Beethoven who gave it the brilliant tip. So where do you stand on the question of the beer mat expressing Mr. Beethoven?” “My dear sir,” I said, “do you believe that you yourself express Beethoven? And the picture is supposed to be a portrait of your essential nature.” With this, Dr. Schenzinger left, closing the door behind him. From then on, we were no longer friends, especially once I exhibited the painting “Portrait of Dr. Schenzinger” with the beer mat on its picture-cheek. At the time I was painting Mrs. Luise Spengemann’s portrait, it was the beginning of 1919. Here I attempted a composition using the small objects lying around the room, and I attempted to characterize her essential nature with them. The selection and distribution of the color values would ground the character. And it worked exceedingly well. Luise Spengemann said: “That is me; it could be no one else but me.”
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Now I began to reflect on my experiences. I had tried to characterize Dr. Schenzinger using a single beer mat in connection with a copy of his facial features. The upshot of this was that what I found to be characteristic of Schenzinger was an insult to him. With Mrs. Luise Spengemann, I had set out to create a composition of all parts of the picture and did not only attach an object that was, effectively, foreign to it. And for her, too, Mrs. Spengemann, this picture captured her essential nature, her character. What was essential was the composition. I now began to make compositions using objects that could be called trash because they had been thrown away, and I quickly discovered that the composition contained a convincing, utterly general expression. It may be an exaggeration to say that Mrs. Luise Spengemann wanted to recognize herself in the composition, and it was perhaps, indeed quite certainly, wrong to try and use a composition to characterize her. Compositions can convey only quite general expressions, an expression that may perhaps be similar to a human being, much like a cloud can resemble a lion. But then, a cloud is only fog. However, for sensitive people, a composition can convey an expression, and a composition made up of color values can convey an expression in painting just as well as a composition made up of sounds can in music. Beethoven takes it even further. In addition to the expression, he quite clearly gives the impression of a thunderstorm. I think, forest [manuscript ends]
The Origin of Merz
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(153) [KURT SCHWITTERS] Unpublished typescript; original in English (after November 1941). Minor changes to punctuation, capitalization, and spelling have been made for clarity.
Kurt Schwitters born 20.6.87 in Hannover studied portrait-painting in Dresden, well known as a portrait painter, also in England where he painted quite a lot of portraits, is well known all over the world as one of the first leading Dadaists. In 1917 he started his special Dadaistic art, which he called MERZ. Now you find MERZ paintings and sculptures in every modern museum. He used rubbish as a material for abstract works of art. Not the material is important, but the composition, colours, light, lines. As a poet, member of the PEN club. His sonata in sounds, the only one of its kind, a sonata for speaking. His chief poem “Anna Blume”: Eve Blossom has wheels. The principal sentence in this poem: “You are from the back as from the front: E— V— E.” Brilliant Dadaistic artist, forms art by all means; sounds as well as sense in poetry, every coloured material in his pictures. He does not care for that any material has been formed before for quite another purpose, as long as it gets part of the composition of his work. He destructs the material by constructing with it a new composition. He lived since 1929 in Norway, fled to England when the Germans invaded Norway, and lives since three years in England, since 41 in London, where he specially painted portraits, and went on with his Dadaistic pictures.
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(154) [RENAISSANCE] Unpublished manuscript written on the back of a post office telegram dated 30 October 1945.
Renaissance | Rembrandt | Futuriste | Cubists | Malevich Lissitzky— Gabo | Kandinsky | Mondrian— Doesburg— Van der Lek [sic] | Merz/Schwitters1
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(155) [ANSWERS TO A QUESTIONNAIRE FOR LA SAVOIR VIVRE ] Published in La savoir vivre (Brussels: Le Miroir Infidèle, 1946), n.p. Translated from French by Eva Morawietz.
Published by the surrealists in Belgium under the leadership of Paul Nougé (1895– 1967), this book assembled responses from sixty-three artists and poets to the following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4.
What are the things you hate the most? What are the things you like the most? What are the things you want the most? What are the things you fear the most?
Kurt Schwitters (Merz) 1. Stupidity that thinks it is clever. 2. Playing with things until they form a work of art. 3. That people understand intellectual movements so that at least they can learn to understand each other better. 4. Actually, I do not fear anything. When something terrifying happens, I try to make the best of it, just as the British always do. And really, there is always a way out of trouble.
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(156) KEY FOR READING SOUND POEMS Unpublished manuscript in English included in a letter to Raoul Hausmann (20 September 1946). Minor changes to punctuation, formatting, and spelling have been made for clarity. Schwitters refers to vowels as vocals, a false translation of the German Vokal, which has been consistently corrected here. Published as “Key to Reading Sound Poems,” PIN and the Story of PIN, ed. Jasia Reichardt (London: Gaberbocchus, 1962), 52.
Schwitters offered a “key for reading letter poems in their form as sound poems” in a letter to Hausmann as the friends were preparing a multilingual collection of their poems. This publication, PIN, was, in the end, never realized. In this letter, Schwitters informed Hausmann that the Belgian surrealist and director of the London Gallery E. L. T. Mesens (1903–71), might be interested in producing this booklet. He discussed details about graphics and texts to include, as well as two versions of his reworking of Hausmann’s letter poem “Alptraum” (Nightmare), which would allow someone to read it aloud. Schwitters argued for the inclusion of such a key for reading as follows: “Letter poems can be read in different ways. After someone’s taste. I do sound poems, and the key gives the manner how I would read them and as anybody could read them. You do letter poems and must translate them in the key, [so] that anybody could read them. Of course, it may be read quite different[ly]. The translation gives only one key of reading it.” He stressed that this key “was thought through very thoroughly for my kind of speaking,” but that Hausmann should adjust it to his own voice as needed, with the intention to make their sound and letter poetry accessible to anyone: “I think this key for reading should make the booklet valuable. And we can show something to the Lettristes. I have the impression that your poems are indeed letter poems. On the contrary, my poems are sound poems. It would be interesting to write your poems as letter poems and give a translation with the single poem to sounds. But do not take such signs as in the books for learning a foreign language. There must also be something to do for the speaker. . . . We have a big advantage, when we make sound poems with a key readable for everyone. Otherwise it is almost like a bluff from Dada-time. It is readable. And for everyone.”
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As the English language is very difficult for exact sounds, I choose the simpler sounds of the German language. A e i o u are simple sounds, not ou, or ju, as o and u in English. And I go back to simple consonants. If consonants may be expressed by two others, I don’t use them. For example, instead of z in German sounds, I say ts. If two vowels are written, that means a longer sound than one. If two vowels shall be spoken as two, I separate them: aa is a long a; a a are two a. Consonants are without sound. Shall they be with sound, the vowel of the sound is to be written: b be bö bee. If vowels [sic: consonants] as b p d t g h follow one another, they are to be spoken singly: bbb as three single b. If some f h l j m n r s w ch sch (sh) follow one another, they are not to be spoken as [a series of ] some single [letter], but as one long consonant. c q v x y z are not used. w is not double u as in English, but like the English v. Big letters are like small, they only mark a better separation. The English vowels a, i are printed ä, ei, the French u = ü, the Norwegian ø = ö.
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(157) MY ART AND MY LIFE Unpublished manuscript; original in English (ca. 1946– 47). Minor changes to capitalization and spelling have been made for clarity.
When I was born, 20.6.87, I was influenced by Picasso to cry.When I could walk and speak, I still stood under Picasso’s influence and said to my mother: “[ Jenny (?)]” or “[Happening (?)]” meaning the entrances of the canal under the street. My lyrical time was when I lived in the Violet Street.1 I never saw a violet. That was my influence by Matisse because when he painted rose I did not paint violet. As a boy of 10 I stood under Mondrian’s influence and built little houses with little bricks. Afterwards I stood under the influence of the surrealists, because when they painted natural things with their phantasy, I refused to tear out the wings of the flies for throwing them in the air. I never stood under [the] influence of the Dadaism because whereas the Dadaist[s] created Spiegeldadaismus2 on the Zurich Lake, I created MERZ on the Leine river, under the influence of Rembrandt. Time went on, and when Hans Arp made concrete art, I stayed abstract. Now I do concrete art, and Marcel Duchamp went over to the Surrealist[s]. I became an admirer of [de] Chirico, when Chirico went to the Classics, and at all I have much fun about art. Life and history of art is as simple as the human spirit, for example philosophy. I think I shall create now the Phyism, or the Ptolism because Sophism does already exist. I have to combine it, and call it Philphoism. The Philphoism goes out from the anatomy of the Spirit, without being Spiritism. One needs a medium. The best is, one is his own medium. But don’t be serious, because seriousness belongs to a passed time. This medium, called you yourself will tell you to take absolutely the wrong material. That is very good, because only the wrong material used in the wrong way, will give the right picture, when you look at it from the right angle. Or the wrong angle. That leads us to the new ism: Anglism. The first art starting from England, except the former shapes of art. That is my confession I have to make. MERZ
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our collaborative work on this book was a labor of love. That it was not also a fool’s errand is a credit to Isabel Schulz, who made every resource of the Schwitters Foundation available to us; Gwendolen Webster, who read drafts of our earliest translations and renewed our faith in them; and our editor, Susan Bielstein, whose enthusiasm for this project was immediate and never wavered. We thank the translators John Batki (Hungarian), Kamila Kuc (Polish), Eva Morawietz (French), and Michael White (Dutch) for their generosity and patience; Markus Gasser and Andrew Shields for their help cracking some intractable German wordplay; David Olsen and Jenni Fry for expertly ushering this complex project through production; Kathleen Kageff for her peerless editing; and two anonymous readers for their sensitive review of the entire manuscript. We could not have completed it without the resources of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Potsdamer Straße, and the generous support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
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NOTES An Introduction to Merz-Thought 1 Texts in this volume are referenced by their number in the table of contents. For details about Schwitters’s biography, see Ernst Nündel, Kurt Schwitters in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumentation (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1981); and Gwendolen Webster, Kurt Merz Schwitters: A Biographical Study (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997). For major surveys of his career in English, see Werner Schmalenbach, Kurt Schwitters (New York: Abrams, 1970); John Elderfield, Kurt Schwitters (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985); and Roger Cardinal and Gwendolen Webster, Kurt Schwitters (Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2011). For a valuable discussion of Schwitters’s art theory and poetry, see Patrizia McBride, “The Game of Meaning: Collage, Montage and Parody in Kurt Schwitters’s Merz,” Modernism/Modernity 14, no. 2 (April 2007): 249– 72. 2 Schwitters included this epithet when he signed his name in the guestbook of his friend and collaborator Käte Steinitz; entry for 19 January 1925 reproduced in The Guestbook of Kate T. Steinitz, ed. Werner Krüger (Cologne: Galerie Gmurzynska, 1977), n.p. 3 For translations of poems and narrative fiction, see Kurt Schwitters, pppppp: Poems, Performances, Pieces, Proses, Plays, Poetics, ed. and trans. Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris (Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2002); Kurt Schwitters, Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales, ed. and trans. Jack Zipes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009); Kurt Schwitters, Three Stories, ed. Jasia Reichardt (London: Tate, 2010). 4 Richard Huelsenbeck, Memoirs of a Dada Drummer, ed. Hans J. Kleinschmidt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 146; Elderfield, Kurt Schwitters, 30. 5 For a recent study in English of the Galerie Der Strum and Walden’s enterprise, see Jenny Anger, Four Metaphors of Modernism: From Der Sturm to the Société Anonyme (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018). 6 On the relationship between Schwitters’s “self-ironic (and self-referential)” programmatic statements and the avant-garde manifesto form, see Walter Fähnders, “‘Ich fordere sofortige Beseitigung aller Übelstände’: Kurt Schwitters und der avantgardistische Manifestantismus,” in Transgression und Intermedialität: Die Texte von Kurt Schwitters, ed. Walter Delabar, Ursula Kocher, and Isabel Schulz (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2016), 33– 47; 46. 7 In an effort to activate the passive constructions that Schwitters uses in his discussions of “expression,” the previous translation of this text by Ralph Manheim obscured this crucial point. Compare, for example, the earlier rendition, “Expression can be given only to a particular structure; it cannot be translated,” to the translation offered here, “Expression can be achieved only through a particular configuration; it is not something that can be translated.” For Manheim’s translation, see “Merz (1920),” in The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, ed. Robert Motherwell (New York: Wittenborn, Schultz, 1951; rev. ed. 1989), 57– 65; 59. 8 On this tour, see Michael White, “Introduction: The Dada Tour of Holland,” in Theo van Doesburg, What Is Dada??? and Other Dada Writings, trans. Michael White (London: Atlas, 2006), 7– 26.
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9 In his excellent appraisal of the significance of the Ursonate, both for the history of sound poetry and for contemporary praxis, the poet Helmut Heißenbüttel astutely argued that its “reconciliation of language and music, of semantics and phonetics is simultaneously a parody of both.” Versuch über die Lautsonate von Kurt Schwitters, Abhandlungen der Klasse der Literatur 6 (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1983), 11. 10 We find a closely related account of rhythm and the genesis of form in the philosophy of art in the writings of Henri Maldiney; see, for example, “L’esthétique de rythmes” (1967), in Regard Parole Espace (Lausanne: Editions L’Age d’homme, 1994), 147– 72. On this text and its influence, see Claudia Blümle, “Rhythm and Chaos in Painting: Deleuze’s Formal Analysis, Art History, and Aesthetics after Henri Maldiney,” in Art History after Deleuze and Guattari, ed. Sjoerd van Tuinen and Stephen Zepke (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2017), 69– 90. 11 Paul Klee, introduction to the manuscript of his “Bildnerische Gestaltunglehre,” accessed 1 January 2020, http://www.kleegestaltungslehre.zpk.org/ee/ZPK/BG/2012/01/01 /004/. See also the translation by Ralph Manheim of the heavily edited publication of these notes in Paul Klee, Notebooks, vol. 1, The Thinking Eye, ed. Jürg Spiller (London: Lund Humphries, 1961), 17. 12 For a recent treatment of Schwitters’s connections to the Bauhaus, see Isabel Schulz, “‘Märchen unserer Zeit’: Kurt Schwitters als Vortragskünstler am Bauhaus,” in Bauhausvorträge: Gastredner am Weimarer Bauhaus 1919– 1925, ed. Peter Bernhard (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 2017), 299– 306. 13 The definition of “nature” from the Kleiner Brockhaus published on the cover of Merz 8/9. Nasci (April– July 1924), a joint project of Schwitters and Lissitzky. See Nancy Perloff, “Two Visions of the Universal: The Collaboration of Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitzky,” in Dada Cologne Hanover, ed. Charlotte Stokes and Stephen C. Foster (New York: G. K. Hall, 1997), 174– 92. 14 In 1924 the title of this journal changed to G: Zeitschrift für elementare Gestaltung (G: Journal for Elemental Form-Creation). We consistently translate Gestaltung (and its derivatives) as “form-creation” for texts after 1922 in keeping with the English translation, G: An Avant-Garde Journal of Art, Architecture, Design, and Film 1923– 1926, ed. Detlef Mertins and Michael W. Jennings (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2010). However, even in those cases where “design” is the more apposite translation, it should still be read in the sense of “form-creation” discussed here. 15 Carola Giedion-Welcker was the first to recognize Schwitters as the true heir of “romantic irony” in an article she published for his sixtieth birthday, “Konstruktive Metamorphose des Chaos” [Constructive metamorphosis of chaos], Die Weltwoche 15, no. 718 (15 August 1947): 5. She located this legacy in theatrical performance, which critically deployed irony against bourgeois “common sense.” For Giedion-Welcker, Schwitters pursued the delusions of the socially and economically precarious white-collar working class in the material traces of its unconscious— in its hackneyed patterns of expression and in its mounting rubbish, which became invisible the moment it was thrown away. An expanded English translation of this important essay was published shortly after his death as “Schwitters: Or the Allusions of the Imagination,” Magazine of Art 41, no. 6 (October 1948): 218– 21. 16 Petra Kunzelmann includes in this count texts that Schwitters did not give the “Tran” label, but that were clearly written in the same spirit of “anti-criticism.” Twenty-three of these texts have been translated here. Her meticulous scholarship has been invaluable for our reconstruction and presentation of their critical context; see Kunzelmann, “‘. . . ich fordere die
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abstrakte Verwendung der Kritiker’: Kurt Schwitters und die Kunstkritik,” PhD diss. (FriedrichAlexander-Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2010). 17 First published in Der Sturm 10, no. 5 (August 1919): 72; included with minor typographic variations in Kurt Schwitters, Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann, 1919), 5. Paul Steegemann issued a dossier of critical reactions to this book in “Das enthüllte Geheimnis der Anna Blume” [The secret of Anna Blume, revealed] Der Marstall 1/2 (1920): 11– 31. The first edition consisted of ten thousand copies. 18 Nineteen of the texts included in this volume appeared in English translations published after Schwitters’s lifetime. In addition to translations by Rothenberg and Joris in Schwitters, pppppp, and by Manheim in Motherwell, Dada Painters and Poets, see Henning Rischbieter, ed., Art and the State in the 20th Century: Painters and Sculptors Work for the Theater (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1968); Krystyna Rubinger, ed., Kurt Schwitters: Ausstellung Oktober– Dezember 1978 (Cologne: Gallery Gmurzynska, 1978); Mel Gordon, ed., Dada Performance (New York: PAJ, 1987); Design Issues 9, no. 2 (Autumn 1993); RoseCarol Washton Long, ed., German Expressionism: Documents from the End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Siegfried Gohr and Gunda Luyken, eds., Kurt Schwitters: I Is Style (Rotterdam: NAi, 2000); Dawn Ades, ed., The Dada Reader: A Critical Anthology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); and Mertins and Jennings, G: An Avant-Garde Journal of Art, Architecture, Design, and Film. Additional translations (in full or part) can be found in art historical monographs and dissertations in English. 19 Among Lach’s many publications on Schwitters, see Der Merz Künstler Kurt Schwitters (Cologne: DuMont, 1971). 20 Kurt Schwitters, Das literarische Werke, ed. Friedhelm Lach (Cologne: DuMont), vol. 1, Lyrik (1973); vol. 2, Prosa, 1918– 1930 (1974); vol. 3, Prosa, 1931– 1948 (1975); vol. 4, Schauspiele und Szenen (1977); and vol. 5, Manifeste und kritische Prosa (1981). In addition, Lach edited the facsimile edition of Schwitters’s Merz and Aposs publications: Kurt Schwitters, Merzhefte als Faksimilie-Nachdruck, ed. Friedhelm Lach (Bern: H. Lang, 1975). 21 We have therefore chosen not to attempt translations of “Tran 25,” Der Sturm (June 1922), “Tran 27,” Die Blume Anna: Die neue Anna Blume (1922), and “plastische schreibung,” Documents internationaux de l’Esprit Nouveau (1927), which appear in Schwitters, Das literarische Werk, 5:180– 14, 117, and 269– 70. 22 These holdings, as well as Schwitters’s photograph albums, address books, glass slide collection, and correspondence are all housed at the Sprengel Museum, Hannover. Ernst Schwitters had made a partial deposit of these materials prior to his death at the city’s Stadtbibliothek. In 2008, these materials were reunited with the archive at the Sprengel Museum (founded in 1994). 23 This ambitious project, consisting of digital and print publications in ten volumes, can be found at http://schwitters-digital.de/projekt/. The first two published volumes are dedicated to five notebooks from the 1920s and to the Merz series, setting a new standard for a scholarly reappraisal of Schwitters’s literary achievement. See Kurt Schwitters, Alle Texte, ed. Ursula Kocher and Isabel Schulz (Berlin: De Gruyter), vol. 3, Die Sammelkladden, 1919– 1923 (2014); vol. 4, Die Reihe Merz, 1923– 1932 (2019). 24 Schwitters, Das literarische Werk, 1:150– 51; reprinted by Rothenberg and Joris, in pppppp, 16– 17. Klein’s translation was first published in Kurt Schwitters, Anna Blume: Dich-
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tungen, rev. ed. (Hannover: Steegemann Verlag, 1922), 19; it was reprinted with minor corrections in transition 3 (June 1927): 144– 45. 25 Themerson’s translation modifies Schwitters’s own; Kurt Schwitters in England (London: Gaberbocchus, 1958). Ernst Schwitters later published his rendition in Anna Blume und ich (Zurich: Arche, 1965), 105– 6. 26 On this topic, see Michael White, “What’s Merz in English? The Task of Translating Kurt Schwitters,” in Delabar, Kocher, and Schulz, Transgression und Intermedialität, 245– 58. Text 1 1 Emil Peschkau, Moderne Probleme: Ein Zeitbrevier [Modern problems: A breviary of the day] (Leipzig: Reclam, [1895]). 2 In this and similar marginal notes below, Schwitters is referring to the page numbers that he assigned to his own notebook pages. See the introduction to this text for more on the process by which he composed this essay. 3 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Zur Farbenlehre, vol. 2, Materialien zur Geschichte der Farbenlehre (Tübingen: In der J. G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1810), xxvi. 4 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Laokoon, oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie: Mit beyläufigen Erläuterungen verschiedener Punkte der alten Kunstgeschichte, vol. 1 (Berlin: Christian Friedrich Voß, 1766), chap. II, 15; translation by Ellen Frothingham, Laocoon: An Essay upon the Limits of Painting and Poetry (Boston: Little, Brown, 1898), 11. 5 Brühl’s Terrace overlooks the Elbe River in Dresden. Originally part of the city’s ramparts, it was named after Count Heinrich von Brühl, who built his palace, library, and gardens there between 1739 and 1748. The academy is located at this site. Schwitters refers to the view of the glass dome of the nearby Yenidze cigarette factory, erected by Hugo Zietz in 1907. Designed by Martin Hammitzsch, the building is a pastiche of an Ottoman mosque and is still standing today. 6 Tharandt is a town southwest of Dresden that borders a forest of the same name. 7 Friedrich Naumann, “Farben (1906),” in Form und Farbe (Berlin-Schöneberg: Buchverlag der “Hilfe,” 1909), 139. Schwitters cites heavily from short texts on art by the liberal politician and Protestant pastor Friedrich Naumann (1860– 1919), which appeared in the weekly journals Die Hilfe and Die Zeit in the first decade of the twentieth century. In 1907, Naumann was one of the founders of the Deutscher Werkbund; at the end of his life, he helped establish the German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP) and was a member of the Weimar National Assembly that drafted the constitution of the German republic. Naumann’s occasional writings on art and artists were collected in the 1909 anthology cited here; the page citations vary slightly from the printing that Schwitters refers to in his notebooks. 8 Naumann, “Farben,” 139. 9 Naumann, “Farben,” 139. 10 Naumann, “Farben,” 140. 11 Naumann, “Farben,” 140. 12 Naumann, “Farben,” 140, 141. Schwitters paraphrases Naumann in the second statement. 13 Naumann, “Farben,” 141. 14 Friedrich Naumann, “Die Harmonie der Farben (1903),” in Form und Farbe, 142. 15 Naumann, “Die Harmonie der Farben,” 142– 43. This is a direct quotation, although Schwitters does not mark it.
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This parenthetical note is an addition by Schwitters. Naumann, “Die Harmonie der Farben,” 143. 18 Friedrich Naumann, “Lesser Ury (1903),” in Form und Farbe, 148. 19 Kammerton: In 1859 the French government established that the A above middle C be tuned to 435 Hz. This standard (diapason normal) was gradually adopted internationally. 20 The Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629– 95) developed a wave theory of light, which he presented in 1678 to the Académie des sciences in Paris and published as Traité de la lumière (Treatise on light) in 1690. 21 This citation and the three that follow were all taken from the textbook by Karl Koppe, Anfangsgründe der Physik für den Unterricht in den oberen Klassen der Gymnasien und Realschulen, sowie zur Selbstbelehrung [Beginning foundations in physics for instruction in upper-level secondary schools and for self-instruction] (Essen: G. D. Bädeker). Schwitters paraphrases several points made in §203, “Einfache und gemischte Farbe” (Basic and mixed colors), copying much of Koppe’s language directly. The earliest edition where all these points were made was the sixth, published in 1858, but in no edition do they appear on the page listed in the transcription of Schwitters’s manuscript. 22 Alfred Koeppen, Die moderne Malerei in Deutschland (Bielefeld and Leipzig: Velhagen und Klasing, 1902), 25. 23 In the summer of 1909, Schwitters first attended the open-air landscape painting courses at the artist’s colony at Willingshausen, Hesse, offered by Carl Bantzer, one of his professors from the Dresden Academy. See text 26. 24 Laatzen is a town directly south of Hannover. 25 See Schwitters’s early painting (now lost) Krodotal bei Harzburg (1905), CR 1. 26 No notebook with this title and pagination survives. The quotations that follow (including the references to handbooks on composition) come from the entry for “Kompositionslehre” (Theory of composition) in Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, 5th ed. (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1896), 10:431. 27 Anton Reicha, Traité de haute composition musicale, 2 vols. (Paris: Zetter, 1824– 26). 28 Adolf Bernhard Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, praktischtheoretisch [Theory of musical composition, practical-theoretical], ed. Hugo Riemann, vol. 1, 9th ed. (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1887). 29 Simon Sechter, Die Grundsätze der musikalischen Komposition [Principles of musical composition], 3 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1853– 54). 30 Johann Christian Lobe, Lehrbuch der musikalischen Komposition [Textbook of musical composition], 4 vols. (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1850– 67). In 1884, Hermann Kretzschmar edited the fifth edition of vol. 1, Von den ersten Elementen der Harmonielehre an bis zur vollständigen Komposition des Streichquartetts und aller Arten von Klavierwerken [From the first elements of the theory of harmony to the complete composition of string quartets and all types of work for piano]; in 1887, he edited the second edition of vol. 4, Die Oper [The opera]. 31 Hugo Riemann, Katechismus der Kompositionslehre [Catechism for the theory of composition], 2 vols. (Leipzig: Max Hesse, 1889). 16 17
Text 3 1 Georg Hirth, Aufgaben der Kunstphysiologie (Munich: G. Hirth’s Kunstverlag, 1891), 2. See text 4.
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Text 4 1 Ferdinand Avenarius, Eine neue Sprache? Zweiundvierzig Zeichnungen von Katharine Schäffner [A new language? Twenty-four drawings by Katharine Schäffner] (Munich: G. D. W. Callwey im Kunstwartverlage, 1908), [3]; republished as “Eine neue Sprache? Zu den Zeichnungen Katharine Schäffners,” Der Kunstwart 21, no. 22 (August 1908): 189. 2 Avenarius, Eine neue Sprache?, [3]; “Eine neue Sprache?,” 189. 3 Avenarius, Eine neue Sprache?, [3]; “Eine neue Sprache?,” 190. 4 This exhibition was reviewed in Die Kunst 25 (1910): 286. Together with her abstract work, Schäffner exhibited her animal caricatures, printed and embroidered book covers and pillowcases, and clay vases and bowls with ornamental designs. 5 Georg Hirth, Aufgaben der Kunstphysiologie (Munich: G. Hirth’s Kunstverlag, 1891). This quotation appears on page 174. 6 The Weber-Fechner Law describes the logarithmic relationship between the magnitude of a physical stimulus and the intensity of the perceptual response to it. It is named after Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795– 1878), who conducted experiments quantifying the perception of weight, and Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801– 87), who used Weber’s findings to devise a scale to describe the relationship between magnitude and intensity, which was subsequently expressed mathematically. 7 Hirth, Aufgaben der Kunstphysiologie, 180. 8 Drawings signed by an unidentified “Lange” from Schwitters’s years at the Royal Saxon Academy of Art survive in the Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation. This interlocutor was likely a fellow student in Dresden. 9 Final paragraph of this translation. 10 Avenarius, Eine neue Sprache?, [1]; “Eine neue Sprache?,” 185– 86.
Text 7 1 The literal meaning of ausmerzen (de-merzing) is “to eliminate” or “to eradicate.” The word Merz is a homophone for März, the German word for the month of March. Schwitters alludes to the phrase “Beware the ides of March” from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. 2 See fig. 5 and text 55. 3 A borough in southeast Berlin, incorporated into the city in 1920. 4 A name for the contested border region between Germany and Poland. “The Ostmark is in grave danger” recalls a slogan coined by the Deutsche Ostmarkenverein (Eastern Ostmark Society), a nationalistic, anti-Semitic political group founded in Posen in 1894. By this time, however, the region had become part of the newly reestablished Polish state as dictated by the Treaty of Versailles, rendering the phrase completely hollow. 5 Pourquoi, warum: French and German for “why.” 6 From the title of another negative review; see text 12. 7 Du Deiner Dich Dir: The beginning of the second line of Schwitters’s poem “An Anna Blume” (1919). 8 The “Amorsäle” (Halls of Amor) was a popular nightclub on Besselstrasse in Berlin. 9 Anna Blume hat ein Vogel: From “An Anna Blume,” without the repetition Schwitters has here. The idiomatic phrase, einen Vogel haben means to be off your rocker, to be crazy.
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Text 8 1 Between 1919 and 1922, Paul Steegemann (1894–1956) published fifty-nine titles in his series Die Silbergäule (The silver horses), which specialized in expressionist and Dadaist literature. The name comes from the poem “Bundeslied der Galgenbrüder” (Anthem of the gallows-brothers) by Christian Morgenstern (1871– 1914). 2 The 1922 reprint includes the note: “Previous interpretation.” 3 The 1922 reprint includes the note: “Pardon, ‘esteemed critics.’” 4 A brand of pickled herring distributed by the Johann Weichmann fish cannery in Stralsund. To commemorate the founding of the German Reich in 1871, Weichmann sent a barrel of the fish to Imperial Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and obtained his permission to market the product with his name. 5 The text published in Sturm-Bühne begins with this paragraph. 6 In Sturm-Bühne, the phrase “in which you bake puddings (critics)” did not appear. 7 The SS Imperator was an ocean liner built for the Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Aktien Gesellschaft (HAPAG) as part of its transatlantic passenger service. At the time of its launch in 1912, it was the largest sailing vessel, surpassing the RMS Titanic. 8 In Sturm-Bühne, the sequence was reversed to read: “In short, take everything from the hairnet of the noblewoman to the propeller of the SS Imperator, always according to the proportions that the work demands.” 9 This sequence of notes does not occur in the “Internationale.” 10 End of the text published in Sturm-Bühne. 11 The 1922 reprint includes the note: “In preparation: ‘From the world MERZ,’ the book about the stage” (see text 50).
Text 9 1 From Walter Serner, “Letzte Lockerung: Manifest,” in Anthologie Dada, ed. Tristan Tzara (Zurich: Mouvement Dada, 1919), [19]; republished in Walter Serner, Letzte Lockerung: Manifest Dada (Hannover: Paul Steegemann, 1920), 7. 2 August Stramm (1874– 1915) was a poet and playwright championed by Herwarth Walden. His experimentation with broken syntax, onomatopoeia, and appropriation had a strong affinity to the work of the futurists and an enormous influence on a younger generation of Sturm poets, including Schwitters, Walter Mehring, and Otto Nebel. Stramm was killed in combat on the eastern front in World War I. 3 The repetition of this line of Schwitters’s text did not appear in the version published in Der Bücherwurm. The expression “Stramm beat” (Stramm schlagen) also reverberates with the verb strammstehen (to stand at attention). 4 The version in Der Bücherwurm replaced this sentence with: “Oh, I feel slightly better, I only fainted nine times today!”
Text 10 1 Martin Frehsee, O Tannenbaum! Ein neues deutsches Weihnachtsmärchen [O Christmas tree! A new German Christmas tale] (Vilsen: G. Kistenbrügge, 1911).
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2 Martin Frehsee, Cain: Ein dramatisches Gedicht nach dem gleichnamigen Mysterium von Lord George Byron [Cain: A dramatic poem after the mystery of the same name by Lord George Byron] (Vilsen: G. Kistenbrügge, 1912[?]). Schwitters combines this reference with the last, grammatically incorrect line of “An Anna Blume” (see text 16). 3 Martin Frehsee, Tante Tüschen: Ein kleines Spiel aus großer Zeit in drei Aufzügen [Aunt Tüschen: A little play from a great era in three acts] (Berlin: Oesterheld, 1915). 4 Flügelkleide: A piece of clothing for young children of either sex, similar to a smock, typically with loose-cut sleeves or two ribbons running down the back. In this aside, Schwitters gives the title of another play by his adversary: Albert Kehm and Martin Frehsee, Als ich noch im Flügelkleide: Ein fröhliches Spiel in vier Aufzügen [While I was still in a winged smock: A cheerful play in four acts] (Berlin-Charlottenburg: Bühnen-Verlag, 1914). 5 See text 7. 6 Max Burchartz (1887– 1961), painter and graphic artist, affiliated with Schwitters through Der Sturm and the Hannover Secession (text 15) and, later, the ring neue werbegestalter (text 106, text 118, and text 120). Schwitters refers to a negative review of Burchartz’s graphic work by Adolf Schaer, published by Frehsee in the Hannoverscher Kurier (12 November 1919). 7 “I hate the profane mob and keep them at a distance.” From Horace, Odes III: Dulce Periculum, ed. and trans. David West (Oxford: Clarendon, 2002), 11. 8 From Schwitters’s 1942 translation of “An Anna Blume” (see introduction). 9 Johannes Molzahn (1892– 1965), expressionist painter and graphic artist, was among the most prominent artists at Der Sturm at this time. Schwitters refers to the review by Ella Neuhahn, published in the Hannoverscher Kurier (18 November 1919) of Molzahn’s work in the 79. Sturm-Ausstellung (October 1919). 10 Poem translated by John Elderfield, Kurt Schwitters (London: Thames and Hudson, 1985), 53. Schwitters published this poem as “An Johannes Molzahn. Gedicht 37” (To Johannes Molzahn. Poem 37) in Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann, 1919), 10.
Text 11 1 Schmutz in Wort und Bild: Neumann had used this phrase to allude to Article 118 of the Weimar Constitution, which protected the right to free speech with a proviso that “legal measures are permissible for the suppression of indecent and obscene literature [Schund- und Schmutzliteratur].”
Text 12 1 A reference to the “prize question” in “An Anna Blume”: “1. Anna Blume has a bird. / 2. Anna Blume is red. / 3. What color is the bird?” (1. Anna Blume hat ein Vogel. / 2. Anna Blume ist rot. / 3. Welche Farbe hat der Vogel?). See text 7. 2 Published in Rome from 1918 to 1921, the journal Valori Plastici opposed the stylistic heterogeneity of the avant-garde in favor of a return to “classical” foundations, as exemplified by the work of Giorgio de Chirico, Carlo Carrà, and Giorgio Morandi, among others. It was distributed in Germany by the Munich gallerist Hans Goltz, publisher of Der Ararat (see text 26), and widely discussed in the Berlin art circles in which Schwitters moved.
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Text 13 1 Schwitters replies to Frerking’s reviews of the second exhibition of the Hannover Secession (14 March 1919) and an exhibition of the Zweemann-Verlag (5 February 1920). 2 An ironic statement by Herwarth Walden, taken from his defense of Schwitters’s art against attacks by Paul Westheim and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (see text 23), “Nachsicht! Zeugen!” [Forbearance! Witnesses!], Der Sturm 10, no. 9 (10 December 1919): 132. 3 Emballageschneiderwerkstättenpappdeckelkehrichtverzierungen: By merging several of Madsack’s critical descriptions into a single word, Schwitters takes the ability of the German language to concoct compound words to “merzed” extremes. 4 Schwitters replies to Schaer’s first review of the third exhibition of the Hannover Secession (9 February 1920). 5 From Hamlet, act 5, scene 2. 6 From Goethe’s poem, “Das Göttliche” (early 1780s), translated by Vernon Watkins as “The Godlike,” in Selected Poems, vol. 1 of Goethe: The Collected Works, ed. Christopher Middleton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 79– 83. 7 The estranged wife of Herbert von Garvens-Garvensburg (1883– 1953), a collector of modern art in Hannover and founding member of the Kestner-Gesellschaft. He owned the Galerie von Garvens, which prominently exhibited Schwitters’s work. 8 August Adalbert von Scheere: With this play on the critic’s name Schwitters elevates him to the ranks of nobility and underscores the homophone with Schere (scissors, shears). August may be an allusion to the clown Auguste, the foolish sidekick of the whiteface clown (see text 14). 9 An allusion to an earlier review of the Hannover Autumn Exhibition (17 October 1919), in which Schaer commented on the difficulty of ensuring the “precious nobility” of art in an exhibition addressed to such a diverse crowd. 10 Mehrheitssozialist: Nickname given to members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who remained after the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and the Social Democratic Working Group (SAG) split off following the party’s reversal on opposing Germany’s war efforts in 1914. The SPD sought compromise with the conservative parties, especially for the continued financing of the war after 1915. 11 Wandervögel: Popular back-to-nature youth movement, founded in 1896 and continuing today. 12 Hein Wiesenwald, “Der Kragenvogel: Eine fast unglaubliche Geschichte” [The collar bird: A quite unbelievable story], Volkswille 7 (9 January 1920). 13 Hauptmann von Köpenick: In 1906, Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt (1849– 1922), an unemployed shoemaker and grifter, impersonated a Prussian military officer and commandeered a group of soldiers from Berlin to arrest the mayor of Köpenick and requisition more than four thousand marks from the municipal treasury. He was eventually arrested and ultimately pardoned by Kaiser Wilhelm II. The case transfixed popular imagination throughout Europe and became the subject of a play and various films. Paul Erich Küppers, director of the KestnerGesellschaft, called Schwitters “the Captain of Köpenick of art history” in a critical review, “Hannoverscher Kunstbrief,” Münchner Neueste Nachrichten (29 January 1920), transcribed in Kurt Schwitters, Alle Texte: Die Sammelkladden 1919– 1923, ed. Ursula Kocher and Isabel Schulz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 558
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Text 14 1 Traditional Christmas wooden figurines or mannequins dressed in paper suits covered in moss. 2 Die Welt fängt im Menschen an: Franz Werfel, “Lächeln Atmen Schreiten,” in Vom jüngsten Tag: Ein Almanach neuer Dichtung (Leipzig: Kurt Wolff, 1916), 71. 3 A reference to the Hannoverian art critic Adolf Schaer and his concern with protecting the “precious nobility” of art. See text 13.
Text 16 See text 9. See text 8. 3 From the 1958 translation of “An Anna Blume” by Stefan Themerson (see introduction). 4 Ich liebe dir and Ich liebe dich both translate into English as “I love thee,” but in German, only the latter, accusative case is grammatically correct. In the English translations of Schwitters’s poem, the former, dative case has been consistently rendered with the possessive as “I love thine” (see introduction). However, to approximate the specific point Schwitters makes here, we have translated the dative dir (to thee) with the nominative du (thou). 1
2
Text 17 1 In the 1922 reprint, this line was changed to read: “Please lead your dogs to the Leine” (Hunde bitte an die Leine zu führen). Schwitters plays with the homonymy of the German word for leash (Leine) and the river Leine, which runs through the city of Hannover. With a slight modification of the grammar, the sentence would mean, “Please keep your dogs on a leash” (Hunde bitte an der Leine zu führen).
Text 18 1 This manuscript, written around 1830, was not published in Schopenhauer’s lifetime. It has also appeared as Eristische Dialektik or, simply, Dialektik. See The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument, trans. T. Bailey Saunders (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1896). 2 A reference to the concentration camps first installed in 1901 by British army field marshal H. H. Kitchener (1850– 1916) for use in the Boer Wars. 3 Franz Müller’s Wire Springtime, 1919, CR 446 (lost); Portrait of an Old Lady, 1919/20, CR 457 (lost); Tastende Dreiecke, 1919/20, CR 452 (lost); Merzpicture 5 B (Picture with Red Heart-Church) / K Merzpicture K 4, 1919, CR 427 (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York). 4 Mülle is the dative case of Müll (trash), and one letter shy of the name Müller. 5 Hautana was the first brassiere to be mass produced (patented 1913). 6 Schwitters refers to Nebel’s own retort to Servaes’s review “Einschweifungen,” Der Sturm 11, no. 2 (May 1920): 22– 23. On Nebel, see text 24. 7 From Matthew 7:3: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”
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Text 19 Schwitters picks up this metaphor from text 13 and develops it in text 116 and text 123. Schwitters refers to lines from Friedrich von Schiller, “Das Lied von der Glocke” (“Song of the Bell,” 1799): “Da werden Weiber zu Hyänen / Und treiben mit Entsetzen Scherz” (Then women become hyenas / And make a mockery of horror). He recognizes an affinity between the rather pejorative word Weib (woman) and the final syllable of “Raufediewaub,” his anagram for Wiederaufbau (reconstruction). 3 Heil dir im Siegerkranz: The first line of the Prussian anthem, which became the Kaiser’s anthem after the foundation of the German Reich in 1871. 4 Das Arbeiterbild. (The Worker Picture.), 1919, CR 443. 5 Reference to Luke 18:11, from the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector: “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector . . .’” See text 27. 6 This refers to the review of the exhibition Deutscher Expressionismus, Darmstadt 1920. (Schwitters’s footnote.) 1
2
Text 20 1 2
Otto Nebel, “Zuginsfeld,” Der Sturm 11, no. 5 (August 1920): 74. See text 21 and text 24. According to Kant, entrances and exits are the same thing. (Schwitters’s footnote.)
Text 21 1 Based on G. F. Hartlaub’s article: “German Expressionism,” 15 July 1920 / Frankfurter Zeitung. (Schwitters’s footnote.) 2 A German blood sausage that uses a linen or paper bag (Beutel) as casing, generally considered poor man’s food.
Text 22 1 Fischer refers to provincial newspapers (Blättchen) with the word Kümmelblättchen, a con game with playing cards, i.e., three-card Monte. 2 The second and third lines of “An Anna Blume”; from the 1958 translation by Stefan Themerson (see introduction). 3 Talglicht: The reference to tallow also comes from “An Anna Blume,” whose “name drops like soft tallow” (Dein Name tropft wie weiches Rindertalg).
Text 24 1 Critic Franz Servaes (text 18) compared Schwitters to a “Schuster,” a pejorative term for a shoemaker. 2 The last two syllables of Hannover read in reverse. See text 17. 3 The lowest grades possible for schoolwork at the time. 4 A nervous disorder (Chorea sancti Viti, C. miner), characterized by involuntary convul-
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sions of the limbs and face. Also known as Sydenham’s Chorea, it typically afflicts children, more commonly girls. The cause was frequently associated with hysteria, epilepsy, or any shock to the nervous system, whether psychological or physiological. 5 Diploma certifying a student is qualified to enter university, received upon successful completion of the martriculation examination (Abiturientenexamen, or Abitur exam). 6 See text 26. 7 České Švýcarsko, in the northwest region of the Czech Republic. In 1910 this picturesque landscape in Bohemia bordered the Kingdom of Saxony (today the Free State of Saxony). 8 Reserve-Infanterie-Regiments (Reserve Infantry Regiment) No. 73. 9 Ausgemerzt, i.e., eliminated, eradicated. Text 25 1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann, ed. J. K. Moorhead, trans. John Oxenford (Boston: Da Capo, 1998), 423.
Text 26 1 Carl Bantzer (1857– 1941) was a landscape painter, professor of portraiture at the Royal Saxon Academy of Art in Dresden, and member of the Willingshausen Artist Colony in Hessen. Gotthardt Kuehl (1850– 1915) led the genre painting studio at the academy and was greatly influenced by impressionism. Emanuel Hegenbarth (1868– 1923) specialized in animal painting. 2 Still-Life with Communion Chalice, 1909, CR 11. Der Sturm issued a postcard of this painting around 1919. 3 Hans Goltz (1873– 1927) was a major dealer and publisher for modern art. He opened his gallery in Munich in 1911, where he mounted significant exhibitions of the Blue Rider, Paul Klee, and numerous artists affiliated with futurism, cubism, and expressionism. His gallery and bookstore hosted readings by writers, including Franz Kafka’s only appearance outside Prague, and he founded the journal Der Ararat, which ran from 1918 to 1921. 4 Das Undbild (The And Picture), 1919, CR 447, prominently incorporated a fragment printed with the word und (and). 5 Hülsendadas: Hülse means shell, husk, or pod. Schwitters plays on the name of Richard Huelsenbeck (1892– 1974), one of the founding members of Dada in Zurich in 1916 and in Berlin the following year. 6 This sentence and the three that follow were not included in Ralph Manheim’s translation in The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology, ed. Robert Motherwell (New York: Wittenborn, Schultz, 1951; rev. ed. 1989). Huelsenbeck worked with Motherwell on this book, which included his own 1920 history of Dada that Schwitters quotes here. This activity led to Huelsenbeck’s investigation by the FBI. 7 Richard Huelsenbeck, En avant Dada: Eine Geschichte des Dadaismus. Die Silbergäule 50/51 (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1920). Translated as “En avant Dada: A History of Dadaism,” by Ralph Manheim in Dada Painters and Poets, 21– 47. 8 This manifesto, “What Is Dadaism and What Does It Want in Germany?,” signed by Huelsenbeck and Raoul Hausmann, was published in Huelsenbeck, En avant Dada. The
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demand that Schwitters paraphrases here calls for “the most brutal struggle against all directions of so-called workers of the Spirit (Hiller, Adler), against their concealed bourgeois mentality, and against expressionism and postclassical education as advocated by [Der] Sturm” (En avant Dada, 30). 9 Richard Huelsenbeck, “Einleitung” [Introduction], in Dada-Almanach (Berlin: Erich Reiss Verlag, 1920), 5. 10 Tristan Tzara, “Manifest Dada 1918,” in Dada-Almanach, 120. In this publication of Tzara’s manifesto, Huelsenbeck added the note: “The editor stresses that, as a Dadaist, he does not identify with any of the opinions stated here.” 11 Huelsenbeck, “Einleitung,” in Dada-Almanach, 8. 12 Huelsenbeck, En avant Dada, 36. 13 “What is allowed to Jove is not allowed to the Ox.” Translated by Jon R. Stone in The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations: The Illiterati’s Guide to Latin Maxims, Mottoes, Proverbs, and Sayings (Latin for the Illiterati) (London: Routledge, 2004), 200. Schwitters uses Huelsenbeck’s own quotation of this aphorism against him: “Dada is a matter for those in the know: quod licet jovi, non licet bovi. Dada fundamentally and energetically rejects works like the famous ‘Anna Blume’ by Herr Kurt Schwitters” (“Einleitung,” Dada-Almanach, 9). 14 Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1919). See CR 547. 15 Die Kathedrale: 8 Lithos von Kurt Schwitters, a portfolio of eight lithographs published as Die Silbergäule 41/42 (Hannover: Paul Steegemann, 1920). This folio was sealed with a lithographed strip of paper that read, “Sealed for sanitary reasons. Caution: Anti-Dada. Return if seal is broken. K. S. Merz. 1920.” See CR 767.1– 8. 16 The word Schwitters uses to describe his sculptural activity is modellieren, which technically means to make sculptures by modeling. He thereby stresses the fact that his assemblage process is additive (like modeling in clay) rather than subtractive (like carving in stone). German maintains this distinction with the nouns Plastik and Skulptur, respectively; Schwitters uses the term Merzplastiken for his Merz-sculptures. Der Lustgalgen (The Pleasure Gallows), CR 582, and Die Kultpumpe (The Cult Pump), CR 581 (both lost), were commissioned by Der Sturm and circulated as postcards published by Paul Steegemann around 1920. 17 Haus Merz (Merz House), 1920, CR 773 (lost). 18 Christof Spengemann, “Merz— Die offizielle Kunst” [Merz— the official art], Der Zweemann 8– 10 (1920): 40– 42. 19 Here Schwitters reprints two separate texts as one. They appeared together in SturmBühne: Jahrbuch des Theaters der Expressionisten 8 (October 1919): 3. The first was originally published with the title “Die Merzbühne” (The Merz-Theater). Prior to its incorporation here, it was republished in Der Zweemann 1, no. 2 (December 1919): 18; and in a Hungarian translation as “A Merzszinpad,” MA 6, no. 3 (1 January 1921): 29. The second text was titled “Erklärungen meiner Forderungen zur Merzbühne” (Statements on my demands for the Merztheater), and it was included with slight modifications as part of “An alle Bühnen der Welt” (To All the Theaters of the World) in Anna Blume: Dichtungen (text 8). 20 Here ends “Die Merzbühne.” The text that follows is “Erklärungen meiner Forderungen zur Merzbühne.” 21 See text 50. 22 After this byline, Schwitters included the note, “At this point I would like to include a few poems as follows” and published seven poems and prose pieces: Herbst (1909), Gedicht
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Nr. 48, Gedicht Nr. 23. Wunde Rosen Bluten, Gedicht Nr. 46. Kneule, Gedicht Nr. 4. Der Gefangene, Gedicht Nr. 14. Die Raddadistenmaschine, Franz Müllers Drahtfrühling. The first two appeared in English translation in Motherwell, Dada Painters and Poets. Text 27 1 The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9– 14) warns against comparing oneself to others and advocates for humility in prayer.
Text 29 1 The Vogelwiese (in dialect, Fochelwiehsse) is a traditional annual summer carnival in Dresden, so named because it originally involved an archery competition with decoy birds as targets. Summer 1920 was the first time it took place after the First World War. 2 E. K.: Eisernes Kreuz, or Iron Cross. 3 Schwitters used Fraktur to distinguish this quote from the rest of the text. 4 Dr. N., 9 July 1920 in the review, “Kunstausstellung Dresden 1920.” (Schwitters’s footnote.) 5 Schwindelig describes a state of being dizzy or giddy, of having one’s head spin. Schwitters recognizes a common root with the noun Schwindel (swindle), which he uses in the following paragraph. 6 Daniel Henry [Kahnweiler], “Der Kubismus,” Die Weissen Blätter 1, no. 9 (September 1916): 209– 22; 220. Kahnweiler revised this text for Daniel Henry [Kahnweiler], Der Weg zum Kubismus (Munich: Delphin-Verlag, 1920), 42; Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, The Rise of Cubism, trans. Henry Aronson (New York: Wittenborn, Schulz, 1949), 15.
Text 30 1 See text 29. No reply to Stiller ever appeared; Schwitters likely intended to answer his negative review of the 1920 Schwitters, Schlemmer, Baumeister exhibition at Galerie Arnold, “Die Dresdner Kunst 1919/20,” Dresdner Kalender (1921): 61– 69. 2 Text 14.
Text 33 1 Schwitters modifies a proverb from Friedrich von Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, trans. William F. Mainland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 65: “An axe in the house will save a joiner’s labor.” 2 Ueber ein Kleines, o Seele voll Gram, Schwindet dein Kummer und geht, wie er kam: A line by Karl Gerok (1815– 90), a German preacher and religious poet, from “Ueber ein Kleines,” in Blumen und Sterne: Gedichte (Stuttgart: E. Greiner, 1868), 32. 3 Die heilige Kümmerniss [sic]: Wilgefortis is a female saint, not formally recognized by the church but who is especially revered in Germany and Austria. Known also by the names Uncumber, Hulpe, and Liporata, her legend arose in the fourteenth century and her distinguishing feature is a large beard. Schwitters made a sculpture with the title Die heilige Bekümmernis (The Holy Affliction), ca. 1920, CR 768 (destroyed).
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See text 23. Tränen: While this word literally means “tears,” Schwitters also uses it as the plural form of “Tran,” a play he repeats in his third retort to Westheim (text 61). 6 See text 38. 7 “Real joy . . . is a stern matter.” Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, vol. 1, trans. Richard M. Gummere (London: Heinemann, 1917), 161. 4 5
Text 35 1 A play on the idiom “Die Katze beißt sich in den eigenen Schwanz” (The cat bites its own tail), which describes a circular argument.
Text 36 1 Marie Ille-Beeg (1855– 1927) was a successful German author and illustrator of children’s books, especially cookbooks. 2 Spanish: “The name ‘SYNDÉTICON’ is registered and protected by law.” Syndetikon was an all-purpose glue developed in 1878 by the chemist and entrepreneur Otto Ring in Berlin. Ring commissioned numerous artists to produce a wide range of promotional materials that made the brand a worldwide household name. 3 Julius Wolff, Lurlei: Eine Romanze (Berlin: G. Grote, 1886). 4 First line of “An Anna Blume,” from Schwitters’s 1942 translation. 5 Reomür: Temperature scale named after the French intellectual René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683– 1757), in which the freezing and boiling points of water are set to 0 and 80 degrees respectively. 6 Spanish: “SYNDÉTICON hardens when it is cold but returns to a liquid state in hot temperatures.” 7 Wolff, Lurlei. 8 Spanish: “When it is very thick, SYNDÉTICON can also be mixed with Eau de Cologne.” 9 Marmor Krieger (marble warrior) was a small marble sculpture sold with a metal clip to display photographs of fallen WWI soldiers and marketed as a decorative memorial. 10 Heinrich Heine, “The Knave of Bergen,” in The Poems of Heinrich Heine, trans. Edgard Alfred Bowring (London: Bell, 1878), 387. 11 French: “And when you think the moon is setting, / it’s not setting, it just seems that way.” This is a translation of a popular German song from 1921; see text 43. 12 A nonsense phrase in Latin: “I think I know your carcass, therefore I paint.”
Text 38 1 Der Weg zur Vollkommenheit und zu jedem Fortschritt ist fortwährende Selbstkritik: Schwitters modifies this aphorism by the painter Arnold Böcklin (1827– 1901) to make the added reference to art criticism. See Rudolf Schick, Tagebuch-Aufzeichnungen aus den Jahren 1866, 1868, 1869 über Arnold Böcklin, ed. Hugo von Tschudi (Berlin: F. Fontane, 1901), 141.
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Text 39 1 Franz Müller’s Wire Springtime, 1919, CR 446 (lost), one of two works by Schwitters on view in a group show at the Galerie Der Sturm in September 1922.
Text 40 Schwitters’s nickname for his son, Ernst. See the Peliareusmusuem, Hildesheim. (Schwitters’s footnote; he incorrectly spells the name of the Pelizaeus-Museum of ancient Egyptian art, founded in 1911.) 1
2
Text 41 1 German in the original: “The best is the enemy of the good.” This aphorism was popularized by Voltaire. 2 D-trains were long-distance trains, several of which ran on international routes, including Germany to Holland. 3 German in the original, i.e., black marketeering or selling of illegal wares. 4 Francis Picabia, “Manifeste Cannibale Dada,” Dada, no. 7, “Dadaphone” (March 1920): [2]. 5 Konstructie: The irregular, Germanized spelling of this word flags it as a special term, suggesting something akin to “constructivism.” By capitalizing it, we distinguish it from the regular Dutch spelling of constructie used elsewhere in this paragraph. 6 Beelding of ombeelding: Like the German word Gestaltung, these nouns indicate that form is less a finished or fixed state and rather more a process, of being “in formation.” See introduction.
Text 43 1 I. K. Bonset was Theo van Doesburg’s Dada alter ego, which he created in 1920 after a visit to Paris, where he first contacted Tristan Tzara through Francis Picabia. All his contributions to Tzara’s unrealized international Dada compendium, Dadaglobe, were made under this pseudonym. For years, van Doesburg successfully maintained the fiction that he was only acting as a representative on Bonset’s behalf. In 1921, Bonset published poems in De Stijl, and van Doesburg “collaborated” with him to create the Dada journal Mécano (published in four issues from January 1922 to January 1924). See text 54. 2 Menetekel: An ominous portent. This German word is based on the Aramaic mene tekel, which refers to the writing on the wall from the book of Daniel. 3 The base of operations for Zurich Dada was the Cabaret Voltaire, located at Spiegelgasse 1. The name of the street literally translates as “mirror alley.” See text 26. 4 PRA is ARP spelled backward, one of Schwitters’s favorite nicknames for his friend and collaborator. See the reversible issue Merz 6 (October 1923), whose back cover is titled Arp 1. Prapoganda und Arp. 5 Dutch: the audience; French: made. 6 “Look here, we are . . .” (Schwitters misspells zijn.)
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“. . . what makes our culture so sophisticated.” “Do you understand that?” 9 Und alle Euter läuten: This nonsensical statement is an opportunity for musical wordplay with the word läutern (purify) in the previous sentence. Schwitters first plays off the tonal assonance of läutern and Euter (udders) and then removes a single letter so that läutern becomes läuten (sound, toll). 10 Architecture. (Schwitters’s footnote.) 11 Schwitters uses the terms dada complet (French), suggesting “full dada,” dada garniert (German), suggesting “garnished dada” (in French, dada garni), and dada hors d’œuvre varié (French), “various dada appetizers.” Dada complet is the title of an abandoned series of texts published in Merz (see text 52 and text 58). 12 Tram route 3. 13 The Daal en Berg, Papaverhof, is a middle-class cooperative housing estate in The Hague built between 1919 and 1921. It was designed by Jan Wils (1891– 1972), a Dutch architect associated with De Stijl, with whom van Doesburg and Huszár variously collaborated as color consultants. Schwitters misspells “Klimopstraat,” one of the streets that border the Papaverhof. Theo and Nelly van Doesburg lived in the complex at Klimopstraat 18 during the Dada Tour. 14 Schwitters refers to the Hannover zoo, which was designed to provide the animals more natural environments. Around 1920, a postcard advertising the zoo framed photographs of an elephant and hippopotamus with a Jugendstil border of violets. The zoo was forced to close in 1922, and its animals were sold; a lottery was proposed to fund its reopening, which Schwitters made the subject of his prose piece “Die Zoologischer Garten-Lotterie” (The zoological garden lottery) written 1925 and later included in his important anthology Merz 21. Erstes Veilchenheft (1931): 107– 10. In this same collection, he refers to himself as a “violet” (text 125). 15 Und wenn du denkst der Mond geht unter, er geht nicht unter, es scheint bloß so: This line comes from a popular waltz from 1921 by the variety stage actor and film comic Robert Steidl (1865– 1927). Schwitters first excerpted it in the first publication of “Revolution in Revon” in Der Sturm 13, no. 11 (5 November 1922): 162. This was one of his recital pieces for the Dada Tour. Und wenn du denkst, der Mond geht unter is also the title of a 1921 collage by Hannah Höch. 16 The industrial center of the Ruhr was occupied by French and Belgian troops from 1923 to 1925, when Germany defaulted on its reparations payments mandated by the Treaty of Versailles. The occupation catalyzed a national crisis that played a major role in Nazi propaganda. 17 “The stage.” 18 “Vegetable [stall] . . . on the stage.” 19 “Letter sound images (1921) / IV (in dissonants).” 20 Schwitters distinguishes the French couleur from the German Farbe, which can mean both color and paint. Couleur refers to color as a relative term, what in English is called value (tint or shade, tone), whereas Farbe refers to color in the sense of hue (pure color). His objective here is to uncouple color from paint, to challenge the convention that the particular material of paint is the only legitimate vehicle for color in a painting. Color, not paint, is the material in question, and any support for it is valid for use within an image. Analogously, in this discussion, the more general term Bild (image, picture) replaces Gemälde (painting) to denote the created object. 7 8
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Text 46 1 “Seated at the horizon, the others are going to sing.” Pierre Reverdy (1889– 1960) was a French poet and art critic, who cofounded the periodical Nord-Sud with Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire. This epitaph comes from his poem “Regard,” first published in Les Ardoises du toit (Paris: Imprimerie Birault, 1918). Schwitters likely came across it in Dada 3 (December 1918), which he would have received directly from Tristan Tzara. 2 Karl Aloys Schenzinger (1886– 1962) was a doctor and author who briefly lived in Hannover after the war. He published expressionist dramas and novels through the KestnerGesellschaft. He later made his reputation with the wildly popular serial Hitlerjunge Quex (1932), first published in the Völkischer Beobachter, newspaper of the Nazi Party (NSDAP), and released the following year in an UFA film adaptation. Schwitters’s first assemblage, Merzpicture 1 A (The Alienist), 1919 (CR 425), was a portrait of Schenzinger. See text 152. 3 Not available in this type case, hence provisionally in bold lowercase letters. (Schwitters’s footnote.) 4 “Witte Week” advertisements for winter clearance sales of undergarments were ubiquitous during the Dada Tour of Holland. 5 Ziege (goat) becomes Zie through the act of cutting. The sound of this fragment echoes the words sie (she or they) or Sie (you). 6 Schwitters exploits the sexual double entendre of the word stoßen (push, bang, thrust) in the original rhyme: “Und sie wird sich nicht erboßen / Mit den Hörnern Euch zu stoßen.”
Text 47 1 Schwitters composed this i-poem by removing the last word of every line of “Winterlied” (Winter song, 1821) by August Graf von Platen-Hallermünde (1796– 1835). 2 The oak leaf is a common German national symbol, especially for military medals and insignia. The Iron Cross was reissued in 1914 with a relief of the oak leaf on the reverse side. 3 A motif from the Merz-theater; see text 8. 4 “Please read this carefully before throwing it in the trash.”
Text 49 1 Raoul Hausmann, “Puffke propagiert Proletkult,” Die Aktion 11, no. 9/10 (5 March 1921): 131– 34. Much of Lunacharsky’s writings in German had been circulated by Die Aktion, which was an important press for literary expressionism and leftist political activism. On Proletkult and Dada, see Richard Sheppard, Modernism— Dada— Postmodernism (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000), 345– 47.
Text 50 1 Albert Bassermann (1867– 1952) was a stage actor who worked with Max Reinhardt at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin from 1909 to 1915 and who first appeared on screen in the 1913 film Der Andere. His interpretation of the role of Hamlet at the Deutsches Theater in
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November 1910 made a famous impression on Franz Kafka: “I have seen a Hamlet performance, or better, heard Bassermann. For periods of a quarter of an hour or more, by God, I had the physiognomy of another person, from time to time I had to turn away from the stage toward an empty box to bring myself back to order” (Hanns Zischler, Kafka Goes to the Movies, trans. Susan H. Gillespie [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003], 70– 71). This production also extended the stage into the audience so that the actors were closer than usual. Schwitters makes a further reference to Friedrich von Schiller’s poem “Das Lied von der Glocke” (1799); see text 19. 2 Bilde Künstler, rede nicht!: From the motto, “Bilde, Künstler! Rede nicht! / Nur ein Hauch sei dein Gedicht” (Create, artist, do not talk! / Let the merest hint be your poem), that Goethe used to introduce his selection of poems dedicated to “Kunst” (Art) written after 1815. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gedichte und Epen I, ed. Erich Trunz, in Goethes Werke (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1998), 1:325. 3 Text reads: “Gentlemen’s hats pressed from the most fashionable ladies’ hats!” 4 The correct German should read: “Aus Damenhuten werden die modernsten Herrenhüte gepresst!” 5 Spoken by Mephistopheles in Faust I, lines 2557– 58. Translation by Stuart Atkins. 6 Da sprach der alte Auerhahn: Nun Kinder lasst mich auch mal ’ran!: This is a variation on an old German folk song, “Die Vogelhochzeit” (The wedding of the birds). Schwitters quotes from one of the explicitly ribald versions of the song sung by university students of his generation. For examples, see Rolf W. Brednich, Erotische Lieder aus 500 Jahren: Texte und Noten mit Begleit-Akkorden (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1979). 7 Das wird ja die reinste Judenschule: An idiomatic expression used disapprovingly to describe a noisy, disordered situation. It originates in the perceived difference between the vocalized worship in a Jewish synagogue and the kind of prayer customary within a church, which is silent or synchronized. A common expression in Schwitters’s day, its casual antiSemitic tenor became impossible to ignore in the wake of the Holocaust, and it is no longer used today. Text 51 “Take care of yourself.” Text 52. 3 At the bottom of the page in the original publication, Schwitters has the following orphaned footnote, which he most likely intended to refer to this point: “*) die i-form der Banalität” (the i-form of banality). 4 “Paul Eluard wants to achieve a concentration of words, as if crystallized for the people, but whose meaning remains nil.” The poet Paul Éluard (1895– 1952) was a key figure for Dada and surrealism in Paris. From February 1920 to July 1921, he published six issues of the irregular “monthly leaflet” Proverbe, which collected aphorisms by artists and poets in his circle. The quotation from Tzara appeared in Proverbe, no. 6 (July 1921): [3]. 5 “And when this violin’s . . .”: Schwitters refers to the tenth banality listed in “Banalitäten (1),” Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 34. See text 53. 6 “The trees are the legs of the landscape.” On Bonset, see text 43. 1
2
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Text 52 1 Merz 5 is a portfolio of seven lithographs by Hans Arp (7 Arpaden), published in 1923 as a numbered edition of fifty. “DADA COMPLET No. 2” appeared in Merz 7 (January 1924), text 58.
Text 53 1 Junge Menschen gab es zu jeder Zeit: Kasimir Edschmid, Über den Expressionismus in der Literatur und die neue Dichtung [On expressionism in literature and the new poetry] (Berlin: Erich Reiss Verlag, 1919), 12. Kasimir Edschmid (1890– 1966) was a novelist, journalist, and an important theorist of literary expressionism. 2 “Banalitäten (1)” and “Banalitäten (2)” are lists of banal aphorisms that Schwitters assembled for Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 34– 35 and 36. See text 51. 3 Es gibt [aber auch] eine Wesentlichkeit in uns, die grün zu explodieren vermag: Theodor Däubler, “Ludwig Meidner,” Das Kunstblatt 2 (1918): 303. 4 Herr, Herr, gib mir deinen Sturm: Ludwig Meidner, “Dankgebet, daß ich lebe” [Thanksgiving prayer that I live], Septemberschrei: Hymnen, Gebete und Lästerungen [September cry: Hymns, prayers, and blasphemies] (Berlin: Paul Cassirer, 1920), 61. Ludwig Meidner (1884– 1966) was an expressionist painter, draftsman, and writer affiliated with Der Sturm and the Novembergruppe, who, in 1941, was briefly interned with Schwitters in the Hutchinson Camp on the Isle of Man. 5 An elderly seamstress who worked for the Schwitters family. Schwitters used her aphorism “You hope the best for everybody; the worst comes on its own” as the opening motto for his book Tran Nr. 30. Auguste Bolte (ein Lebertran.) (Berlin: Verlag Der Sturm, 1923). 6 From an aphoristic verse by Emanuel Geibel (1815 – 84), “Spruch 15” (Maxim 15), Neue Gedichte (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1857), 124: “Undank ist ein arger Gast / Aber an den angethanen / Liebesdienst den Freund zu mahnen / Ist so arg wie Undank fast” (A terrible guest, ingratitude / But to recall a bestowed / Kindness to a friend / Is an act as near ingratitude). Taken out of context and read on its own, this phrase does not mean anything. Here Schwitters recognizes the musical rhythm in a found fragment and excerpts it to create a semantic abstraction. 7 “Which attitude seems most appealing to you today?” Schwitters is citing the interview with Roger Vitrac, “Tristan Tzara va cultiver ses vices” (Tristan Tzara will cultivate his vices), published in Le Journal du peuple (14 April 1923): 3. 8 “Ah! There is this very subtle manner, even in writing, of destroying taste to achieve literature; it is achieved by fighting taste using its own means and formulas.” 9 From the second stanza of the poem “Leichtsinn” (Foolishness, 1822) by August Graf von Platen-Hallermünde: “Wie manches ist vergangen! / Wie manches wird vergehn! / Wir wissen’s, wir verlangen, / Kein ewiges Bestehn!” (How much has passed! / How much will pass! / We know it, we demand, / No eternal permanence!). See text 47. 10 Geibel, “Spruch 15.” 11 Platen-Hallermünde, “Leichtsinn.” 12 Friedrich Schneider (1815– 64) was one of the publishers of Fliegende Blätter, the weekly humor magazine, which published numerous poems by Emanuel Geibel in 1845 and 1846.
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13 Wenn sone Geige angewärmt is, denn gehtse besser: Schwitters cites one of his banalities, attributed to Schneider; see text 51. 14 “This summer, the elephants will be sporting mustaches, AND YOU?” 15 “The pipes of the steamboats are black.”
Text 54 “You may tell all our friends that I will always be their friend.” A play on the name Arthur (i.e., Acht Uhr). Arthur Segal (1875– 1944) was a Romanian painter and printmaker affiliated with Der Sturm and Dada in Zurich. Schwitters met him in the early 1920s and greatly admired his work, publishing one of his prismatic landscape paintings in this issue of Merz (Merz 4. Banalitäten [July 1923]: 46). In August 1940, both artists were briefly interned together as “enemy aliens” at the Warth Mills Camp in Bury, Lancashire, and remained in contact during the war in London. 3 Art is simply art, nothing more. The editors. “Art is life” means “i inverted.” (Schwitters’s footnote.) 4 “The honorable Mr. Theo van Doesburg.” (Schwitters misspells “weledelgeboren.”) 5 On the same page, Schwitters reproduced a photograph of Theo van Doesburg wearing a moustache and goatee with the caption “J. K. Bonset[,] 1899.” 6 “Under the auspices of the French painter Albert Gleizes and the Spanish painter Olazabal Mr. Theo van Doesburg was introduced as an honorable member of ‘La Maison de l’Amérique Latine’ and the ‘Académie Internationale des Beaux Arts’ in Paris.” Schwitters quotes in full an announcement published in De Telegraf 31, no. 11864, morning edition (23 March 1923): 3. 1
2
Text 55 From Commerz- und Privatbank; see text 88. L Merzpicture L 3 (The Merzpicture.), 1919, CR 436; exhibited prominently in several iterations of Entartete Kunst (Degenerate art), 1933– 41, and formally confiscated by the Propaganda Ministry of the Nazi state in 1935. It was lost sometime after 1942. See text 29. 3 Motto printed on the vertical fold of G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung 1 (July 1923). 4 Cf. Sturm 14, 5 p. 74 “From the World Merz,” essay on the understanding of the Merztheater. (Schwitters’s footnote; see text 50.) 5 Schwitters’s nickname for his son, Ernst; on 12 December 1922, he would have been just a few weeks past his fourth birthday. 6 See text 51 and text 53. 7 “Watch step!” is in English in the original. 8 See text 58, announced in Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 37, with a reproduction of an advertising illustration of a camisole. 1
2
Text 56 1 Schwitters quotes Friedrich von Schiller’s “Das Lied von der Glocke” (“Song of the Bell,” 1799), but he omits several lines and dispenses with the original meter and rhyme. See text 19.
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Text 57 Text 46. Oskar Fischer (1892– 1955) was an expressionist painter active in the Sturm circle. He completed his painted facade for the Barasch department store in October 1921, stripping the building of its Wilhelmine-era ornament. With a color scheme that ranged from blue green to light gray, the abstract composition divided the facade into discrete cells bounded by curved, diagonal, and rectangular black outlines, similar to stained glass. Fischer used color to negate architectural contour and supplant sculptural decoration, and his approach inspired the treatment of other buildings in the city. 1
2
Text 58 Text 52. Schwitters replies to Friedrich Carl Kobbe, “Dada in Braunschweig: Nachtvorstellung im Operettenhaus,” Braunschweigische Landeszeitung (January 1924), reprinted as “Dada-Nachtvorstellung” in Hannoverscher Anzeiger (30 January 1924) and transcribed in Kurt Schwitters, Alle Texte: Die Sammelkladden 1919– 1923, ed. Ursula Kocher and Isabel Schulz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 670– 71. In this negative review of one of the artist’s “MerzEvening” performances, Kobbe characterized Merz as a kind of Dadaism, Schwitters himself as a profiteering “charlatan,” and the public as a “flock of sheep.” 3 See text 63. 4 See text 43, where this statement appears without the accented “dada.” 5 See text 43. This earlier text does not accent the word “dada” in these quotations. 6 The title of one of Schwitters’s favorite recital pieces; see text 8. 7 “There are no stupid jobs, there are only stupid people.” 8 Hans Richter (1888– 1976) was a painter, filmmaker, and writer. He joined the Dada movement in Zurich in 1916, and he was a contributor to the journal De Stijl. From 1923 to 1926, he edited the periodical G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung (see text 68). In 1946, he and Schwitters corresponded briefly over an idea to create an abstract animated film of the Ursonate (see text 99), but it was never realized. Richter later used a recording of Schwitters reciting this sound poem for his film Dadascope (1956– 68) and wrote several memoirs of their friendship, including a section of his book, Dada: Art and Anti-art (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1965). 1
2
Text 59 1 Otto Engau (1848– 1925) was an engineer and proprietor of a garden restaurant in the village of Laubegast (incorporated into the city of Dresden in 1921). He was a fervent admirer of Otto von Bismarck, and in 1908, on the tenth anniversary of the death of the “iron chancellor,” he established his private Bismarck-Ehrengarten (Honorary Bismarck Garden), which contained approximately five hundred commemorative stones, reliefs, and plaques. The restaurant eventually closed in 1945, and the garden was demolished; in 2008 a small group of the original stones and plaques were reassembled and installed in a park on the site. 2 Text reads: “This is the nail that BISMARCK always hits on the head.”
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3 Carl Bobe (1878– 1947) devised a modern postal code system for Germany in 1917. During the First World War he was briefly imprisoned as a pacifist, and upon his release he dedicated his time to publishing pamphlets on various topics, with a focus on new standards of efficiency for systems of production, distribution, and traffic circulation. After the war, he came in contact with the Berlin Dada group through Johannes Baader (see below). He lived in the village of Oerlinghausen in the Teutoburg forest, not far from the Hermann monument he discusses in the quotation Schwitters provides here. 4 The Hermann monument is a colossal statue dedicated to Arminius (Hermann), the leader of the Cherusci people who slaughtered three Roman legions in the Teutoburg forest in AD 9. This pivotal defeat of Rome’s imperial expansion north of the Alps was an important symbol for pan-German nationalism prior to unification in 1871. The monument was executed between 1838 and 1875 by Ernst von Bandel (1800– 1876), who was a resident of Hannover at the time of the commission. 5 Johannes Baader (1875– 1955) was a writer and artist affiliated with Dada in Berlin. The teaching of the Catholic Church formed the basis of many of his later Dada performances. The following statements were originally published as Die acht Weltsätze des Meisters Johannes Baader über die Ordnung der Menschheit im Himmel nebst Erklärungen desselben [The eight world theses of Master Johannes Baader concerning the order of humankind in heaven with explanations of the same] (1919), reprinted in Dada Berlin: Texte, Manifeste, Aktionen, ed. Karl Riha and Hanne Bergius (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1977), 41– 42. 6 Alfa bei Tische: The literal translation is “Alpha at table.” When read aloud, it sounds like an eccentric pronunciation of alphabetisch (alphabetic). This section is especially nonsensical, with a tenuous hold on correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation. 7 Georg Daniel “Danny” Gürtler (1875– 1971) was a German cabaret performer, poet, and stage and film actor. He was the author of a book of poems, König der Bohême (King of Bohemia) (Mannheim: Verlag Stern-Ellreich, 1907). 8 Schwitters combines his name with that of the politician Gustav Stresemann (1878– 1929), a central political figure of the Weimar Republic, who served as foreign minister from 1923 to 1929 and was the co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926 with French prime minister Aristide Briand. 9 Walter Dexel (1890– 1973) was a painter and graphic designer. From 1916 to 1928, he directed exhibitions at the Jena Kunstverein and in this capacity collaborated closely with Schwitters, beginning in 1919. His work was exhibited at Der Sturm and in the Abstract Cabinet of the Provinzialmuseum in Hannover, and he was a member of the ring neue werbegestalter (text 118). 10 Nickname for Ernst Schwitters. 11 Ich abäte nich for die Barrisahden der Gesellschaf: Schwitters is mimicking a particular accent or slurred speech. Raoul Dix is a combination of the names of the artists Raoul Hausmann and Otto Dix; likewise, Raoul Schrimpf (with the painter Georg Schrimpf) and Raoul Kemeny (with the Hungarian critic Alfréd Kemény), later in this list. 12 Karl Förster (1874– 1970) was a renowned horticulturist and author who established and cultivated an impressive garden in Bornim (Potsdam). He specialized in breeding perennials, including phlox. 13 On Hans Richter, see text 58. 14 “We are all dadá prior to the existence of dadá.”
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Heinrich Hoerle (1895– 1936) was a painter affiliated with Dada in Cologne. Notdurftkonstruktion: Schwitters amends the neologism Notkonstruktion (suggesting a stopgap or makeshift construction) with the word Notdurft, which refers to the vital necessity of emptying the bowels and bladder. 17 On Westheim, see text 23. Schwitters plays on the name of Westheim’s journal, Das Kunstblatt, which translates literally as “the art paper.” 18 “Never place the brush in the mouth.” 19 “From Doetinchem it is reported: ‘The news about an attempt by the Bolsheviks to come to our country appears to be a misunderstanding. This message was received by the commander of the police forces in ’s-Heerenberg, however, and immediate measures were taken by the police, but they proved unnecessary. A fairly large crowd stopped at the border for some time, but this was likely a fellowship of wandering clerics.’” 20 “In art is pleasure.” Below, the framed text reads: “The smell of other dogs is delicious,” from Anatole France, “Pensées de Riquet,” in Crainquebille, Putois, Riquet et plusieurs autres récits profitables (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1904), 118. The acclaimed French poet and novelist Anatole France (1844– 1924) won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921. 21 Salomo Friedländer (1871– 1946) was a philosopher and writer who published under the pseudonym Mynona (anonym, i.e., anonymous, spelled backward). His work appeared regularly in Der Sturm and Die Aktion. 22 “Poetry for those who do not comprehend.” 23 This aphorism is a mixture of German, Dutch, and English. A literal translation could be: “The people want to believe, and the man of Spirit will see, wants to see, wants to travel in order to see.” See text 98. 15 16
Text 60 1
“MERZ is pretty and alive, like a fish that says shit and hello.”
Text 61 English in the original. Aftermerzern, i.e., epigones of Merz. 3 In August 1923, Schwitters and his family spent a vacation with Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and Hannah Höch in Sellin on Rügen. See also text 8. 4 Ausmerzen: to eliminate, eradicate, or cut out. 5 Schwitters modifies the lyrics to the “Glühwürmchen-Idyll” (popularized in America as “The Glow-Worm”), which was a hit song from the 1902 operetta Lysistrata, by Paul Lincke (1866– 1946). 6 Schwitters adapts the “Deutschlandlied” (Song of Germany), the national anthem officially adopted on 11 August 1922 with lyrics by August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. He also alludes to Westheim’s dismissal of a music box in one of his own Merz-pictures (text 33). Rudolf Blümner (1873– 1945) was an actor, director, and prolific writer. He was a leading figure in the Sturm circle, particularly celebrated for his poetic recitation of the work of Else Lasker-Schüler, August Stramm, and others. He had roles in Der Golem (1915) and Fritz Lang’s M (1931), among other films. 1
2
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7 Mistweh is an anagrammatic play on “Westheim” that makes a compound word with the components Mist (dung, trash) and weh (pain, woe). 8 Schwitters included a fiftieth-birthday announcement for Blümner, which he ironically “dedicated to Mr. Paul Westheim, with admiration,” in Merz 6 / Arp 1 (October 1923): 63. 9 “Seated at the horizon, the others are going to sing.” See text 46. 10 On the “banalities” and their relationship to i, see text 51. 11 On the banalities of Ludwig Meidner and his reception in Das Kunstblatt, see text 53. 12 Fliegentod: A generic name for a fly-killing device made of paper soaked in a poison. 13 A reference to the fifth labor of Hercules, which involved cleaning the filthy stables of thousands of heads of cattle in a single day. 14 Tränen: Schwitters just uses the word for “tears” here, but he also intends for it to read as the plural form of “Tran” (see text 33). 15 Difficile est saturam non scribere: “. . . it is hard not to write satire.” From Juvenal, “Satire 1,” in Juvenal and Persius, ed. and trans. Susanna Morton Braund, Loeb Classical Library 91 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 132– 33.
Text 62 1 Über allen Gipfeln / Ist Ruh: First two lines of one of Goethe’s most celebrated poems, “Ein Gleiches” (“Another Nightsong”), written in 1780; translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Selected Poems, ed. Christopher Middleton, vol. 1 of The Collected Works (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 59. This poem was first published with the “Wanderers Nachtlied” (“Wanderer’s Nightsong,” written in 1776) in Goethe’s 1815 collection (see text 50). Karl Kraus cited these same lines as a “Wanderers Schlachtlied” (Wanderer’s slaughter song) in his tragedy about the First World War, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The last days of humanity, 1915– 22), and Bertolt Brecht parodied the poem in his “Liturgie vom Hauch” (Liturgy of breath, 1927). 2 An inhabitant of the Lüneburg Heath. 3 Schwitters published several alphabet poems in Elementar: Die Blume Anna; Die neue Anna Blume (Berlin: Verlag der Sturm, 1922); see text 46.
Text 63 1 Schwitters appears to make a distinction between the painting of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) and a sachlich approach to form, particularly in architecture and typography. The opposition is between a normative and an normalizing art, between a return to the illusionistic depiction of perceivable “reality” and the systematization of visual phenomena through a standardized approach to (abstract) form. 2 I.e., George Grosz. 3 Gruppe stupid was a short-lived group in Cologne, whose members included Anton Räderscheidt (1892– 1970) and Heinrich Hoerle (1895– 1936). It was founded in fall 1920 in a break with the Dada Weststupidien 3, which consisted of Johannes Baargeld (1892– 1927), Max Ernst (1891– 1976), and Hans Arp (1886– 1966). Gruppe stupid sought a more socially engaged, proletarian art; they disbanded after a few months. 4 See text 60.
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Text 65 1 Paul Westheim, “Allemagne: La situation des arts plastiques” [Germany: The situation of the plastic arts], L’Esprit Nouveau, no. 20 (1924): [23– 26]. 2 “The reaction must come.” 3 “There are always living corpses that rise up to fight against truth.” Le Corbusier, “Pérennité,” L’Esprit Nouveau, no. 20 (1924): [63].
Text 66 1 Founded in November 1918, the German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP) was committed to democratic and republican governance. Prominent members included Walther Rathenau, Max Weber, and Hugo Preuss, the main architect of the Weimar Constitution. Over the course of the 1920s, support for the party steadily waned, and in 1930, it merged with the nationalist, right-wing Young German Order (Jungdeutscher Orden) to form the German State Party (Deutsche Staatspartei, DStP); it was ultimately forced to dissolve in 1933. 2 Founded in 1891, the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband) was an extreme nationalist organization that promoted a radically expansionist foreign policy, aggressive colonialism, and the ideology of racial purity; it disbanded in 1939.
Text 67 1 Weichbild: A bounded area (similar to a pale or wick). The parts of this compound word describe a visible and delimited image (Bild) and the activity of giving way or ceding space (weichen).
Text 68 El Lissitzky, “Topographie der Typographie,” Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 47. G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung (G: Materials for Elemental Form-Creation) was first published in Berlin by Hans Richter together with El Lissitzky and Werner Graeff in July 1923; in June 1924, its format and title changed to G: Zeitschrift für elementare Gestaltung (G: Journal for Elemental Form-Creation), and it ceased publication with the fifth issue in 1926 (see text 55 and text 62). “Gestaltung der Reklame” (Form-creation in advertising, June 1924) was the title of a leaflet published by Max Burchartz (see text 10). ABC: Beiträge zum Bauen (ABC: Contributions to building) was founded in Zurich and edited by Mart Stam, Hans Schmidt, El Lissitzky, and Emil Roth (1924– 28). 1
2
Text 69 1 In 1924, Frederick Kiesler (1890– 1965) organized the groundbreaking Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik (International exhibition of new theater technology) as part of the Music and Theater Festival of Vienna. The exhibition consisted of theater designs,
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sketches for costumes and sets, posters, and models by avant-garde practitioners from Russia, Italy, Germany, France, and Austria. See text 75. Text 72 1 Schwitters’s arithmetic is incorrect. Each integer in the sequence he provides is the result of dividing the previous integer in the sequence by 2. It should read: 90, 45, 22 ½, 11 ¼, and so on.
Text 73 1 No manuscript numbered 101 survives. For similar details, see text 72, which Schwitters labeled manuscript number 100. 2 See text 69. 3 See text 75.
Text 75 See text 69. B. F. Dolbin, “Die internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik in Wien: Nachworte,” Der Sturm 16, no. 7/8 (1925): 97– 100. Dolbin discussed Schwitters’s Standard Merz Stage in the context of exhibitors like the architects Oskar Strnad, Hans Fritz, and Fritz Schumacher, whose submissions stressed “a kind of economization of the scene changes” yet “do not demand any attendant change in theatrical performance” (99). He is credited in his byline as an engineer based in Vienna. 3 See text 50. Here again Schwitters has Dolbin’s criticism in mind, which characterized his Merz-theater and contemporary improvisational theater in general as fundamentally outmoded, representative of “an ineffectual attempt to draw the masses into the performance.” Dolbin, “Die internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik,” 99. 4 No illustration of these sectionals survives. 5 Callouts for illustrations in Helma Schwitters’s hand are italicized; the images have not survived. 6 The last four sentences of this paragraph are crossed out in ink in the original typescript. 1
2
Text 76 1 A lamella roof construction developed by the architect Friedrich Zollinger (1880– 1945), who patented it as Zollbau in 1921. It consists of short planks of timber (lamellae) that interlock to form a diamond-patterned network. The vaulted roof can be quickly constructed to span a large area without any supporting pillars. 2 Schwitters’s word here is Zweckbau; see Adolf Behne, Der moderne Zweckbau (Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, 1926), which enlisted Gut Garkau as a central example. Translated by Michael Robinson as The Modern Functional Building (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1996).
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3 Willem Marinus Dudok (1884– 1974) was a Dutch modernist architect known for his work in brick. He was the director of Public Works and Municipal Architect of Hilversum from 1915 to 1954, where his most famous work is the town hall (designed 1924; completed 1931). 4 The illustrations intended to accompany this text have not survived.
Text 78 1 Schwitters refers to the aphorism by Johann Gottfried Herder, which was widely quoted and repurposed by artists and writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: “Kunst kommt von können oder kennen her (nosse aut posse), vielleicht von beiden, wenigstens muss sie beides in gehörigem Grad verbinden.” (Art is derived from faculty or knowledge, perhaps from both; at least it must combine both to a considerable degree.) See Kalligone: Von Kunst und Kunstrichterei, in Hans Dietrich Irmscher, ed., Johann Gottfried Herder: Werke in zehn Bänden (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1998), 8:759. 2 Jakob van Domselaer (1890 – 1960) was a Dutch composer, who, after meeting Piet Mondrian in Paris in 1912, began to apply the principles of Neo-Plasticism to music. 3 See text 60. 4 Schwitters included the same illustration of the apocryphal canals of Mars in the festival brochure he designed for the 1928 Fest der Technik (see text 110) as he and Lissitzky did for Merz 8/9. Nasci; in both publications, it appeared on the final page, without any comparative artwork. 5 Wilhelm Leibl (1844– 1900) was a realist painter known for his portraits and genre scenes of peasant life. In 1869, Gustave Courbet recognized one of his portraits as the best oil painting at the Great International Art Exhibition in Munich. He was awarded an invitation to Paris, where he met Édouard Manet and submitted work to the Paris Salon.
Text 79 1 The work of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867– 1959) was enormously influential in Germany, particularly through the publication of the Wasmuth Portfolio in 1910. Here Schwitters refers to his residential “Prairie House” design type, exemplified by the Robie House in the South Side of Chicago, which was distinguished by its extended horizontal lines, cantilevered roofs, interior spatial continuity, and integration of furniture and ornament. 2 On Jan Wils, see text 43. 3 Gerrit Rietveld (1888– 1964) was a furniture designer and architect affiliated with De Stijl. In 1924, he completed his first architectural commission, the house for Truus SchröderSchräder in Utrecht (see fig. 25 and text 120). 4 Living in Paris in 1923, Cornelis van Eesteren (1897– 1988) collaborated with Theo van Doesburg on several of the most celebrated architectural designs of De Stijl, and together they published the manifesto “Vers une construction collective” in De Stijl (1924). At the time Schwitters wrote this review, van Eesteren was working in the office of Jan Wils. 5 On Mies van der Rohe, see text 98. 6 On Hugo Häring, see text 76. 7 Heinrich Kosina (1899– 1977) and Paul Mahlberg (1889– 1970) designed the original
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structures for the Tempelhof airport in Berlin, completed in 1927. Schwitters intended to publish a monograph dedicated to their work as the second volume of the Neue Architektur series with the Aposs Press, which he founded with Käte Steinitz, but this project was never realized. 8 Adolf Meyer (1881– 1929) and Walter Gropius (1883– 1969) worked together in the office of Peter Behrens and established their own practice in 1910. As director of the Bauhaus from 1919 to 1928, Gropius appointed Meyer to teach architecture. When the school moved to Dessau in 1925, Meyer joined the urban planning commission of “Das neue Frankfurt” (The new Frankfurt; see text 98). 9 Ludwig Hilberseimer (1885– 1967) was an urban planner, architect, critic, and teacher. Together with László Péri, he exhibited architectural designs at Der Sturm in October 1924, and on this occasion, he published “Grosstadtarchitektur” (Metropolis architecture) in Der Sturm 15, no. 4 (1924): 177– 89. He expanded this essay into the book Grosstadtbauten, which he published with Schwitters with Aposs in 1925, the sole issue of an intended series dedicated to Neue Architecktur (New architecture; see fig. 29). 10 See related visual comparisons in Merz 8/9. Nasci (April– June 1924): 81– 82, 85– 86. 11 The Haus am Horn in Weimar was designed by Georg Muche (1895– 1987), executed by Meyer, and completed for the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition. This house was presented together with Gropius’s “Baukasten” (Building blocks), a modular prefabricated building system, in Adolf Meyer, ed., Ein Versuchshaus des Bauhauses in Weimar, Bauhaus-Buch 3 (Munich: Albert Langen, 1925). 12 The Fagus-Werk in Alfeld, south of Hannover, is a shoe last factory commissioned by owner Carl Benscheidt and constructed between 1911 and 1913. Designed by Gropius and Meyer, it is a landmark example of modern industrial architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage site. 13 Peter Behrens (1868– 1940) became the artistic adviser to the Allgemeine ElektrizitätsGesellschaft (AEG) in 1907, the same year he helped to establish the German Werkbund. Many leading modern architects were his students and assistants, including Gropius, Meyer, and Mies van der Rohe. 14 On Bruno Taut, see text 34 and text 57. 15 Hans Poelzig (1869– 1936) was a leading expressionist architect and teacher, whose major commissions include the Grosses Schauspielhaus theater in Berlin (1919) and the IG Farben Building (1928– 31). 16 Erich Mendelsohn (1887– 1953) received international acclaim for his Einsteinturm (Einstein Tower, 1919– 24) in Potsdam. This observatory and astrophysical laboratory remains a landmark of architectural expressionism, whose curvilinear forms and uniform surface treatment give it a sculpted appearance. 17 The journal Wendingen (1918– 31) was the chief organ of the expressionist Amsterdam school, characterized by brick construction. 18 See text 57. The spelling here is Märzheft, literally “March issue” but in fact a homophone for Merzheft (Merz issue). 19 Taut’s cattle auction hall for Magdeburg (1921– 22) was a ferro-concrete structure illustrated in Walter Gropius, ed., Internationale Architektur, Bauhaus-Buch 1 (Munich: Albert Langen, 1925), 37, a book Schwitters endorses at the end of this review. 20 Schwitters has in mind the Posen factory by Poelzig and the corn silos reproduced
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in Gropius, Internationale Architektur, 16, 39, and 46– 47; he may also have known images of American grain silos recently published by Erich Mendelsohn in his photobook Amerika: Bilderbuch eines Architekten (Berlin: Rudolf Mosse, 1926). 21 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (dir. Robert Wiene, 1920), one of the representative films of German expressionist cinema. 22 The rectilinear double villa Mendelsohn designed for himself and Dr. Kurt Heymann at Karolinger Platz in Berlin (1921– 22) was the first project the architect realized after the Einstein Tower; Gropius illustrated it in Internationale Architektur, 65. Text 80 1
The published excerpt begins with this sentence and continues to the end of the text.
Text 81 On Schwitters’s teachers at the Dresden Academy, see text 26. The typescript for Hildebrandt erroneously reads “Professor.” 3 In 1924, both Schwitters and El Lissitzky designed advertisements for the PelikanWerke, a subsidiary of Günther Wagner Inc. and a major manufacturer of ink, paints, pens, and typewriter supplies based in Hannover. Schwitters dedicated Merz 11. Typoreklame PelikanNummer to this work. Owner Fritz Beindorff (1860– 1944) was a leading patron of the KestnerGesellschaft, and through this engagement, his family amassed a significant collection of expressionist and constructivist artworks. In 1930, Pelikan supported the creation of a Museum für das vorbildlich Serienprodukt (Museum for the exemplary mass product) within the Kestner-Gesellschaft, which showcased modern architecture and design. 4 See text 79. 5 Das Weib entzückt durch seine Beine, ich bin ein Mann, ich habe keine: One of Schwitters‘s favorite aphorisms; see text 88 and text 102. 6 The sound poetry in the typescript for Hildebrandt reads: “Fümmsböwötääzääuu, pögiff, kwiiee. Dedes nn nn rrrrr, ii ee, mpifftillfftoo tilll, Jüü kaa? Rinnzekete bee bee nnz krr müü, ziiuu ennze ziiuu rinnzkrrmüü; rakete bee bee. Rumpfftilfftoo? Ziiuu ennze ziiuu nnz krr müü, ziiuu ennze ziiuu rinnzkrrmüü; kakete bee bee, rakete bee zee. — Fümms bö wö tää zää uu, Uu zee tee wee bee fümmmmms! . . . . .” 7 See text 99. The typescript for Hildebrandt omits “in America, typography by El Lissitzky.” Lissitzky’s disinterest in the design of the Ursonate led to a falling out between the two friends, which Schwitters discusses in a letter to Katherine S. Dreier, 16 September 1926; reprinted in Wir spielen, bis uns der Tod abholt: Briefe aus fünf Jahrzehnten, ed. Ernst Nündel (Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1974), 102– 10. 1
2
Text 82 1 At the time Schwitters wrote this text, there was a typhoid epidemic in Hannover, which forced the family to stay in Retelsdorf, Mecklenburg, with Helma’s brother. The typescript draft included (Reichspresident Paul von) Hindenburg at the start of this list of luminaries. On Otto Gleichmann, see text 15; on Alexander Dorner, see text 112. Fritz Haarmann
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(1879– 1925), known as the Butcher (or Vampire) of Hannover, was convicted of murdering twenty-four boys and young men and executed by guillotine in April 1925. Haarmann falsely implicated the collector Garvens (see text 13), claiming he had carried out his murders to silence prostitutes he had brokered for him. Wilhelm Groß (dates unknown) was a self-taught artist; Garvens exhibited his wooden masks in an exhibition with Schwitters and Gleichmann in 1922. Peter Behrens (see text 79) designed the administrative building for the Continental-Caoutchouc- und Gutta-Percha Compagnie in Hannover (completed 1914). 2 In 1926, Dorner commissioned Lissitzky to create a space for abstract art in the Provinzialmuseum, the Kabinett der Abstrakten (Abstract Cabinet). Schwitters could only be talking about the design phase here, which Lissitzky started in August; construction began in 1927, and it opened to the public early in 1928. See text 112. 3 Members of die abstrakten hannover; see text 95. Text 83 1 The shorthand manuscript indicates that Schwitters was revising the wording of this sentence as he was drafting these notes. The name Mavo appears in standard script in the shorthand manuscript. Spearheaded by Murayama Tomoyoshi (1902– 77), Mavo was an avant-garde group based in Tokyo that published an eponymous journal from July 1924 through August 1925. Tomoyoshi had lived in Berlin for most of 1922, and during this period, he became personally acquainted with Herwarth Walden, exhibited widely, and participated in the Congress of International Progressive Artists in Düsseldorf. Murayama received a copy of Merz 8/9. Nasci (April– July 1924) from El Lissitzky, and Schwitters himself sent him a text on the Merz-theater and reproductions of his work for publication in Mavo in early 1925. Lissitzky and Arp included Mavo work in the “Merz” section of Die Kunstismen / Les ismes de l’art / The Isms of Art (Erlenbach-Zurich: Eugen Rentsch, 1925), 11. 2 See text 1. 3 On Schwitters’s teachers at the Dresden Academy, see text 26. 4 See text 88.
Text 88 1 Adolf Behne, review of Schwitters’s April 1920 exhibition at Der Sturm, Der Cicerone 12, no. 10 (May 1920): 416. Schwitters rearranged sentences from different sections of the review, citing all but the last sentence faithfully. In the original, this line reads: “He hates the material, the indirect, and seeks the immediate, the spirit.” 2 This retrospective was the Große Merzausstellung 1927, which toured to the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, the Städtische Gemäldegalerie in Bochum, and the Ruhmeshalle in Barmen. Here Schwitters tells us about other venues in Dresden (venue not specified), Frankfurt (Kunstsalon L. Schames), Cologne (Galerie Dr. Becker und Alfred Newman), and Hannover (Kunstverein Hannover). However, these exhibitions could not be confirmed by external sources. The selection of works Schwitters mentions were on view in the exhibition Der Sturm: 155. Ausstellung. Kurt Schwitters, Lajos d’Ebneth, Arnold Topp at the Galerie Der Sturm in November 1926.
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On Schwitters’s teachers at the Dresden Academy, see text 26. Schwitters refers to his works by the exhibition catalogue numbers listed in Merz 20 (see table, below in the text). None of the early paintings Schwitters mentions here survive: The Cauldron Carrier, 1913, CR 63 [cat. 1]; Cornfield, 1913, CR 66 [cat. 2]; Evening Landscape in Kollau near Leipzig, 1913, CR 68 [cat. 3]; Spinstress, 1914, CR 92 [cat. 4]; and Portrait of Abbu Becker, 1921, CR 788 [cat. 17]. Cat. 31 could be either Barn in Retelsdorf, Mecklenburg, 1926, CR 1361 (lost), or Untitled (Farm in Retelsdorf, Mecklenburg), 1926?, CR 1362 (Sprengel Museum Hannover). 5 Landscape from Opherdicke/Opferdicke Estate, 1917, CR 190 [cat. 8], and Bouquet, 1918, CR 234 [cat. 10], both currently in the collection of the Kurt und Ernst Schwitters Stiftung, Hannover. The remaining five works cited here are lost: Still-Life with Thistles, 1916, CR 150 [cat. 6]; Factory Fort (Wülfel Iron Works), 1918, CR 233 [cat. 9]; Ohlenhausen, 1918, CR 235 [cat. 11]; The Satellite, 1918, CR 236 [cat. 12]; Rooms, 1918, CR 237 [cat. 13]. 6 See fig. 5 and Text 55. 7 Das Undbild (The And Picture), 1919, CR 447 (Staatsgalerie Stuttgart), and Das Arbeiterbild. (The Worker Picture.), 1919, CR 443 (Moderna Museet, Stockholm). 8 Three of these works survive: Merz Picture K 6 The Huth Picture, 1919, CR 438 [cat. 14]; Merzpicture 9 b The Great I Picture / Merzpicture K 7 [?], 1919, CR 430 [cat. 15]; Merzpicture 46 A. The Skittle Picture, 1921, CR 781 [cat. 16]. The Twin Picture, 1922, CR 936 [cat. 18], and Tokyo Picture, 1923, CR 1095 [cat. 19], are lost. 9 Of these works, only MERZ 1924,1. Relief with Cross and Sphere., 1924, CR 1211 [cat. 28], survives. The remaining seven works have all been lost: Merz 1025 with Red Circle, 1924, CR 1209 [cat. 21]; Relief with Painted Yellow Rectangle / Merz Relief with Diagonal Yellow, 1924, CR 1213 [cat. 22]; Merz 1008 Wiesbaden, 1924, CR 1208 [cat. 23]; White Relief, 1927, CR 1500 [cat. 24]; Merz 1007 Rods and Circles, 1924, CR 1207 [cat. 25]; Merz Relief with Black Block, 1924 CR 1212 [cat. 26]; Merz Relief with Red Wreath, 1924, CR 1215 [cat. 27]. 10 Schwitters met the Hungarian painter Lajos d’Ébneth (1902– 82) on a trip to the Netherlands in 1925. During a visit to The Hague with Katherine Dreier in June 1926, d’Ébneth invited him to his home in the coastal town of Kijkduin, where they worked together for a month. This stay would be one of the most stimulating and productive periods of his career. Of the works listed, six survive: MERZ 1926,3. Cicero, 1926, CR 1343 [cat. 34]; MERZ 1926,5 Vertical-Horizontal, 1926, CR 1345 [cat. 36]; MERZ 1926,8 / Picture 1926,8 Shifted Planes, 1926, CR 1348 [cat. 39]; MERZ 1926,12. “Little Seaman’s Home.,” 1926, CR 1352 [cat. 43]; Picture 1926,13 with Yellow Block / Merz Picture with Yellow Block, 1926, CR 1353 [cat. 44]; Picture 1926,14 with Green Ring / Merz Picture with Green Ring, 1926 and 1937, CR 1354 [cat. 45]. The remaining eight works are lost: Picture 1926.1 Prayer over the City, 1926, CR 1341 [cat. 32]; Picture 1926.2 Square on 8 Sides, 1926, CR 1342 [cat. 33]; Picture 1926.4 With Red Circle, 1926, CR 1344 [cat. 35]; Picture 1926.6 with White Lacquer Circle, 1926, CR 1346 [cat. 37]; Picture 1926.7 Relief on White, 1926, CR 1347 [cat. 38]; Picture 1926,9 Blue, Yellow, Red, Circle, 1926, CR 1349 [cat. 40]; Picture 1926,10 Like a Star, 1926, CR 1350 [cat. 41]; Picture 1926,11 As If by Ebneth, 1926, CR 1351 [cat. 42]. 11 Both pictures are lost: Picture with Sphere and Tail / Picture with Sphere and Red Wave, 1927, CR 1499 [cat. 46], and Picture with Beam and Circle, 1927, CR 1497 [cat. 47]. 12 Cat. 17 is a portrait, and cat. 31 is a landscape (noted above). 3
4
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13 Here Schwitters reproduced MERZ 1925,1 Relief in Blue Square, 1925, CR 1277 [cat. 30]. 14 Here Schwitters reproduced the same photograph as in fig. 8. 15 Text 46. 16 Text 57. 17 At the end of this section, Schwitters reproduced neither a collage nor an i-drawing, but an early cubo-expressionist chalk drawing, The Prisoner, 1918, CR 368. 18 Anna Blume: Dichtungen (Hannover: Paul Steegemann Verlag, 1919; rev. ed. 1922); Tran Nr. 30. Auguste Bolte (ein Lebertran.) (Berlin: Verlag Der Sturm, 1923); SturmBilderbücher IV: Kurt Schwitters (Berlin: Verlag Der Sturm, 1921); Elementar: Die Blume Anna; Die neue Anna Blume, eine Gedichtsammlung aus den Jahren 1918– 1922 (Berlin: Verlag Der Sturm, 1922); Memoiren Anna Blumes in Bleie: Eine leichtfassliche Methode zur Erlernung des Wahnsinns für Jedermann (Freiburg [Baden]: Walter Heinrich, 1922); Kurt Schwitters and Käte Steinitz, Die Märchen vom Paradies (Hannover: Aposs Verlag, 1924), reissued as Merz 16/17 (1925); Kurt Schwitters, Käte Steinitz, and Theo van Doesburg, Die Scheuche: Märchen (Hannover: Aposs Verlag, 1925), reissued as Merz 14/15. 19 “Undumm,” Der Zeltweg 1 (November 1919): 20; translation by Pierre Joris in Kurt Schwitters, pppppp: Poems, Performances, Pieces, Proses, Plays, Poetics, ed. and trans. Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris (Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2002), 3. 20 See text 81. 21 Schwitters cites a short poem in full; he published this version in “Kleine Dinge von Kurt Schwitters” (Little things by Kurt Schwitters) in the festival brochure, Zinnober Festschrift (Hannover, 1928), 10. He first published a mixed German and Dutch version as “Die zute Tute” in Merz 4. Banalitäten (July 1923): 37. 22 See text 99. 23 This sound poem was reworked and incorporated into the opening of the cadenza of the Ursonate, published in full as Merz 24 (1932). In that context, Schwitters made the following note: “The cadenza can be newly composed from parts of the whole sonata by the performer. That aside, in what follows, I provide a general cadenza with new themes here.” 24 “Punsch von Nobel” (5 October 1925) and “Totenbett mit happy end” (Deathbed with happy end, 1925), reprinted in Schwitters, Das literarische Werk, ed. Friedhelm Lach (Cologne: DuMont), 2:172– 203, 4:141– 56. 25 Unless noted otherwise, all these stories were reprinted in Schwitters, Das literarische Werk, vol. 2: “Die Lotterie,” Berliner Tageblatt (13 September 1926); “Das geliehene Fahrrad,” Hannoverscher Kurier (26 March 1926); “Brautwerbung,” Badische Presse (12 November 1926); “[Der] Zauberkünstler,” Hannoversches Tageblatt (9 January 1927); “Radio” (unknown work); “Horizontale Geschichte,” Hannoversches Tageblatt (26 February 1928); “Affe tot . . . Bude zu” (unknown work); “[Der] Schweinehirt und Dichterfürst,” Hannoversches Tageblatt (4 August 1927); “Sieben Hasen,” Hannoverscher Kurier (16 November 1926); “[Die] Piepmänner und Schwein,” Braunschweiger Neuste Nachrichten (11 April 1926); “Mein Selbstmord” (original publication unknown, if any); “[Rundfahrt im] Hamburger Hafen,” Hamburger Anzeiger (22 May 1926). 26 Translation by Jerome Rothenberg in Schwitters, pppppp, 88. 27 This poem was later published in the Zinnober Festschrift; reprinted in Schwitters, Das literarische Werk, 1:101.
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28 The Bund der Deutschen Gebrauchsgraphiker was founded in 1919 and was the first professional association in Germany for graphic designers. 29 On this page promoting his services as a graphic designer, Schwitters reproduced L Merzbild L 3 (Das Merzbild.) (see fig. 5) and his signet for the Merzwerbezentrale (MerzAdvertising Agency, WVZ 41).
Text 89 See text 57. Bergmann-Michel exhibited her collages at the Nassauischer Kunstverein in Wiesbaden in March 1927. 1
2
Text 90 1 The score used by Kandinsky is a transcription for piano of the opening five bars of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. 2 I.e., red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
Text 91 1 Schwitters is referring to the difference between just intonation and equal temperament here.
Text 92 1 In October 1926, the Bauhaus in Dessau officially assumed the secondary name “Hochschule für Gestaltung.” 2 See text 79. 3 Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud (1890– 1963), Dutch architect and urban planner, closely associated, but not affiliated, with De Stijl through his friendship with Theo van Doesburg and ties to the Bauhaus. In 1918, he was appointed municipal architect of Rotterdam, and his work was included in the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart in 1927 (text 98). On Jan Wils, see text 43. 4 On Hilberseimer, Kosina, and Mahlberg, see text 79; on Mies van der Rohe and May, see text 98; on Haesler, see text 105; on Mendelsohn, see text 115. Hans Hopp (1890– 1971) was a prominent architect in Königsberg and advocate for modern art and architecture; Schwitters may have become aware of his work following a lecture Hopp delivered at the Kestner-Gesellschaft on 5 November 1925, “Vom Sinn des Bauens” (On the meaning of building). Schwitters likely came in contact with the architect Gustav Lüdecke (1890– 1976) during a recital of his poetry in Holzminden in February 1927; Lüdecke introduced him to the young painter Rudolf Jahns, who would become a member of die abstrakten hannover the following month. 5 Willi Baumeister (1889– 1955) was a painter, writer, and member of the ring neue werbegestalter. In 1927, he joined the faculty of the Frankfurt School of Applied Arts, where he taught commercial art, typography, and textile printing. Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart
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(1899– 1962) was a painter and typographer with an abiding interest in constructivism; he was a founding member of die abstraken hannover, the ring neue werbegestalter, and AbstractionCréation (see text 95 and text 118). 6 See fig. 26 and text 78. 7 Fremdwörter ist Glücksache: This idiom literally translates as “[the use of] foreign words is a matter of luck.” It is used ironically when someone uses a scholarly term or erudite phrase incorrectly when trying to impress. Text 94 1 Clarence D. Chamberlin (1893– 1976) was the second pilot to cross the Atlantic and the first to do so with a passenger, flying from New York to Berlin 4– 6 June 1927. 2 See text 57. Schwitters also refers to the competition Bruno Taut staged in June 1922 to update the “general aesthetic guidelines” for the city’s department of advertising and marketing, which was part of his jurisdiction. Walter Gropius and the expressionist painter and set designer Cesár Klein were among the jurors. 3 Props from popular movies were exhibited at the Hall of Industry. The biggest attraction was the twenty-one-meter (sixty-foot) dragon built by Erich Kettelhut for Die Nibelungen: Part 1; Siegfried (dir. Fritz Lang, 1924). Canvas plastered on chicken wire was used to construct the hollow body, which provided space for around ten people, who operated the legs, neck, mouth, tongue, and eyes. The entire structure was mounted on trolley and required at least six additional people to push it across the set. 4 Alexander László (1895– 1970) was a Hungarian pianist, composer, and inventor. In 1925, he introduced his Sonchromatoscope device, a piano with a screen for coordinated colored light projection. The same year, he published the treatise Die Farblichtmusik (Colorlight music). 5 In 1914, the Russian director Alexander Tairov (1885– 1950) founded the Chamber Theater in Moscow, which remained a center of experimental performance after the revolution until it was censured in 1928 by Stalin. Anton Giulio Bragaglia (1890– 1960) was the leading theorist of photography among the futurists, yet with his exclusion from the group in 1913, his work shifted to film and theater. In 1922, he founded the “Teatro degli Indipendenti” (Theater of the independents), where he staged avant-garde art exhibitions and performances. He elaborated his theories of the theater in Maschera mobile (Mobile masks, 1926) and Del teatro teatrale ossia del teatro (On theatrical theater, namely, the theater, 1927). 6 See figs. 7 and fig. 8, text 70, and text 72. On Molzahn, see text 10. 7 See text 75. 8 Seppl, an abbreviation for Josef, is a common Bavarian name. It also describes the traditional Bavarian costume of Lederhose with a green felt cap, as well as a character from the German version of the Punch and Judy puppet show. Sichelleim is the brand name for a kind of glue invented by Ferdinand Sichel from Hannover.
Text 96 1 In the version published in Der Sturm, “optophonetic” was given visual emphasis through wider spacing. Raoul Hausmann began writing “optophonetic poems” (optophonetische
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Gedichte) in 1920, for which letters of varying size and thickness served as a form of musical notation. For Hausmann, his desire “to give the vibrations of light and tone a combined form” led him to develop, in 1922, a version of the Optophone, an electrical apparatus for converting images into sounds and vice versa. This research relates to Schwitters’s own sustained fascination with the correspondence of vibrations of light and sound and was likely a topic of discussion during their 1921 trip to Prague to perform their poetry together. See Raoul Hausmann, “Optophonetika,” Vesch’ 3 (May 1922); reprinted as “Optophonetik,” in Sieg Triumph Tabak mit Bohnen: Texte bis 1933, vol. 2, ed. Michael Erlhoff (Munich: text + kritik, 1982), 51– 57. 2 These two sentences did not appear in Der Sturm. 3 This sentence was removed in the version for Der Sturm. 4 Both the i 10 and Der Sturm publications incorrectly refer the reader to a “vertical directional bar.” However, Schwitters is clearly discussing the labels for parts of the throat and mouth that progress horizontally along the bottom of the grid. 5 I.e., fig. 18: table 2, section (1), row (d). 6 This parenthetical did not appear in the version for Der Sturm. For more on the measurement of type, see text 122. 7 This sentence did not appear in Der Sturm. 8 This last sentence and the reproductions to which it refers did not appear in Der Sturm. Text 98 1 “Auszug aus der Niederschrift der Bauabteilung des Gemeinderats von 16. Oktober 1925,” in Karin Kirsch, ed., Briefe zur Weißenhofsiedlung (Stuttgart: DVA, 1997), 32. 2 A mixture of German, Dutch, and English, a literal translation could be: “The people want to believe, and the man of Spirit will see, wants to see, wants to travel in order to see.” See text 59. 3 Werner Graeff (1901– 78) was a painter, photographer, and graphic designer, who had been affiliated with the Bauhaus, De Stijl, and the journal G. In 1926, Mies van der Rohe appointed him as chief press officer for Die Wohnung. 4 Carl Johannes Fuchs (1865– 1934), professor of economics, edited a book for the Deutscher Bund Heimatschutz (German Union of Heritage Conservation) on Die Wohnungsund Siedlungsfrage nach dem Kriege (The housing question after the war; Stuttgart: MeyerIlschen, 1918). Heimatschutzmann conflates Heimatschutz (heritage conservation) and Schutzmann (a constable or, literally, a person who protects). The version in i 10 emphasized the construction with quotation marks, preserved here. 5 Mitesser: In very colloquial terms, this word can mean “fellow diner,” however it primarily refers to blackheads, which were once believed to be parasitic worms that infested children. 6 This paragraph was added to the version in Der Sturm. 7 Wilhelm Bazille (1874– 1934) was president of the Free People’s State of Württemberg from June 1924 to June 1928. He was a member of the German National People’s Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP), a conservative and nationalist party. 8 Schwitters mimics a Swabian accent, conveyed in translation only through the proper names, which have been italicized to highlight this tonal variation. 9 Summer residence of the king of Württemberg (constructed 1845– 53). The City of Stuttgart purchased the mansion in 1913 and renovated it in 1925.
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10 Otto Reiniger (1863– 1909) was an impressionist landscape painter from Stuttgart. Fifty-five of his paintings were on view in the renovated Villa Berg. 11 Schwitters colored this sentence and the following one with a Swabian accent. 12 On Westheim, see text 23. 13 Schwitters notes the similarity between the name Bazille and Typhusbazillus (typhoid bacillus); see text 82. 14 Schwitters colors this sentence with a Swabian accent. 15 On Hilberseimer, see text 79. Hilberseimer edited the book Internationale Neue Baukunst [New international architecture] (Stuttgart: J. Hoffmann, 1927), which surveyed the projects exhibited in the “Internationale Plan- und Modellaustellung Neuer Baukunst.” 16 The rest of this paragraph after this sentence was added to the version in Der Sturm. 17 See text 76. 18 See text 92. 19 Behrens (see text 79) was the oldest architect to participate in the Weissenhofsiedlung, and a number of the younger architects included had apprenticed with him, such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Adolf Rading. His contribution consisted of a townhouse with twelve apartments, each with access to outdoor space, yet it was criticized for its conventional masonry and cutout windows. The two-story, one-family home by Poelzig (see text 79) included a sun terrace, garden, and adjoining winter garden; it was destroyed by bombing in 1944. 20 On Dudok, see text 76. Michel de Klerk (1884– 1923) was a leading architect of the Amsterdam school, known today for his building “Het Schip” (The Ship) in the city’s Spaarndammerbuurt district. 21 Sine ira et studio: “without anger or zeal.” This phrase, coined by Tacitus at the start of his Annals (1.1.3), expresses the historian’s claim to be free of bias. 22 The public abattoir (1919– 24; extension 1934) was one of the first projects Dudok completed as the director of public works and city architect of Hilversum. Seen from the market square, its large, windowless volumes, grouped asymmetrically around a central tower, gave a monumental appearance. Banks of windows and delivery ports were consigned to the rear of the building. 23 Victor Bourgeois (1897– 1962) was a Belgian architect and urban planner, best known for the housing estate Cité Moderne, completed in 1925 outside Brussels. For the Weissenhofsiedlung, he designed a two-story, single-family house. The private client, art historian Dr. Boll, had originally enlisted Adolf Loos (1870– 1933), but the organizers decided against his participation. 24 In the version published in i 10, this read: “It has nothing of the theater of the masses about it.” 25 On Oud, see text 92. 26 The architects Schwitters does not name are Richard Döcker (1894– 1968), Josef Frank (1885– 1967), Hans Scharoun (1893– 1972), Adolf Schneck (1883– 1971), and Max Taut (1884– 1967). 27 Adolf Rading (1888– 1957) contributed a single-family house with sliding walls and folding doors, which made the interior space flexible. The visual emphasis he gave to electric wiring and water and gas pipes was heavily criticized. The building was demolished in 1956. 28 Hilberseimer’s contribution was a house for a family of six. He asserted that families with children ought to live in single-family houses in suburban garden settlements like the
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Weissenhofsiedlung, while high-rise buildings in the city center organized like hotels would cater to childless couples and single people. 29 “Das neue Frankfurt” (The New Frankfurt) was one of the largest and most influential urban development and housing projects in interwar Europe. Ernst May (1886– 1970) was appointed city architect in 1924, and he proposed a decentralized urban plan of seventeen satellite developments. By 1929, nearly a quarter of the planned ten thousand units had been built. This rapid pace was due, in part, to standardization and the use of prefabricated elements. 30 The Dutch architect Mart Stam (1899– 1986) aimed to standardize building types to make architecture more rational and economic. For the Weissenhofsiedlung, he designed a three-family townhouse, unifying form through the repetition of window and door elements. Schwitters also refers to the stairwell in the single-family house designed by Scharoun, whose sloping form was visible from the exterior and accentuated with color. 31 Stam first exhibited his revolutionary design for a cantilevered chair at the Weissenhofsiedlung. It was the first to use a single piece of a bent steel rod (later tubular steel) to create a chair without back legs. Stam began to consider this idea as early as 1921 or 1922; he fabricated the prototype in 1926. 32 See text 89. 33 Bimsbetonplattenhaus: This type of prefabricated house was used in the New Frankfurt after 1926; it was constructed with made-to-measure pumice cement walls following the Frankfurter Montageverfahren, a special assembly method developed for the estates. This method and the house were on display at the Weissenhofsiedlung experimental building site. 34 See text 57. Taut’s single-family house was painted red, blue, green, and yellow. 35 In the version in i 10, this line reads: “Otherwise, Bruchsal is more rococo than Taut.” 36 Established in 1877, Ullstein remains one of the largest newspaper and book publishing concerns in Germany. Text 99 1 In the example that Schwitters provides above, 4/4 functions like a time signature in conventional musical notation. The numbers below the sounds that follow therefore indicate the relative length of a given tone, with 1 functioning like a whole note (semibreve), 4 like a quarter note (crotchet), and 8 like an eighth note (quaver). The stacked numbers indicate intervals of silence (rest), i.e., three eighth rests (3/8) or one quarter rest (1/4), respectively. The score of the Ursonate does not use this notation but rather spells out the sounds to represent their relative length and rhythm. 2 The original publication incorrectly lists a second u where clearly Schwitters intended an ü. 3 Raoul Hausmann, Plakatgedicht (Poster poem, f ms b w t ö z ä u), 1918; 33 × 48 cm, collection Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris (AM 1974-8). 4 Raoul Hausmann, Plakatgedicht (Poster poem, O F F E A H), 1918; 32.5 × 47.5 cm, collection Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris (AM 1974-7). The last letters printed on this poster are q j y E!, and Hausmann and Schwitters briefly discussed collaborating on a journal with the title q j y E in 1921. 5 Phonetic German spelling of z y x w v u. 6 Only the introduction and first part (i.e., first movement) of the sonata was published
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with this text in i 10 (pp. 395– 402). In the score published in Merz 24 (1932), Schwitters makes clear that the second part (largo) should be recited according to a strict 4/4 rhythm. This part consists of three sections of nine lines each. Each line should be recited with a progressively deepening intonation, resuming with the initial high intonation at the start of each section. The first and last sections are identical and should be recited quietly, whereas the middle section has a similar structure with slight variations and should be recited loudly. 7 Überleitungsthema, or transitional theme, is abbreviated throughout the score as ü1, ü2, etc. 8 Rückklingen: This neologism is a compound word that literally means “to sound back.” As Schwitters stresses the reversal of the alphabet and the repetition of certain motifs in his Sonata in Ur-Sounds, he enlists this word to keep the double connotation of “resonate” and “recite backward” simultaneously in play. Text 102 1 Scheint die Sonne noch so schön, einmal muß sie untergehn: The source of this popular aphorism is the song “Brüderlein fein” by the Viennese librettist Ferdinand Raimund from his musical Das Mädchen aus der Feenwelt, oder Der Bauer als Millionär (The girl from the fairy-world, or the farmer as a millionaire, 1826). 2 English in the original. 3 The Biedermeier period lasted from 1815, with the defeat of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna, to the revolutions of 1848. The furniture design emphasized functionality and neoclassical reserve, privileging comfort over excessive ornamentation. In the late nineteenth century, Biedermeier became a pejorative term denoting bourgeois narrow-mindedness, but by the time Schwitters wrote this text, the design of the period began to enjoy a more favorable reputation. 4 Franz von Defregger (1835– 1921) was an Austrian painter known for his sentimental genre paintings of Tyrolean and Bavarian life, which garnered him considerable public success. In 1941– 42, Schwitters made a series of collages using deluxe photographic reproductions of Defregger’s paintings. 5 Max Klinger (1857– 1920) was a painter, printmaker, and sculptor, and one of the most celebrated artists of the Wilhelmine era. 6 See text 98. 7 Schwitters refers to the well-preserved Doric temples in the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento (Akragas) in Sicily, specifically the Temple of Concordia. 8 The Temple of the Olympian Zeus in Agrigento is considered to be the largest Doric temple ever constructed, though it was never completed. The structure succumbed to earthquakes, and its remains were quarried extensively for its marble in the eighteenth century. 9 See text 81 and text 88.
Text 103 1 Die Welt will betrogen werden: A reference to the Latin aphorism Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur (The world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived), and to the German translation by Luther, “Die welt wil betrogen sein” (Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, vol. 23 [1527; Weimar: H. Böhlaus, 1883], 571, line 22).
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Text 105 1 A review of the Café Aubette in Strasbourg, with interiors designed by Hans Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and Theo van Doesburg, concludes with this quotation from van Doesburg; signed “O. H.” [Haesler?] and originally published in Strassburger Neueste Nachrichten (4 March 1928), reprinted in De Stijl 8, no. 87/89 (November 1928): 39. 2 Schwitters may be referring to the housing estate “Im Kreuzkampe,” completed in 1928 by the Hannover architect Karl Siebrecht (1875– 1952) just north of what is today the GrossBuchholz district of Hannover. The estate consists of rows of semidetached brick houses with surrounding trees and green spaces. They were intended for the local factory workers. 3 See text 57. 4 On Dudok, see text 76. 5 The Italienischer Garten (1924– 25) was the first Neues Bauen housing estate in Germany and the first of three estates Haesler completed in Celle. Inspired by the colorful facades of the housing developments Taut built in Magdeburg, Haesler used blocks of bold primary colors to articulate the geometric structure of the apartment blocks. 6 Haesler completed the Georgsgarten settlement in 1926– 27. Schwitters highlights many of the innovative features in urban planning and lighting that made this complex an especially celebrated example in contemporary architectural discourse. 7 Haesler completed Blumläger Field, his third and final estate in Celle, in 1930– 31. 8 The Altstädter Volksschule (1928) was the subject of a monograph, Die neue Volksschule in Celle: Ein Beitrag zum Problem des neuzeitlichen Schulhauses [The new primary school in Celle. A contribution to the problem of the modern schoolhouse] (Frankfurt am Main: Englert und Schlosser, 1929). The Waack maisonettes were completed in the same year and conceived as an alternative to the single-family home.
Text 106 Bund der Deutschen Gebrauchsgraphiker; see text 88. Pressa: Internationale Presse Ausstellung was an international press exhibition held in Cologne (12 May– 14 October 1928). It aimed to demonstrate the international reach of the media, to examine its universal significance as a means of not only reporting, but also generating historical and cultural events, and to argue for world peace. El Lissitzky’s work for the Pavilion of the Soviet Union and related ephemera remain the most well known designs from this exhibition. 3 On Pelikan, see text 81. Schwitters included a design for Pelikan typewriter ribbon in Merz 11. Typoreklame Pelikan-Nummer (1925): 92; see also WVZ 60, which may be the work of Lissitzky. 4 See text 118. 1
2
Text 107 1 Typisierung is an ambiguous term that, like Qualität (quality), played a central role in the discourse of the Werkbund. The common translation, “standardization,” does not convey the varied connotations that interest in the “type” had at this time. Normalisierung can also
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mean “standardization,” and here Schwitters would have DIN regulations for printed matter uppermost in mind (see text 110 and text 122). 2 See text 93 and text 96. Text 108 1 Munich is famous for Weisswurst, a pale veal sausage typically boiled and eaten at breakfast. The spelling gives the word a local inflection. 2 The large housing exhibition Heim und Technik (Munich, May– October 1928) was dedicated to technology in the home and advances in economic and efficient housework. It showcased model apartments, displays of appliances and decorative arts, and a film program. 3 Mass is a specifically Bavarian term that refers to a mug that holds a liter of beer. 4 Hermann Muthesius (1861– 1927) was an architect and theorist, whose criticism of German design and craft industries in a 1907 lecture provided the impetus for the formation of the Werkbund. He was an early proponent for standardized design in industrial production (Typisierung). 5 KWER: A homophone for quer, meaning at an angle, diagonally, or crosswise. 6 As Schwitters rewrites Weber’s speech, he quotes certain passages nearly verbatim and adheres to its overall structure. Some of the wording is similar but has been made nonsensical: grammar can no longer be resolved, while neologisms become meaningless (e.g., “panscientism” and “panhistoricism” become “panscientalism and pantapanhistorism”). Schwitters also repeats Weber’s rhetorical phrase, “Please do not understand this too superficially or too simplistically,” exposing it as an absurd platitude. 7 Dokümang: a neologism coined by Schwitters that does not refer to anything in Weber’s speech. Weber does use clair-obscur, and so this word, too, is possibly intended to sound vaguely French when read aloud. 8 This should probably read “theoretical.” (Schwitters’s footnote.) 9 Here Schwitters makes explicit Weber’s oblique reference to Bruno Taut, Die neue Wohnung: Die Frau als Schöpferin [The new home: Woman as creator] (Leipzig: Klinkhardt und Biermann, 1924). This book was a manifesto against the “sentimentality” of the housewife that drove the useless accumulation of knickknacks and decorative touches, enslaving her to their care. 10 Schwitters quotes lines from the final verse of Goethe’s poem “Der Schatzgräber” (The treasure-seeker, 1797), first published by Schiller in Musen-Almanach für das Jahr 1798 (Tübingen: J. G. Cotta, 1798), 46– 48. Schwitters replaces the word Wochen (weeks) in the original with Worte (words), possibly in reference to the Weber’s speech. 11 Schwitters is making a comparison to the cluster of grapes cut by Moses’s spies in the Valley of Eshcol in Canaan, which was so large it had to be carried on a pole between two of them (Numbers 13:23). His reference to Jakobsohn is unclear. 12 Baron von Pechmann (1882– 1968) was head of the Department for the Applied Arts at the Bavarian National Museum, which had its roots in the Werkbund. Under his directorship, from 1925 to 1929, it became the largest and most important collection for industrial and product design in Germany. In 1929, this collection became the nation’s first design museum, Die neue Sammlung (The new collection). 13 On Renner, see text 119; on Tschichold, see text 99, text 106, and text 118.
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English in the original. Blaue Gams: Local hunter’s slang for “blue goat.” 16 Schwitters refers to the architect Lucy Hillebrand (1906– 97), who joined the Werkbund when she was nineteen years old, making her the youngest member of the organization. After their initial meeting at this Congress, Schwitters invited Hillebrand to Hannover, where she was a costume designer for the Fest der Technik (Festival of technology) he was organizing with Käte Steinitz (see text 110). In November 1928, he introduced her to Robert Michel (see text 89 and text 120), who encouraged her to open her own office in Frankfurt and collaborated with her on several commissions. In her biography of her friendship with Schwitters, Steinitz illustrates an architectural model, “White Palace for guinea pigs,” and attributes it to Schwitters and Moholy-Nagy; this model appears to have been for the DAPOLIN gas station built in 1929 in Frankfurt by Hillebrand instead (Steinitz, Kurt Schwitters: A Portrait from Life [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968], 67). 17 Cavalleria rusticana (1890) is a one-act opera by Pietro Mascagni (1863– 1945). 14 15
Text 109 1 A reference to Isidor Blumentopf, the hapless central figure of a series of popular Jewish farces that enjoyed long runs at the Gebrüder Herrnfeld Theater, Berlin, and were adapted for the cinema in 1913. The plays were widely discussed in German literary circles, including Der Sturm.
Text 110 1 Kate T. Steinitz, “Kurt Schwitters: A Portrait from Life,” Comparative Literature Studies 12, no. 3 (September 1975): 208. 2 Kate T. Steinitz, Kurt Schwitters: Erinnerungen aus den Jahren 1918– 1930 (Zurich: Arche, 1963), 102. 3 In 1917, the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (Union of German Engineers) established the Normenausschuss der deutschen Industrie (Standardization Committee of German Industry), which set standards for measurement in heavy industry and business administration in specification bulletins, Deutsche Industrienorm (German industry standard, or DIN). Standardizing individual elements allowed for flexible systems of combination and communication across industries. In 1922, the Normenausschuss introduced standards for four series of paper formats (DIN 476). The A series is based on a sheet (A0) with a surface area of one square meter and measurements following the ratio of 1:√2 (rounded to 1,189 × 841 mm). Various paper sizes, ranging from posters to postage stamps, are derived by progressively halving this sheet, including the A4 letter paper size in common use internationally today. See text 122. 4 Pattensen is a town in the region of Hannover, south of the city. On the new architecture of Celle, see text 105. The Thousand-Year Rose (Tausendjähriger Rosenstock), also known as the Rose of Hildesheim is a rosebush that grows on a wall of Hildesheim Cathedral. 5 Schwitters inverts an axiom of Prussian military strategy and efficiency during the Napoleonic Wars, getrennt marschieren, vereint schlagen (march divided, fight united). 6 Wer vieles bringt, wird jedem etwas bringen: Schwitters adapts this line from verse 97 of Goethe’s Faust I.
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7 Wilhelm (Walter) Gieseking (1895– 1956) was a pianist and composer who collaborated with Schwitters and Steinitz on songs for the Zinnoberfest and the Fest der Technik. 8 Dichterfaust: A compound word that literally means “poet’s fist.” We may also read it as an allusion to Goethe as the “poet of Faust” in light of Schwitters’s earlier quotation.
Text 111 1 On Steinitz, see text 110. Irmgard Halmhuber (1899– 1921) was a painter and illustrator; the Galerie von Garvens staged a memorial exhibition of her work shortly after her death. 2 Else Fraenkel (née Rothschild, 1892– 1975) was portrait sculptor based in Hannover, and a member of the Kestner-Gesellschaft. She participated with Schwitters and Steinitz in the city’s Zinnoberfest (Cinnabar festival), a major revue staged in January 1928. In 1933 she emigrated to Paris and then London, where she resumed contact with Schwitters in 1947.
Text 112 1
On Garvens, see text 13.
Text 113 1 The first four sentences of this paragraph are comparable to text 117, which also survives only in a translation from the (now lost) German manuscript. Based on that comparison, and in light of related ideas in text 78 and text 82, we correct the omission in this sentence.
Text 114 Talmischlösser: Talmi can signify anything that is artificial, fake, or counterfeit. See text 107. 3 The volcanic textures and dark color of clinker inspired a fad in northern German architecture in the 1920s called “clinker expressionism” (Klinkerexpressionismus). Notable examples include the Hannover Anzeiger-Hochhaus (1927– 28) and the Kontorhaus district in Hamburg. 1
2
Text 115 1 For a complete catalogue of Schwitters’s work for Dammerstock, see Brigitte Franzen, Die Siedlung Dammerstock in Karlsruhe 1929: Zur Vermittlung des Neuen Bauens (Marburg: Jonas Verlag, 1993). 2 See text 79.
Text 116 1 2
See text 24. Gerdchen: Diminutive for Gerd.
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Text 120 1 Reprinted in Ring “neue werbegestalter”: Die Amsterdamer Ausstellung 1931, ed. Volker Rattemeyer and Dietrich Helms (Wiesbaden: Museum Wiesbaden, 1990), 119. 2 Clipping in Schwitters’s notebook “Architekten” (Architects), Kurt und Ernst Schwitters Stiftung, Hannover. In a letter to Christof Spengemann, 12 June 1929, Schwitters indicates the possibility of additional venues in the publishing centers of Leipzig and Munich (cited by Franz Stark, “Zu Kurt Schwitters’ Vortrag Gestaltung in der Typographie: Versuch einer Annäherung,” in Der Typograph Kurt Schwitters [Hannover: Stadtbibliothek, 1987], 10). 3 See “Ausstellung ‘Kurt Schwitters’ im Roemermuseum,” Hildesheimsche Zeitung (12 April 1922): “What does Merz mean and how did this direction come about? With the realization that he had to offer an explanation, the artist delivered a lecture last Sunday on the development of modern painting. According to the explanations of the speaker, ‘Merz’ art comes at the end of a sequence that begins with naturalism and, after overcoming this stage, continues over expressionism, impressionism, cubism, etc. up to Dadaism.” Reprinted in “Gästebuch für die Merzausstellung [in Hildesheim],” in Kurt Schwitters, Alle Texte: Die Sammelkladden 1919– 1923, ed. Ursula Kocher and Isabel Schulz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 91. 4 AAV: Akademischer Architekten-Verein (Academic Architect’s Union) was based at the Technische Hochschule in Hannover. 5 This slide depicts a lost work by Buchheister that had been exhibited in the Galerie Der Sturm. No image of this painting appears in the Buchheister catalogue raisonné. 6 A study for the painting Proun S. K. (now lost), which Lissitzky dedicated to Sophie Küppers. This study was displayed in the window case in the Abstract Cabinet designed by Lissitzky at the Provinzialmuseum, Hannover. 7 See text 89. 8 The same photograph was reproduced in El Lissitzky and Hans Arp, Die Kunstismen / Les ismes de l’art / The Isms of Art (Erlenbach-Zurich: E. Rentsch, 1925), plate 24. 9 This painting was in the collection of the Provinzialmuseum and included in the Abstract Cabinet (see fig. 24). 10 No slide of this work survives. 11 No slide of this work survives. 12 By the time Schwitters delivered this lecture, this painting was in the collection of the Provinzialmuseum. 13 Three slides of work by Piet Mondrian were originally in Schwitters’s collection. Only two slides survive, without his original labels: Composition with large red plane, yellow, black, gray and blue, 1921 (currently in the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; reproduced in Lissitzky and Arp, Die Kunstismen, plate 52), and Composition with yellow, vermillion, black, blue, and various gray and white tones, 1923 (location unknown; formerly in the collection of the Provinzialmuseum Hannover, on view in the Abstract Cabinet; see fig. 24, upper right). 14 No slide of this work survives. 15 Karl Schneider (1892– 1945), Hamburg architect, proponent of Neues Bauen, and member of the group of architects known as “Der Ring.” In 1938, Schneider immigrated to the United States, where he worked for Sears, Roebuck, and Company in Chicago. 16 On Haesler, see text 105.
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17 Schwitters misattributed this slide to Fritz Schumacher (1869– 1947), Hamburg architect and city planner and founding member of the Deutscher Werkbund. The Emelka-Palast cinema was designed by Schneider. 18 On Häring, see text 76 and text 92. 19 Schnurruhr: mustache-watch. 20 César Domela Nieuwenhuis (1900– 1992) was a self-trained Dutch painter. In 1924 he met Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian in Paris and joined De Stijl. After settling in Berlin in 1927 he used photomontage in advertisements he designed for industrial companies such as AEG and Ruths-Speicher. He was the only “nonlocal” member of die abstrakten hannover (text 95). 21 Piet Zwart (1885– 1977) was a Dutch designer and typographer who fundamentally changed his work after his encounter with De Stijl in 1917. Between 1923 and 1930, the work he produced for the Dutch cable works (NFK), and the Dutch postal service (PTT) established his international reputation as a graphic designer. 22 On Tschichold, see text 99 and text 106. 23 On Dexel, see text 59. 24 On Burchartz, see text 10. 25 Hans Leistikow (1892– 1962) headed the graphic design department of the public housing program of the New Frankfurt from 1925 to 1930. From 1926 to 1930, he was responsible for the design and layout of the journal Das neue Frankfurt with his sister Margarete (Grete) Leistikow. They were also responsible for the modern redesign of the city’s coat of arms abolished by the National Socialists in 1937. 26 Robert Michel (1897– 1983) trained as a painter at the Hochschule für bildende Kunst in Weimar in 1917, where he met his future wife Ella Bergmann (text 89). He became friends with Schwitters in 1921 and began to use photographic reproductions of technical objects in his own collages. In 1928, he established a design firm with architect Lucy Hillebrand (see text 108). 27 Georg Trump (1896– 1985) was a type designer, who was invited by Paul Renner to join the teaching staff at the Meisterschule für Deutschlands Buchdrucker in Munich, where he worked alongside Jan Tschichold. He left to become the director of the Höheren Grafischen Fachschule in 1931, only to return in 1934 after both Renner and Tschichold were dismissed by the National Socialists. He designed a number of typefaces for the Weber foundry in Stuttgart and H. Berthold AG in Berlin. 28 On Hilberseimer, see text 81. 29 Schwitters’s father-in-law Eduard Fischer was an attorney for the Ueberlandwerke und Straßenbahnen Hannover A.-G. (Üstra), the public transit system in Hannover. Schwitters designed a series of nine posters for Üstra, which each give the public advice about how to use the system, pairing rhyming couplets by an employee, Hermann Strodthoff, with photographs by Hein Gorny (1904– 67) and Eugen Heuer. 30 Schwitters received the contract to design a catalogue for Weise Söhne, a pump manufacturer based in Halle, at the end of 1926. This work was completed the following year (see fig. 37; WVZ 72– 77). 31 See text 122. 32 Schwitters is referring to the international renown of the New Frankfurt urban development project (see text 98).
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Text 121 1 The first Rolleiflex camera dates to 1929 and was a lightweight, compact, twin-lens reflex camera (TLR), the first medium-format camera to use roll film.
Text 122 See text 119. Wilhelm Metzig (1893– 1989) worked as an independent graphic designer in Hannover, and he was a member of the Bund der Deutschen Gebrauchsgraphiker (Union of German Graphic Designers). In 1929, he designed the Hannover coat of arms, still in use today. 3 Viertelpetit is the German term for a unit of type size equal to 2 points. What a point meant for Schwitters differs slightly from the norm used today. It was based on the French Didot system, developed by François-Ambroise Didot around 1775 on the base unit of the pied de roi (king’s foot). In 1879, the Berlin printer Hermann Berthold (1831– 1904), founder of one of the world’s largest type foundries, standardized the conversion between the Didotpoint system and the metric system (1 Didot point = 1/2,660 m or 0.376 mm). This would have been the conversion in place at the time Schwitters was active as a graphic designer. 4 Nonpareille is the German term for a unit of type size equal to 6 Didot points. 5 Achtelpetit is the German term for a unit of type size equal to 1 Didot point. 6 Cicero is the German term for a unit of type size equal to 12 Didot points. 7 Den Blick des Beschauers fesseln: This phrase echoes the title of the 1930 anthology of New Typography, Gefesselter Blick (Bound vision), to which Schwitters contributed and served as an editorial adviser; see text 123. 1
2
Text 124 See text 82. Paul von Hindenburg (1847– 1934), Prussian field marshal, statesman, and the second president of Germany from 1925 to 1934. 3 Theodor Dreyer was captain of SS Monte Cervantes (South American Hamburg Company), which struck an uncharted rock and sank off the South American coast on 22 January 1930. 4 Conrad Veidt (1893– 1943) was a film actor who starred in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and numerous productions from the Weimar era. He was an outspoken critic of the Nazi state and immigrated to Britain in 1933 and, eventually, to Hollywood. His later films include The Thief of Bagdad (1940) and Casablanca (1942). 1
2
Text 125 1 The idiom “wie ein Veilchen im verborgenen blühen” corresponds to the English “shrinking violet” and translates literally as “flowering like a violet in hiding.” Colloquially, a Veilchen can also refer to a black eye, a play that Schwitters maintains as it becomes clear that he wrote this text as he was smarting from a recent round of negative criticism. 2 Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) in painting describes a general reaction against
Notes to Pages 397–416
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expressionism in favor of realism. Applied to a diverse range of artistic practices with competing ideological commitments, it can include work that was created as a classicizing reaction against modernist abstraction as well as work made in the service of social satire and left-wing political critique. The label was the title of a major survey exhibition organized in 1925 by Gustav Hartlaub (see text 21). 3 Published on page 112 of Merz 21. See text 99. 4 Published on pages 110– 12 of Merz 21; reprinted in Schwitters, Das literarische Werk, ed. Friedhelm Lach (Cologne: DuMont), 2:289– 92. 5 Düsseldorf was originally a small village (Dorf) on the bank of the Düssel tributary, which feeds into the Rhine. Schwitters offers a false etymology for the name of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788– 1860), humorously suggesting that it derives from Schoppen (tumbler) and Hauer (hitter). 6 In the Nibelungenlied (Song of the Nibelungs), the German national epic, Siegfried is said to have stolen the Nibelung Hoard, an immense treasure of gold and precious stones, from the sons of the Scandinavian king Nibelung. 7 The Kyffhäuser monument (1890– 96) stands at the site of the medieval Kyffhausen Castle in Thuringia. Emperor Frederick Barbarossa is said to have been buried here after he drowned on 10 June 1190 during the Third Crusade. Schwitters is referring to a legend according to which Barbarossa lives on asleep in a hidden chamber and seated at a stone table within the Kyffhäuser mountains. 8 Founded in 1235, the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg was repeatedly divided among the heirs until it disintegrated into numerous insignificant states. Schwitters refers to a toy village that Lyonel Feininger (1871– 1956) made for his sons, “Town at the End of the World.” A set was made in plaster and cast at the Bauhaus in Weimar. 9 Schwitters designed an official insignia for Karlsruhe in 1929, but it was never officially adopted (WVZ 120). It appeared on a range of administrative forms he designed that were in use from 1929 to 33 (see pages 14– 15 of “Advertising-Design,” [text 119]). After 1933, these designs were repurposed using Fraktur type. He likely received this commission during his work on the design program for the Dammerstock Housing Estate (text 115). 10 Ihr Kinderlein kommet is one of the best-known German Christmas carols. If the second note of “Stille Nacht” (“Silent Night”) is omitted, the first six notes of both are identical. 11 This collage is clearly visible in one of two extant photographs of the K d e E from 1928. 12 Immortelles are flowers that retain their color and form when dried. 13 I would be happy if others were to profess their support for it. (Schwitters’s footnote.) Sigfried Giedion (1888– 1968) was a Swiss architectural historian and critic, who, together with his wife, Carola Giedion-Welcker (1893– 1979), collected works by Schwitters. The Giedions organized the exhibition of abstract and surrealist art, Neue Optik (New optics), at the Kunsthaus Zurich in 1929, with Schwitters as a consultant. 14 See text 119, text 120, and text 122. 15 See text 120. 16 See text 105. 17 Schwitters refers to a review published in the Hannoversches Tageblatt of a stage matinee he organized in December 1930 with a group of local activists titled Künstler im Front (KIF ). The review dismissed his avant-garde antics as passé with the remark, “Schwitters is
Notes to Pages 417–421
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quite impossible. . . . Time moves on.” See Henning Rischbieter, ed., Hannoversches Lesebuch (Hannover: Schlüter, 1991), 2:270. 18 This issue of Merz never appeared. Text 126 1 From 1922 to 1923, van Doesburg published four issues of the pamphlet Mécano together with his Dadaist alter ego, I. K. Bonset. Named after the popular children’s metal construction kit, Meccano, it featured poems, manifestos, and reproductions of work by Hans Arp, Serge Charchoune, Malcolm Cowley, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, Raoul Hausmann, F. T. Marinetti, Piet Mondrian, Francis Picabia, Ezra Pound, Man Ray, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Peter Röhl, Kurt Schwitters, and Tristan Tzara, among others. 2 The first evening of the Dada Tour was held on 10 January 1923 at the Haagse Kunstkring, an association for artists, writers, and designers founded in 1891. 3 See text 8. 4 Schwitters pasted a photograph of the “Utrecht Blumenspende” (Utrecht flower donation) in a notebook labeled 8 uur, in which he collected press clippings from the Dada Tour; this image is reproduced in Kurt Schwitters, Alle Texte: Die Sammelkladden 1919– 1923, ed. Ursula Kocher and Isabel Schulz (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 253.
Text 129 1 2
Kitt, i.e., putty. See fig. 41, top.
Text 133 1 Lappen: The plural form of Lapp, denoting a native of Lapland, also means cloth or rag. In this case, the word also suggests a cloth that one would use to clean a camera lens.
Text 136 A mixture of German and Norwegian, this name translates as “House on the Slope.” A possible play on Schäfer, the name of the carpenter Schwitters hired to help work on the Merzbau in Hannover. 1
2
Text 137 Man kann nie wissen: This motto is the epitaph on Schwitters’s gravestone in Hannover. This name could be only partially transcribed from the shorthand; it may refer to the artist and architect Hans Nitzschke (1903– 44), who was a member of die abstrakten hannover (text 95). 3 Steuerndieb: The site of a watchtower used by the Hannover militia, converted for a restaurant still in operation today. The name is derived from the Middle High German Steure dem Dieb, meaning “stop the thief.” 1
2
Notes to Pages 421–441
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4 5
Bardowick is a village just north of Lüneburg on the way to Hamburg. Eleonore Fischer, niece of Helma Schwitters, daughter of her brother, Friedrich Fischer.
Text 139 On Schwitters’s teachers at the Dresden Art Academy, see text 26. On the analogy between painting and music, see text 1, text 90, and text 91. 3 Abstraction 4 Resounding Glass, 1917 or 1918, CR 179, lost. 4 The Scrap-of-Paper Picture, ca. 1920, CR 607. Previously in the collection of Hans Hildebrandt (see text 81 and text 111), this assemblage is now lost; it was reproduced in Merz 8/9. Nasci, p. 78. 5 Machine Against Its Will, ca. 1922, CR 934, lost. 6 The Golden Ear, ca. 1932, CR 1825, lost. This work was exhibited in the Exhibition of Twentieth Century German Art and listed as no. 236 in the catalogue. 7 White Relief, 1927, CR 1500, lost. 1
2
Text 143 1 Alfred Richter, Elementarkenntnisse der Musik: Als Einleitung zur Harmonielehre und mit praktischen Übungen verbunden [Elementary knowledge of music: An introduction to the study of harmony with practical exercises] (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1895), 1.
Text 146 1 Klaus E. Hinrichsen, “Visual Art behind the Wire,” in The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth Century Britain, ed. David Cesarani and Tony Kushner (London: Frank Cass, 1993), 188– 209; 202.
Text 147 On Leibl, see text 78. In English in the original. 3 A Panoptikum is a waxworks museum; the oldest and largest establishment to survive in Germany is in Hamburg, founded in 1879 in the red-light district on the Reeperbahn. See text 12 and text 14. 4 In English in the original. 5 Salvador Dalí, The Persistence of Memory, 1931 (Museum of Modern Art, New York). 6 Yves Tanguy (1900– 1955), a French surrealist painter who immigrated to New York in 1939. 1
2
Text 148 1 “Character and Aims of the League,” excerpt from the statutes of the Free German League of Culture on membership cards. See Carmian Brinson and Richard Dove, Politics by Other Means: The Free German League of Culture in London 1939– 1946 (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2010), 16.
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2 It is unclear which text by Kokoschka Schwitters is referring to here. Writing on behalf of the FDKB, Kokoschka never typified German art but instead insisted on drawing a “difference between Germans and Nazis” (“Exhibition of the Anti-Nazi Committee,” 1942) and on asserting that “Fascism cannot be tracked down to a racial wickedness, but must be faced as a social crisis” (“Opening of the Institute for Science and Learning of the Free German League of Culture,” 1942). Elsewhere he emphasized the historic importance of German intellectual thought in bringing about a new social order based on the equality of all mankind (“A Great Task,” speech held at the opening of the theater of the Free German League, 10 July 1943). See Oskar Kokoschka, Das Schriftliche Werk, vol. 4., Politische Äusserungen, ed. Heinz Spielmann (Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, 1976), 225, 222, and 255.
Text 149 1
See Untitled (Yellow Three), 1943, CR 3005.
Text 152 1 Justus Bier (1899– 1990) was an art historian and director of the Kestner-Gesellschaft from 1930 to 1936. He completed his dissertation on the sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider, first published in 1925. Schwitters plays with the literal meaning of both Bier (beer) and Riemen Schneider (strap or belt cutter). 2 An approximate translation of this motto would be “Moonlight— spare me.”
Text 154 1 Schwitters indicates with an arrow that “Merz/Schwitters” should come before “Mondrian— Doesburg—Van der Lek [sic].”
Text 157 The Schwitters family moved to Veilchenstrasse 5 on 1 April 1889. Literally, “mirror Dadaism,” a reference to the address of the Cabaret Voltaire. See text 43. 1
2
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INDEX Note: Pages in italics indicate figures. Titles of individual works are listed under creator’s name. AAV. See Academic Architect’s Union ABC (journal), 204, 508n2 (text 68) abstract art: appreciation for, 419, 443– 44; and chance, 236, 446; as coherent, 136–37; Dada as, 73, 180, 182; and development of art, 199, 249–51, 311, 333, 416, 447–48; exhibitions of, 235, 238, 330–31, 513n2 (text 82), 529n13; and expression, 21, 71–72; fragments as, 122; groups promoting, 274–75, 343, 424; and madness, 95; Merz as, 24, 39, 380, 468, 474; music as analogy for, xviii–xix; and nature, 10, 66, 426–27, 432; and ornament, 22, 488n4 (text 4), 504n2 (text 57); photography and, 229; and poetry, 31–32, 193, 254, 417; and politics, 154–55; as pure art, 2, 12, 15, 60, 420; and representation, 451–52, 453–54; and sensation, 22; and theater, 28, 74, 160; theories for, 3, 6–7, 259–62, 263–68; and titles, 247, 468; by women, 17–20, 160, 328. See also color; form-creation Abstract Cabinet. See under Lissitzky, El abstraction: and architecture, 139, 286, 299; criticism of, 38, 40, 58; Dada and, 73; and development of art, 129, 275, 416, 434, 464; and mathematics, 226; and meaning, xv, 436, 453, 502n6; and Merz journal, 198; perceptual, 220; reaction against, 528–29n2 (text 125); Schwitters’s embrace of, xiii, xvii, 66, 69, 236, 470; and standardization, 507n1 (text 63); as style, 457; theories of, xiv; and typography, 316, 373, 380,
394–95. See also abstract art; formcreation abstraction, création, art non-figuratif (journal), xiv, 424, 426, 427 Abstraction-Création (group), 424, 426, 517n5 (text 92) abstrakten hannover, die (group), 274–75, 513n3 (text 82), 516n4, 527n20, 530n2 (text 137) Abwerten. See devaluation Academic Architect’s Union (Akademischer Architekten-Verein, AAV), 381, 526n4 Activism, 80 advertisements and advertising: on architecture, 133–34; and art, 155, 434; and audience, 202; as design schema (Werbung), 345, 349–51, 365, 369, 377, 380, 392–94, 405; electric, 319, 387, 387, 394; in K d e E, 413, 418; as material for anti-criticism, xxi, 25, 41, 95; for Merz, 82, 186–87; in Merz-theater, 159; musical theater as, 325; perception of, 312, 344; and photomontage, 388, 527n20; typography for, 204–5, 311–14, 315–17, 386, 388, 420; for underwear, 39, 51, 147, 500n4 (text 46), 503n8. See also information; ring neue werbegestalter AEG. See Allgemeine ElektrizitätsGesellschaft aesthetics, 13, 128, 442, 275; classical, 300–301; design, 353, 399, 517n2; of music, 12; phenomenology of, 58. See also beauty
533
Agrigento (Akragas), 299, 302, 521nn7–8 (text 102) Aktion, Die (journal), 500n1 (text 49), 506n21 Albers, Josef, xix Albert Langen Verlag (publisher), 187, 239 allegory, 7, 127 Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), 511n13, 527n20 alphabet: German, 122, 145, 215, 279, 282; order of, 243, 295, 296, 521n8 (text 99); poems, xxiv, 141, 193, 507n3 (text 62); Roman, 294; and typography, 271, 276, 277, 279 America. See United States Amsterdam, 133–34, 254, 335, 422, 428, 431 Amsterdam school (architects’ group), 511n17, 519n20 Amsterdam School of Music, 380 anarchism, 133 Anderson, Margaret, 332 “An Anna Blume” (“To Anna Blume”), 47– 48, 253; and Dada, 77, 495n13; importance for Schwitters, xxii, 237, 342, 407; in MA, 80; negative reaction to, 77, 93, 95, 117; in “Tran” texts, 33–34, 78, 488n7 (text 7), 493nn2–3 (text 22), 497n4; translations of xxv, 474, 492n4 (text 16). See also Anna Blume: Dichtungen; Blume, Anna Anna Blume: Dichtungen (book), 39, 73, 252, 253, 490n10, 485n17; critical texts in, xxiv, 25, 27, 31, 49, 87, 495n19; criticism of, 36, 93 ancient art: Egyptian, 44, 127, 461, 498n2 (text 40); Greek, 299–302, 453, 521nn7–8 (text 102); Roman, 304 Anthony, Saint, 28 anti-criticism (“Tran” genre), xxi–xxii, 95, 188, 484n15, 497n5 (text 33), 507n14; and Dada, xxiv, 190–91 antiquity, 129, 133, 229, 272, 277 anti-Semitism, 488n4 (text 7), 501n7
Anzeiger-Hochhaus (Hannover), 525n3 (text 114) Apollinaire, Guillaume, 500n1 (text 46) Aposs (publishing venture), 232, 237, 253, 291; Neue Architektur series, 388, 511n7, 511n9 Ararat, Der (journal), xvi, 27, 69, 84, 490n2 (text 12), 494n3 Archipenko, Alexander, 73, 82 architecture: and art, 43-4, 451; classicizing, 299–303, 453; and color, 92, 272, 292, 504n2 (text 57), 520n30, 522n5; expressionism in, 225, 504n2 (text 57), 511nn15–17; formal construction of, xix, 207, 391; functional, 224–25, 269–70, 302, 307–8, 336; in Germany, 232–34, 326, 384–85, 393, 511n8, 511n11; in Holland, 133–34, 237, 269, 384, 392– 93; for housing, 178, 286–92, 307–10, 338–39, 499n13, 520n29, 522n2 (text 105); and i-concept, 178–79; industrial, 511n12; and Merz, 91–92, 137; as objective (sachlich), 271, 337–38, 507n1 (text 63); painting and, 179, 396; and portraiture, 459; rational, 224–25, 308, 337, 393; Schwitters as critic of, xiii, xiv, xx, xxiv, 335–36; and typography, 409, 410, 411, 419–20. See also Merz-architecture; neue Frankfurt, Das; Neues Bauen; Weißenhofsiedlung Arp, Hans: as artist, 82, 228, 462, 479; and Cologne artists, 507n3 (text 63); as Dadaist, 73, 132, 181, 197, 198, 464; friendship with Schwitters, 419, 506n3; in Mécano, 530n1 (text 126); nickname, 295, 498n4 (text 43); writing, 155, 185, 189 — SPECIFIC WORKS: 7 Arpaden, 174, 256, 386, 502n1 (text 52); Café Aubette, 522n1 (text 105); Schnurruhr, 386, 386, 395. See also Kunstismen, Die art critics. See critics art criticism. See criticism art historians, 25, 38, 99, 420, 458, 532n1 (text 152). See also Hildebrandt, Hans
Index
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art history, 237, 299, 417, 444, 457, 491n13; Schwitters’s narration of, xv, 461–65, 526n3 assemblage. See Kathedrale des erotischen Elends; Merz-pictures audience: for art, 235, 457, 463, 464; for criticism, 34, 109; for Dada, 129, 132– 33, 134–35, 198, 435; for film, 245, 304; and Merz-theater, xxi, xxvi, 76, 156–66; for musical hall, 327; as passive, 504n2 (text 58); for propaganda, 462; for radio, 184, 196; for Schwitters’s performances, xiii, xxiii, 83, 167, 180– 82, 422–23; for Schwitters’s writing, xxiv, xxv, 237, 458; and Standard Merz Stage, 208, 218, 220–21; as uncomprehending, 177, 420, 453 Austria, 286, 496n3 (text 33), 509n1 (text 69). See also Vienna authenticity, xxii, 126, 300, 318. See also imitation; truth autobiography, xx–xxi autobiographical statements (Schwitters): “About Me by Myself,” 332–34; [Answers to a questionnaire for La savoir vivre], 476; “Facts from My Life” (text 81), 236–37; “Facts from My Life” (text 116), 340–42; [I first saw the light of the world in the year 1887 . . .], 445– 48; “Kurt Schwitters” (text 24), 65–67; “Kurt Schwitters” (text 123), 406–7; [Kurt Schwitters] (text 151), 470; [Kurt Schwitters] (text 153), 474; “Life’s Path,” 235; “MERZ (Written for the Ararat, 19 December 1920),” xvi, 27, 69–76, 83; “Merz 20. Kurt Schwitters Catalogue,” 248–56; “My Art and My Life,” 479 autonomy and freedom, xv, xviii, 71–72, 88, 333, 424; of art, 154–55, 230–31, 313, 419–20, 462–63; from chaos, 129; human, 298; in Merz-theater, 162–66; within a system, 282 avant-garde, xxiii, 274, 463, 490n2 (text 12); historical reception of, xxvi, 69; Hungarian, 80; Japanese, 513n1 (text
83); negative reaction to, 36, 95, 124, 154, 529n17; and politics, 77; Schwitters as, xiv, xxii; in theater, 509n1 (text 69), 517n5 (text 94) Ave Maria, 107 Avenarius, Ferdinand, 17, 18, 19, 21 Baader, Johannes, 83, 183–84, 185, 197, 198, 505n3, 505n5 Baargeld, Johannes, 82, 197, 198, 507n3 (text 63) Bach, Johann Sebastian, 333 Badische Presse (newspaper), 255 balance. See equilibrium banality, 155, 298, 333, 419, 455; avoidance of, 296, 316, 391; and Dada, 167– 68, 170–71, 184–85; in design, 355; Schwitters’s use of, xiii, xxi, 175, 188, 190, 484n15; through repetition, 523n6 Bandel, Ernst von, 183, 505n4 Bantzer, Carl, 66, 69, 236, 240, 249, 250, 446, 494n1 (text 26) Barasch Department Store (Magdeburg), 179, 504n2 (text 57) Barbarossa, Emperor Frederick, 529n7 Basel (Switzerland), 344 Bäsenstiel, Alves (character), 27, 28, 47 Bassermann, Albert, 158, 500–1n1 (text 50) Bauer, Rudolf, 59, 63 Bauer Type Foundry, 345, 370, 371, 400 Bauhaus, 269–70, 273; affiliates of, 516n3, 518n3 (text 98); in Dessau, 516n1 (text 92); and De Stijl, 174; Schwitters’s contact with, xix; in Weimar, 232–33, 234, 257, 511n11, 529n8. See also Albert Langen Verlag; Bauhausbücher; Gropius, Walter Bauhausbücher (book series): Ein Versuchshaus des Bauhauses in Weimar (Meyer), 233, 511n11; Internationale Architektur (Gropius), 234, 511–12nn19–20, 512n22; Punkt und Linie zu Fläche (Kandinsky), 259, 260; “Merz-Book,” 239–40 Bauhaus-Verlag. See Albert Langen Verlag
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Baumeister, Willi, 81, 270, 314, 344, 496n1 (text 30), 516n5 Bayreuth Festspielhaus, 325 Bazille, Wilhelm, 288–89, 518n7 (text 98) beauty: and architecture, 91–92, 233, 299–302, 337, 393, 420; and Dada, 132–33, 172; as goal, 1–2, 7, 20; in industrial objects, 230; in Merzbau, 431; natural, 446; nostalgia for, 461–62, 463; in proportion, 397; study of, 4–5, 10, 12, 18, 21; and style, 140, 271, 455; and surrealism, 464–65; and typography, 204, 271; of women, 304, 321 Beckmann, Max, 84 Beethoven, Ludwig von, 333, 443, 455, 468, 473; “Moonlight Sonata,” 471, 472; Symphony no. 5, 260, 516n1 (text 90) Behne, Adolf, xxi, 248, 509n2 (text 76) beholder, 71, 137, 192–93, 396, 443–44, 456; of advertising, 344, 365, 405, 409; as creative participant, xvii, xxii, 145, 190, 413; and critic, 84–85; of film, 245–46; and propaganda, 462, 463; as uncomprehending, 111, 247. See also audience; perception Behrens, Peter, 233, 511n8, 511n13; in Hannover, 238, 513n1 (text 82); at Weissenhofsiedlung, 289, 519n19 Beindorff, Fritz, 511n3 Belgium, xiv, 286, 476. See also Brussels Bergischen Universität (Wuppertal), xxv Bergmann-Michel, Ella, 257–58, 291, 381, 381, 388, 390–91, 516n2 (text 89), 527n26 Berlewi, Henryk, 196 Berlin, 254, 307, 488n3 (text 7), 488n8 (text 7); and advertising, 133–34; art academy, 17, 66, 236, 340, 406; art press of, 88, 188, 189; as cosmopolitan, 180, 342, 406; exhibitions in, 63, 87, 124, 252; Kunstbibliothek, 38; sports in, 25, 26; Tempelhof airport, 510–11n7; theater in, 500n1 (text 50), 511n15, 524n1 (text 109); urban design, 92, 178, 232–33, 288, 299
Berlin Dada, 132, 154, 197–98, 494n5 (text 26), 505n3, 505n5 Berliner Börsen-Courier (newspaper), 38–39 Berliner Börsenzeitung (newspaper), 93 Berliner Lokalanzeiger (newspaper), 50–51 Berliner Tageblatt (newspaper), 126, 188, 254 Berliner Typographischen Vereinigung, 380 Berthold, Hermann, 528n3 (text 122). See also H. Berthold AG Bible verse, 79, 493n5, 492n7, 496n1 (text 27), 523n11 Bie, Oskar, 124–26 Biedermeier era, 129, 133, 300, 521n3 Bier, Justus, 471, 532n1 (text 152) Birtner, Otto, 224, 270 Bismarck, Otto von, 28, 183, 489n4 (text 8), 504nn1–2 (text 59) Black Forest, 292 Blauer Reiter (group), 53, 77, 494n3 Blok (group), 196 Blok (journal), xiv, 196 Blue Rider. See Blauer Reiter Blume, Anna (character), 32, 48, 73; in Merz-theater, 29, 75–76, 156, 157, 159, 166; as palindrome, 34, 49, 152; in “Tran” texts, 26, 36, 39, 61, 88. See also “An Anna Blume” Blumentopf, Isidor, 323, 524n1 (text 109) Blümner, Rudolf, 189, 506n6, 507n8 Bobe, Carl, 183, 505n3 Böcklin, Arnold, 497n1 (text 38) Bogdanov, Aleksandr, 154 Bohemia (newspaper), 255 Bohemian Switzerland (České Švýcarsko), 66, 293, 494n7 (text 24) Bolshevism, 73, 202, 318, 235, 506n19; as slur, 81 Boccioni, Umberto, 228 Bonset, I. K., 132, 135, 168, 172, 498n1 (text 43), 530n1 (text 126). See also Doesburg, Theo van Bourgeois, Victor, 290, 519n23
Index
536
bourgeois identity, 318, 424, 484n15; and art, 45, 77, 154–55, 202, 231, 521n3; and Dada, 129, 181, 198, 423, 464, 495n8; of Schwitters and family, xiii, 65 Bragaglia, Anton Giulio, 273, 517n5 (text 94) Braque, Georges, 82, 228 Braunschweig (Germany), 180, 181, 248 Braunschweiger Neueste Nachrichten (newspaper), 232, 255 Braunschweigische Landeszeitung (newspaper), 180 Brecht, Bertolt, 507n1 (text 62) Breton, André, 464 Briand, Aristide, 505n8 Broom (journal), 187 Bruchsal (Germany), 292 Brücke (group), 53, 434 Brühl’s Terrace (Dresden), 4, 486n5 Brunswick-Lüneburg (Germany), 254, 418, 529n8 Brussels (Belgium), 519n23 Buch neuer Künstler (book), 80 Buchheister, Carl, 238, 274, 275, 381, 381, 390–91, 526n5 Bücherwurm, Der (journal), 31 Bund das Neue Frankfurt, 257 Bund der Deutschen Gebrauchsgraphiker. See Union of German Graphic Designers Burchard, Irmgard, 445 Burchartz, Max, 34, 46, 197, 490n6, 508n2 (text 68); as graphic designer, 204, 256, 314, 344, 387, 387, 394 Butcher (or Vampire) of Hannover. See Haarmann, Fritz Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), 498n3 (text 43), 532n2 (text 157) Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (film), 233, 512n21, 528n4 (text 124) Café Aubette (Strasbourg), 522n1 (text 105) California, 287 Captain of Köpenick, 43, 491n13
Carrà, Carlo, 490n2 (text 12) Cathedral of Erotic Misery. See Kathedrale des erotischen Elends (K d e E) Catholic Centre Party (Deutsche Zentrumspartei, DZP), 77 Catholicism, 77–79, 505n5 Cavalleria rusticana, 321, 524n17 Celle (Germany), 307–10, 326, 522nn5–8 celle volks-möbel, 307 Cercle et Carré (group), 343 Cézanne, Paul, 185 Chagall, Marc, 42 Chamberlin, Clarence D., 272, 273, 517n1 (text 94) chance, xxvi, 134, 137, 298; and marketing, 312; Merz label and, 25, 173; meetings, 51, 288; working with, 137, 229, 236, 251, 446 Charchoune, Serge, 530n1 (text 126) Chicago, 232, 510n1 (text 79), 526n15 Christ, 177, 198 Christianity, 78, 153, 190 Christmas, 33, 418, 428, 439, 440–41, 492n1 (text 14), 529n10 Cicerone, Der (journal), 24, 248 Cité Moderne (Belgium), 519n23 Citroen, Paul, 82 city planning, 91–92, 178–79, 418. See also neue Frankfurt, Das class. See bourgeois identity clinker building, 224, 336, 525n3 Cohn-Wiener, Ernst, 25, 26, 188–91 collaboration, xviii, xxiii, 325–27, 413, 452; in architecture, 225; in Merztheater, 161–62, 166. See also Dada Tour collage, xv, xxiv, 33, 82, 188, 458; by peers, 257, 499n15, 527n26. See also Merz-drawings College of Applied Arts (Hannover), 66, 236, 249, 340, 406 Cologne (Germany), 198, 254, 522n2 (text 106) Cologne Dada, 197, 506n15. See also Gruppe stupid
Index
537
color: in advertising, 159, 409, 410; in architecture, 178–79, 235, 272, 292, 330, 504n2 (text 57), 520n30, 522n5; as light, 273, 432, 443, 448, 517n4; as material, 47, 72, 136, 250, 268, 444, 468, 499n20; and music, 1, 5–6, 66, 260–62, 263–68, 517n4; and painting, 1–3, 7–8, 15, 70–71, 103, 456–57; perception, 10–12, 20–22, 267, 338, 447, 461, 463; in portraiture, 459, 472; psychological effect of, 23; refraction, 9– 10, 257–58, 266; as sound, 67; study of, xiv, 236, 446; and style, 140; in theater, 28, 75, 206, 207, 211, 220–222, 241; theory, 3, 11–12, 487n21; in typography, 312, 361, 387, 394, 403–59 Commerz- und Privatbank, xv, 173, 235, 250, 503n1 (text 55) communism, 73, 155, 197, 198, 462, 466 composition, xxvi, 2–5, 7, 12, 443–48; in architecture, 308; with color, 258; and destruction, 74; and format, 397; as goal, 263–64; judgment of, 19, 328; Merz, 250–51, 252–53, 342, 380, 407, 472–73, 474; of Merzbau, 426; planar, 261, 382, 383, 390, 392; in poetry, 192, 295–96, 417; on stage, 220, 326; talent for, 455; typographic, 311– 13. See also equilibrium; evaluation; rhythm concentration camps, 50, 492n2 (text 18) Congress of International Progressive Artists (Düsseldorf), 513n1 (text 83) Constantinople, 248 constructivism: and Dada, 129–30, 498n5 (text 41); and development of art, 199, 311, 464; and expressionism, xiv, 53, 434; as “ism,” 196, 396, 447; and Merz, 188, 198, 243–44; and nature, 229; support for, 331, 424, 512n3 (text 81) Contimporanul (journal), 177, 187 copying. See imitation; reproduction Courbet, Gustave, 510n5 (text 78) Cowell, Henry, 274 Cowley, Malcolm, 530n1 (text 126)
critics, 122, 176, 248; advice for, 123; of Dada, 180–81; information for, 122; as material, 28, 29, 45; rabid, 86; replies to, xv, xxi–xxii, xxiv, 83, 421. See also criticism criticism, 243, 248, 259, 294, 328, 365; allegory for, 127; of “An Anna Blume,” 33–34, 36–37, 91–92; as artwork, 56– 57; in Berlin, 50–52, 87–89, 93–94, 188–91; Dada as, xxii, 128–29, 134–35, 196; of Dada, 61–62, 250, 528n1 (text 125); of German art, 124–26, 201; in Hannover, 40–43, 77–79; of Merz debut, 25–26, 38–39; of modern art, 81– 82, 95–121; purpose of, 84–85; rabid, 86; of Sturm artists, 35, 53–55, 58–60, 63–64, 68. See also anti-criticism Crystal Chain (group), 91 cubism: and collage, 82, 130; and composition, 179, 254, 263, 391, 419, 448; criticism of, 55, 59; in evolution of art, 475, 526n3; exhibitions of, 53; galleries showing, 274, 494n3; as “ism,” 77, 188, 250, 396, 434, 447. See also Braque, Georges; Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry; Picasso, Pablo Cyliax, Walter, 344 Czech Republic. See Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia, 286, 494n7 (text 24) d’Ébneth, Lajos, 251, 513n2 (text 88), 515n10 Daal en Berg, Papaverhof (The Hague), 134, 499n13 Dada, xiii, 172, 183–85; and architecture, 233; and banality, 167–68, 170–71; critics as, 61–62; as dead, 93, 180–81, 477; as destructive, 36–37; and development of art, 434, 457, 464, 526n3; factions, 72–73, 196–98; in France, 501n4 (text 51); in Holland, 131, 132–35, 167, 198, 237, 422–23; and K d e E, 419; literature, xxiv, 489n1 (text 8); and Merz, xxi, 93–94, 152, 189–92, 474, 479; and modernity, xxii–xxiii, 128–30, 133, 169,
Index
538
181–82; negative reaction to, 31, 33, 61–62, 77, 95; performance, 83, 156, 157, 435; poetry, 193, 253, 295, 447; and politics, 154, 203; titles, 448. See also Cologne Dada; Dada Tour of Holland; Berlin Dada; Zurich Dada Dada-Almanach (book), 73 Dadaism. See Dada Dada Painters and Poets (book), 69, 494n6 (text 26), 496n22 (text 26) Dada Tour of Holland, xvii, xxii, 132–34, 167, 198, 422–23 500n4 (text 46) Dalí, Salvador, 465, 531n5 (text 147) Dalsnibba Mountain (Norway), 435–36 Dammerstock Estate (Karlsruhe), 307, 337–39, 411–12, 411–12, 529n9. See also Karlsruhe Daniel, O. H., 458 Darmstadt (Germany), 53, 58 Darmstädter Tageblatt (newspaper), 53 Darwin, Charles. See natural selection Däubler, Theodor, 170 de 8 (group), 380 de Chirico, Giorgio, 479, 490n2 (text 12) decoration: and abstraction, 17; in architecture, 225, 301–4, 308–9, 320, 335– 36, 392, 420, 504n2 (text 57); as feminine, 328; and imitation, 133, 176; and Merz, 41, 244; and set design, 163, 219, 221; and typography, 316, 344, 401 de-formation (Entformung), xvi–xvii, 179; as creative act, 24, 39, 149; and poetry, 137 Defregger, Franz von, 189, 300, 521n4 Degenerate Art (exhibition), 81, 330, 445, 503n2 (text 55) “degenerate art” label, xiv, 95, 463 de Klerk, Michel, 290, 519n20 dematerialization, 129, 136 democracy, 153, 173, 299, 466, 508n1 (text 66) design. See typography design museums, 321, 512n3, 523n12 Dessau (Germany). See under Bauhaus Deutsche Industrienorm. See DIN standards
Deutsche Theater-Ausstellung (exhibition), 272 Deutscher Bund Heimatschutz (German Union of Heritage Conservation), 518n4 (text 98) Deutscher Expressionismus (exhibition), 53, 58 “Deutschlandlied” (Song of Germany), 506n6 (text 61) devaluation (Abwerten), xvii, 72, 159, 163, 313, 418. See also evaluation; value Dexel, Walter, 184, 314, 344, 387, 387, 394, 505n9 Didot-point system, 528n3 (text 122) DIN standards, 326, 410, 411, 523n1 (text 107), 524n3; for Hannover printed matter, 390, 390, 395, 398–405, 398, 402, 404; for Karlsruhe printed matter, 374, 365 Disk (journal), 187 distraction, 18–19, 47–48, 136, 238, 301, 397; in graphic design, 317; at the movies, 437; on stage, 163, 208, 219, 246, 422; from work, 341 Dix, Otto, 82, 184, 505n11 Djupvasshytta (hotel), 432, 435–36 Djupvatnet (Norway), 435–36 Döcker, Richard, 519n26 Documents Internationaux de l’Esprit Nouveau, 269, 485n21 Doesburg, Nelly (Petro) van, xvii, 132, 133, 422, 499n13 Doesburg, Theo van, 155, 174, 228, 475; as architect, 232, 510n4 (text 79); and Dada, xvii, 133, 182, 422–23; as editor, 135; as interior designer, 499n13, 522n1 (text 105); and Mécano, 185, 530n1 (text 126); in Merz, 186, 503nn4–6 (text 54); as networker, 516n3, 527n20; as theorist, xix, xxiii, 140, 269, 307. See also Bonset, I. K. Dolbin, B. F., 218, 509nn2–3 (text 75) Domela-Nieuwenhuis, César, 274, 314, 343, 386, 386, 394, 527n20; as member of the ring, 344
Index
539
Domselaer, Jakob van, 228, 510n2 (text 78) Dorner, Alexander, 238, 330, 331, 382, 513n2 (text 82) Dörries, Bernhard, 46 drawings (Schwitters): 65, 341, 488n8 (text 4); portrait, 307, 435; retrospective of, 248–49; The Prisoner, 515n17 Dreier, Katherine S., 274, 381, 382, 448, 512n7, 514n10 Dresden (Germany), 21, 81–82, 254, 295, 305, 474; carnival in, 496n1 (text 29); exhibitions in, 17, 513n2 (text 88); performances in, 83; topography of, 486nn5–6, 504n1 (text 59). See also Royal Saxon Academy of Art; Stadtmuseum Dresden Art Academy. See Royal Saxon Academy of Art Dresdner Nachrichten (newspaper), 81 Dreyer, Theodor, 413, 528n3 (text 124) Duchamp, Marcel, 479 Dudok, Willem Marinus, 225, 290, 308, 510n3 (text 76), 519n20 Düsseldorf (Germany), 418, 513n1 (text 83), 529n5 Edschmid, Kasimir, 31, 170, 502n1 (text 53) Eesteren, Cornelis van, 232, 274, 510n4 (text 79) Eigengift, xvi, 136 Eilenriede Forest (Hannover), 430, 431 Einzige, Der (journal), 187 Éluard, Paul, 167, 501n4 (text 51), 530n1 (text 126) Emelka-Palast Cinema (Hamburg), 385, 527n17 empathy, 21, 81, 231, 246 En avant Dada (book), 494nn7–8 (text 26) Engau, Otto, 183, 504n1 (text 59) England, 125, 440, 462–63, 470, 479; emigration to, xv, xxv, 467, 474, Entartete Kunst. See Degenerate Art Entformeln and Entformelung. See de-formation Entformung. See de-formation
epilepsy, 65. See also St. Vitus’s Dance Eppstein im Taunus (Germany), 257 equilibrium, xvii–xviii, xix, 136, 167, 174; in architecture, 232, 269, 300, 302; and being, 226–27, 425; in composition, 12, 128–29, 140, 391–92, 415–16, 417; in a fragment, 253; in space, 137, 139; in theater, 212, 220, 241; in typography, 204, 344, 353, 361, 367, 405. See also harmony; rhythm Ernst, Max, 82, 197, 198, 507n3 (text 63), 530n1 (text 126) evaluation (Wertung): as aim of art, 71– 72, 174; and architecture, 178–79, 232, 392; in artists’ collective, xviii; as composition, xvi, 136, 149, 230, 443; of material, 24, 416–17; in Merz-theater, 74, 159, 165; of oppositions, xxii, 167, 258, 344; in poetry, 31, 47, 193, 417; as process, 169, 170, 173, 231; and rhythm, xix, 103; of the self, 227, 228; in Standard Merz Stage, 220; in typography, 313, 316, 361. See also devaluation; value Exhibition of Twentieth Century German Art, 445, 531n6 (text 139) exile: of artists in England, xv, xxvi, 80, 468; of Schwitters, xiv, xvi, xxv, 381, 439 Existenzminimum, 307 expression, xvii, 46, 94, 128–29, 155, 230; of architecture, 74, 224, 420; of artist, 65, 338; of fragment, 122, 253; and irony, 319–20, 321; literary, xxiv, 103, 447; material for, 333, 433, 464; of painting, 5, 21, 71–72, 250–51; of performance 157–58; portrait as, 458, 460, 473; and propaganda, 462; of stage set, 207, 212, 220, 221, 222, 252; style as, 173, 176; of the times, 419; of typography, 204, 277, 373, 379, 407 expressionism: in architecture, 178, 225, 504n2 (text 57), 511nn15–17, 525n3; in art, xiii, xiv, 46, 128, 274, 331; in cinema, 512n21; exhibitions of, 53–54, 58; as “ism,” 133, 250, 396, 434, 457,
Index
540
526n3; in literature, 167, 170, 489n1 (text 8), 500n2 (text 46), 500n1 (text 49), 502n1 (text 53); and Merz, 188–89; in painting, 258, 447, 490n9, 502n4; patrons of, xiv, 126, 330–31, 494n3, 512n3; and politics, 154; reaction against, 50, 64, 73, 197, 258, 495n8, 528–29n2 (text 125); and religion, 77 Fagus-Werk (Alfeld), 233, 511n12 Fallersleben, August Heinrich Hoffmann von, 506n6 fascism: resistance to, xxvi, 532n2 (text 148). See also Nazi Germany. fashion: in art, 63, 229–30, 243–44, 421; in clothing, 44–45, 65, 315, 340; in typography, 271, 311; women’s, 89, 113, 161, 338 FBI, 494n6 (text 26) Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 488n6 (text 4) Feininger, Lyonel, 418, 529n8 Festival of Technology (Fest der Technik), 325–26, 510n4 (text 78), 524n16, 525n7 film, 231, 245–46, 412, 437, 504n8; actors, 499n15, 500n1 (text 50), 505n7, 506n6; adaptations, 491n13, 500n2 (text 46), 524n1 (text 109); industrial, 325, 523n2; props for, 272–73. See also Bergmann-Michel, Ella; Bragaglia, Anton; Lang, Fritz; Richter, Hans; Cabinet of Dr. Caligari Fiori, Ernesto de, 87, 88, 89 Fischer, Eduard, 527n29 Fischer, Eleonore, 441, 531n5 (text 137) Fischer, Friedrich, 512n1 (text 82), 531n5 (text 137) Fischer, Hans Waldemar, 61 Fischer, Oskar, 82, 179, 504n2 (text 57) Fischer, Theodor, 318 Fliegende Blätter (journal), 502n12 Form, Die (journal), 224, 319 form-creation (Gestaltung), xix–xx, 380– 95, 422; abstract, 328, 439, 446, 447, 448; in architecture, 91, 224, 232–33,
308, 321, 337; art as, 243; with found material, 122, 147, 250; in industry, 230; of life, 198; in painting, 396–97, 451– 52; in poetry, 192, 327; rhythmic, xxvi, 231, 433, 457; and style, 140, 173–75, 269–70; as term, 484n14, 498n6 (text 41); in typography, 204–5, 311–14, 316, 345–79 Förster, Karl, 185, 505n12 Fraenkel, Else, 329, 525n2 (text 111) France, 286, 509n1 (text 69); emigration to, 330; and Germany, 53, 125, 134, 499n16, 505n8; national identity of, 199–200, 202 France, Anatole, 185, 506n20 Francis, Saint, 320, 321, 322 Frank, Josef, 519n26 Frankfurt am Main (Germany), 254, 284, 307, 380, 395; advertising in, 387, 387, 388, 394; collaborators in, 516n5, 524n16. See also neue Frankfurt, Das Frankfurter Zeitung (newspaper), 58, 63, 254 Free German League of Culture (Freier Deutscher Kulturbund, FDKB), 466– 667, 531–32nn1–2 (text 148) Frehsee, Martin, 33–34 Freie Meinung (newspaper), 61 Frerking, Johann, 40, 41, 491n1 Freudenthal-Lutter, Susanna (Suus), 428– 31, 429, 430, 432 Freudenthal, Hans, 428 Friedländer, Salomo. See Mynona Fritz, Hans, 509n2 (text 75) fronta (book), 228, 274–75 Frühlicht (journal), xiv, 90, 91, 187 Fuchs, Carl Johannes, 518n4 (text 98) Futura, 345, 370–375, 400, 403 futurism, 447, 494n3; and expressionism, 50, 53, 126, 434; as “ism,” 77, 250, 269, 475 G (journal), xx, 173, 182, 187, 204, 508n2 (text 68); Schwitters in, xiv, 194, 196. See also Graeff, Werner; Richter, Hans
Index
541
Gabo, Naum, 274, 382, 382, 391, 475 Galerie Der Sturm (Berlin), xx, 32, 66, 342, 407; architects affiliated with, 504n2 (text 57), 511n9; criticism of, 53–54, 58, 63–64, 495n8; as dealer, 448, 495n16; exhibitions at, 50, 125, 188, 498n1 (text 39); first Merz exhibition, 24, 25, 38, 243, 250; Große Merzausstellung at, 248, 513n2 (text 88); i-drawings at, 122, 141; international affiliates of, 80, 196; painters affiliated with, 35, 490n6, 490n9, 502n4, 503n2 (text 54), 505n9, 526n5; poets affiliated with, 31, 489n2 (text 9), 506n6; as publisher, 65, 255, 494n2; and theater, 273, 524n1 (text 109); as vanguard, 26, 52, 55, 126, 170, 274. See also Walden, Herwarth Galerie Dr. Becker und Alfred Newman (Cologne), 248, 513n2 (text 88) Galerie Ernst Arnold (Dresden), 17, 19, 81, 496n1 (text 30) Galerie von Garvens (Hannover), 330–31, 491n7, 525n1 (text 111) Galileo, 177 Garvens-Garvensburg, Herbert von, 238, 330, 491n7, 513n1 (text 82); wife of, 42 Gebrauchswohnung, Die (exhibition), 337 Gefesselter Blick (book), 340, 406, 408– 12, 528n7 Gegenwart, Die (journal), 47 Geibel, Emanuel, 502n6, 502n12 Geiger, Mortiz, 58 Geirangerfjord (Norway), 435 German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP), 486n7, 508n1 (text 66) German National People’s Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP), 518n7 (text 98) German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei, DVP), 33 German State Party (Deutsche Staatspartei, DStP), 508n1 (text 66) Germania (journal), 95, 113
Germany: architecture in, 232–34; art criticism in, 86, 201; as Dada, 133, 184, 197, 198; exile from, 441, 445; folk traditions of, 496n3 (text 33); leaders of, 528n2 (text 124); as modern, 196, 310; national art of, 53–54, 447, 461–62, 463; and national identity, 199–200, 342, 407, 466–67; postal system of, 505n3; reparations by, 134, 499n16; unification of, 489n4 (text8), 493n3 (text 19), 505n4. See also Nazi Germany; November Revolution Gerok, Karl, 496n2 (text 33) Gesamtkunstwerk: city as, 92; Merztheater as, 28, 30, 74–76, 157–59, 164, 166; Schwitters’s interest in, xviii, 66, 74, 155; world as, 135–36 Gestaltung. See form-creation. Gestapo, xiv Giedion, Sigfried, 419, 529n13 Giedion-Welcker, Carola, 484n15, 529n13 Gieseking, Wilhelm (Walter), 327, 525n7 Glaser, Curt, 38–39, 188–91 Gläserne Kette. See Crystal Chain Gleichgewicht. See equilibrium Gleichmann-Giese, Lotte, 46 Gleichmann, Otto, 46, 84, 238 Gleizes, Albert, 172, 228 Goedecker, Otto, 311 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, xx, 84, 167, 221, 418; “Das Göttliche,” 491n6; “Der Schatzgräber,” 320, 523n10; “Ein Gleiches,” 193, 507n1 (text 62); Faust I, 161, 501n5 (text 50), 524n6, 525n8; “Kunst,” 501n2 (text 50); as source, xxi, xxii, 68; “Wanderers Nachtlied,” 507n1 (text 62); Zur Farbenlehre, 3, 7 Goll, Yvan, 184 Goltz, Hans, 69, 490n2 (text 12), 494n3 Gorny, Hein, 527n29 Gothic age, 129, 133, 277, 307, 444, 455 Gothic architecture, 91, 272, 305, 419 Graeff, Werner, 287, 508n2 (text 68), 518n3 (text 98) Granville, Philip and Ursula, xxv
Index
542
graphic design. See typography Graphischer Klub Stuttgart, 380 Great Britain, xv, 466, 528n4 (text 124). See also England Gropius, Walter, 197, 232–33, 234, 289– 90, 308, 337, 517n2; with Adolf Meyer, 511n8, 511n12; designs for prefabrication, 511n11; with Peter Behrens, 511n13, 519n19; Schwitters’s contact with, xix. See also under Bauhausbücher Groß, Wilhelm, 238, 513n1 (text82) Große Merzausstellung (exhibition), 250, 253–54, 513n2 (text 88) Großherzoglich-Sächsische Hochschule für bildende Kunst (Weimar), 257, 527n26 Grosz, George, 197, 198, 507n2 (text 63) Gruppe stupid (group), 197, 507n3 (text 63) Günther Wagner, Inc. See Pelikan–Werke Gürtler, Georg Daniel (“Danny”), 184, 505n7 Gustav Fischer Verlag (publisher), 187 Gut Garkau. See under Häring, Hugo H. Berthold AG, 527n27. See also Berthold, Hermann Haagsche Post, 254 Haagse Kunstkring (The Hague), 422, 530n2 (text 126) Haarlem (Netherlands), 254, 422 Haarmann, Fritz, 238, 413, 513n1 (text 82) Haesler, Otto: 269, 307–10, 337, 420, 522n1 (text 105), 522nn5–7; Altstädter Volksschule, 307, 310, 385, 385, 393, 522n8 Hague, The (Netherlands), 134, 149, 155, 254, 422, 499n13, 514n10 Halmhuber, Irmgard, 329, 525n1 (text 111) Hals, Frans, 446, 462 Hamburg (Germany), 95, 254, 307, 441, 525n3, 531n3 (text 147) Hamburger Fremdenblatt (newspaper), 254 Hammitzsch, Martin, 486n5
Hannover (Germany), xiv, 254, 288–89, 380; as art center, 238, 330–31; commerce in, 160; as Dada center, 197; graphic identity of, 390, 398–405, 398, 402, 404, 528n2 (text 122); as hometown, 65–66, 69, 200, 249, 340–41, 406, 462, 474; housing in, 308, 522n2 (text 105); industry in, 66, 325, 512n3, 517n8; personalities of, 167, 184, 500n2 (text 46); as Revon, 49, 189, 493n2 (text 24); topography of, 487n23, 524n4; typhoid in, 65, 289, 512n1 (text 82) Hannover Municipal Theater, 40 Hannoversche Volkszeitung (newspaper), 77 Hannoverscher Anzeiger (newspaper), 40, 41, 53, 68, 124, 504n2 (text 58). See also Anzeiger-Hochhaus Hannoverscher Kurier (newspaper), 33– 35, 40, 42, 254, 258 Hannoverscher Volkswille (newspaper), 40, 43 Hannoversches Tageblatt (newspaper), 40–41, 238, 255, 307, 325, 328, 529n17 Hannover Secession, 40, 46, 330, 490n6, 491n1 Häring, Hugo, 232, 269, 289, 308; color, 2, 7–8, 12, 21, 23, 265; of composition, 5, 10, 162, 328, 446; in criticism, 56; Gut Garkau, 224–25, 270, 385, 385, 509n2 (text 76) harmony: of artistic activity, 253, 464; musical, 9, 451, 455; of proportions, 373 Hartlaub, Gustav Friedrich, 58–60, 529n2 Harzburg (Germany), 10, 12, 240 Hauptmann, Carl, 31 Haus am Bakken, 439 Haus am Horn (Weimar), 233, 511n11 Hausmann, Raoul, 82, 154, 185, 333, 418, 505n11; and Dada, 83, 197, 198, 494n8 (text 26); as poet, 293, 294–95, 477, 517–18n1 (text 96), 520nn3–4; in Mécano, 530n1 (text 126)
Index
543
Heap, Jane, 218, 332 Heartfield, John, 197, 198, 466 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, xx Hegenbarth, Emanuel, 69, 236, 249, 494n2 Heine, Heinrich, xxi, 167, 497n10 Heißenbüttel, Helmut, 484n9 Hélion, Jean, 424 Helmholtz, Hermann von, 9, 10, 20 Hercules, 507n13 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 510n1 (text 78) Hermann monument, 183, 505nn3–4 Herzfelde, Wieland, 197, 198 Heuer, Eugen, 527n29 Hilberseimer, Ludwig, 228, 233, 269, 308, 511n9: Metropolis Architecture, 232, 234, 237, 291, 388, 388, 511n9; and Weissenhofsiedlung, 289, 291, 519n15, 519–20n28 Hildebrandt, Hans, 235, 236, 531n4 (text 139); Woman as Artist, xxi, 328–29 Hildesheim (Germany), 254, 326, 335, 498n2 (text 40), 524n4, 526n3 Hilfe, Die (newspaper), 486n7 Hillebrand, Lucy, 524n16, 527n26 Hindenburg, Paul von, 413, 512n1 (text 82), 528n2 (text 124) Hinrichsen, Klaus E., 458 Hirth, Georg, 15, 17, 20–21 Hitler, Adolf, 413, 445, 463 Hitler Youth, 440 Höch, Hannah, 257, 413, 418, 435, 499n15, 506n3 Hoerle, Angelica, 82 Hoerle, Heinrich, 82, 185, 197, 506n15, 507n3 (text 63) Hohlt, Otto, 46 Holland. See Netherlands, The Holocaust, 501n7 Home and Technology (exhibition), 318, 319, 523n2 (text 108) Hopp, Hans, 269, 516n4 Horace, 490n7 Huelsenbeck, Richard, 72–73, 83, 181, 197–98, 494nn56 (text 26), 495n10
humor, 56–57, 124, 129, 200, 465. See also laughter Huszár, Vilmos, xvii, 133, 422, 499n13; Mechanical Dancing Figure, 138, 139; Space-Color Composition for a Dining Room, 384, 384, 392 Hutchinson Camp (Isle of Man), xxiii, 456, 458, 466, 502n4 Huygens, Christiaan, 9, 487n20 hygiene, 86, 290, 337 i 10 (journal), xiv, 274; Schwitters in, 272, 276, 278, 286, 293, 318, 335 Ibsen, Henrik, 56 i (concept), xviii, 229, 252–53; and architecture, 178–79; and banality, 167, 170– 71, 501n3 (text 51), 503n3 (text 54); and criticism, 188, 190; manifestos, xxiv, 122, 141–51 i-drawings, 122, 141, 149, 252–53; i-Picture [1], 145; i-Picture [2], 145 i-poems, 141, 147, 149, 152, 500n1 (text 47) “Ihr Kinderlein kommet” (song), 418, 529n10 Ille-Beeg, Marie, 97, 497n1 (text 36) imitation: and class, 300, 435; and fakery, 303–4, 335–36; freedom from, 17; of historical styles, xxiii, 155, 338; materials, xxi–xxii, 273, 301, 302, 525n1 (text 114); of Merz, 91, 506n2; of nature, 4, 44–45, 228, 235, 249– 50, 258, 447; opposed to art, 101, 128, 130, 235, 238, 340, 406; of other artists, 175–76, 177, 188, 201, 229, 344; in theater design, 208, 221. See also kitsch impressionism, 46, 71, 128, 434, 494n1 (text 26), 519n10; as “ism,” 77, 133, 396, 457, 526n3 improvisation, 161–62, 164, 219, 509n3 (text 75) Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, USPD), 491n10
Index
544
information (Orientierung): as design schema, 345, 351, 363, 367, 392, 405; examples of, 349, 375, 389, 394, 395; as goal, 380, 393, 420 Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 243 insanity. See madness intention: of artist, xviii, 15, 71, 439, 444, 456, 462; and banality, 170; of criticism, 84, 109, 175, 201, 442; and Dada, 167, 193, 464; and de-formation, 179; of design, 399, 420, 427; and i-concept, 141, 145, 149; and kitsch, 67, 73, 133; and Merz-performance, 160, 163, 164; and speech, 215; and style, 173; and titles, 247 International Congress for Constructivists and Dadaists, xix Internationale (song), 27, 29, 76 Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik. See International Exhibition of New Theater Technology International Exhibition of New Theater Technology (Vienna), 156, 206, 214, 218–19, 508n1 (text 69) International Theatre Exposition (New York), 218, 219 internment camps, xv, 463. See also Hutchinson Camp Iron Cross (I. C.), 81, 496n2 (text 29), 500n2 (text 47) irony, 154, 157, 189, 491n2; Schwitters’s use of, xix, xx–xxi, 36, 38, 318, 484n15, 507n8. See also anti-criticism Isle of Man (Great Britain), xv, xxiii, 456, 461, 466, 502n4 Italy, 286, 299, 509n1 (text 69) Jacob, Max, 500n1 (text 46) Jahns, Rudolf, 274, 275, 516n4 Janco, Marcel, 82 Japan, xiv; people of, 464, 467. See also Tokyo Japanese art, 461 Jena (Germany), 254, 505n9 Jonas, Genja, 249, 256, 332
Journal du peuple, Le (newspaper), 170 journals. See specific titles Jugendstil, 269, 499n14 K d e E. See Kathedrale des erotischen Elends Kafka, Franz, 492n3, 501n1 (text 50) Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry, 63, 82, 188, 491n2 Kandinsky, Wassily, 59, 228, 243, 244, 260, 343, 446, 475; Schwitters’s letter to, xix, 259–62; abstract painting by, 381, 381, 390–91 Kanoldt, Alexander, 84 Kant, Immanuel, 493n2 (text 20) Karlsruhe (Germany), 375, 418, 529n9. See also Dammerstock Estate Kassák, Lajos, 80, 344 Kathedrale des erotischen Elends (K d e E), 413, 414, 417–19, 429, 430, 529n11 Kemény, Alfréd, 185, 505n11 Kerr, Alfred, 84, 466 Kestner-Gesellschaft (Hannover), 330, 500n2 (text 46); directors of, 491n13, 532n1 (text 152); events at, 516n4; exhibitions at, 46, 232, 234, 238; members of, 40, 491n7, 512n3, 525n2 (text 111) Kettelhut, Erich, 517n3 Kiesler, Frederick, 156, 218, 508n1 (text 69). See also Space Stage Kijkduin (Netherlands), 251, 514n10 Kitchener, H. H., 492n2 (text 18) kitsch, 73, 133–34, 189, 201, 297, 328; as material, 67, 413, 428; as slur, xviii, 26, 38, 177, 233. See also imitation Klee, Paul, 59, 84, 243, 244, 446, 494n3; on form-creation, xix; critical response to, 117 Klein, Cesár, 517n2 Klein, Myrtle, xxv, 485n24 kleine Journal, Das, 184 Kleist, Heinrich von, 465 Klinger, Max, 300, 521n5 Klinkerexpessionismus. See clinker building Kobbe, Carl, 180–81, 504n2 (text 58)
Index
545
Kobro, Katarzyna, 196 Köppen, Alfred, 10 Kokoschka, Oskar, 243, 466, 532n2 (text 148) Konsequenz, xx, xxii, 192 Koppe, Karl, 10 Kosina, Heinrich, 232, 269, 510–11n7 Kranich, Friedrich, Jr., 325–27 Kraus, Karl, 507n1 (text 62) Krayl, Carl, 90, 91 Kubin, Alfred, 84 Kuehl, Gotthardt, 66, 69, 236, 240, 249, 446, 494n1 (text 26) Kunstbibliothek (Berlin), 38 Kunstblatt, Das (journal), 58, 63, 87–89, 188–89, 502n3, 506n17 Kunstgewerbeschule (Hannover). See College of Applied Arts Kunsthaus Zurich, 529n13 Kunstismen, Die / Les ismes de l’art / The Isms of Art (Lissitzky and Arp), 513n1 (text 83), 526n8, 526n13 Künstler im Front (KIF), 529n17 Kunstsalon L. Schames (Frankfurt), 248, 513n2 (text 88) Kunstverein Hannover, 274, 330, 513n2 (text 88) Küppers, Paul Erich, 491n13 Küppers, Sophie, 526n6 Kuron-Gogol, Viktor Joseph, 82 Kurt and Ernst Schwitters Foundation, xxv, 488n8 (text 4) Kurt Schwitters Archive (Hannover), xxv, xxvii, 382 Kyffhäuser monument, 418, 529n7 L’Esprit Nouveau (journal), 201 Laatzen (Germany), 10, 487n23 Lach, Friedhelm, xxiv–xxv Lake District (Great Britain), xv Lang, Fritz, 506n6, 517n3 language: accents and dialects, 93, 167, 180, 288, 292, 505n11, 518n8 (text 98); appropriated, 25, 40; of criticism, 84; invented, 215–17; Merz approach
to, xvi, xxiii, xxiv, 87; poetic, xxv–xxvi, 137, 456; as sound, 192, 293, 499n9, 500n5, 505n6; of the stars, 226; and writing, 276–77, 279, 294, 316, 357. See also banality Lapland (Sápmi), 530n1 (text 133) Lasker-Schüler, Else, 506n5 László, Alexander, 273, 517n4 laughter: as artistic material, 160, 166; Dada, xxiii, 73, 129, 180, 198, 464; directed at critics: 37, 42, 43, 87, 113, 288; in a Merz-performance, 156, 159, 161–62, 165; mindless, 273, 436; selfreflexive, 34 Laukotová, Hermina, 17 League of Nations, 424 Le Corbusier, 201, 289–90, 291, 519n19 Leck, Bart van der, 228, 475 Léger, Fernand, 343 Lehmann, Ernst. See under Schwitters, Ernst Leibl, Wilhelm, 230, 434, 446, 462, 510n5 (text 78) Leine (river), 479, 492n1 (text 17) Leipzig (Germany), 53, 254, 526n1 Leipziger Neuesten Nachrichten (newspaper), 53 Leistikow, Hans, 314, 344, 387, 387, 395, 527n25 Leistikow, Margarete (Grete), 527n25 Leonardo da Vinci, 82. See also Mona Lisa Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 56, 167; Laokoon, 4 Lettristes, 477 Lincke, Paul, 506n5 Lissitzky, El, 184, 224, 243, 475, 508n2 (text 68); as artist, 197, 228, 258; collaboration on Merz 8/9. nasci, xix, 187, 229, 248, 510n4 (text 78), 513n1 (text 83); design of Ursonate, 237, 293, 512n7; designs for Pelikan, 512n3, 522n3 (text 106); at Pressa exhibition, 522n2 (text 106) — SPECIFIC WORKS: Abstract Cabinet, 238, 330–31, 383, 383, 392, 513n2 (text
Index
546
82); Proun (Study for Proun S. K.), 381, 381, 390–91, 526n6; Proun R.V.N. 2, 383, 383, 390–91; “Topography of Typography,” 204, 345, 351, 355, 379. See also Kunstismen, Die Little Review, The (journal), xiv, 187, 218, 332 Lofoten Islands (Norway), xv London, xv, xxv, 445, 466, 468, 474; émigrés in, 503n2 (text 54), 525n2 (text 111) London Gallery, 477 Loos, Adolf, 519n23 Lorelei, 113 Louvre, 304 Lucifer (journal), 187 Lüdecke, Gustav, 269, 516n4 Lunacharsky, Anatoly, 154, 500n1 (text 49) Luther, Martin, 68, 419, 521n1 (text 103) Luxembourg, 199–200 Lysaker (Norway), 439, 445 MA (journal), xiv, 80, 187 madness, 203, 333, 334, 442; and abstract art, 95–97, 103, 107, 113, 117; Anna Blume and, 488n9 (text 7); Dada and, xxii, 181, 183, 193, 197; Merz and, 77–78, 156–57 Madsack, Erich, 40, 41, 68, 491n3 Madsack, Paul, 68 Magdeburg (Germany), 53, 254, 272, 511n19; colorful architecture in, 91, 178– 79, 233, 258, 522n5 Mahlberg, Paul, 232, 269, 510–11n7 Maldiney, Henri, 484n10 Malevich, Kazimir, 228, 243, 475 Malik Verlag (publisher), 198 Manet, Édouard, 434, 510n5 (text 78) Manheim, Ralph, 69, 483n7, 494n6 (text 26) Mann, Heinrich, 31, Mannheim, Karl, 318 Manomètre (journal), 187 Marc, Franz, 434, 446 Marinetti, F. T., 530n1 (text 126) Mars, 229, 510n4 (text 78)
Marseillaise (song), 72 Marx, Karl, xx material: for architecture, 91–92, 140, 224, 232–33, 270, 290–91, 308–9, 338; critics’ response to, xxi–xxii, 41, 67, 82, 124–26; and Dada, 129, 167; discarded, xiii, 86, 237, 250, 417, 442, 447, 474; and i-concept, 122; as irrelevant, xvi, 66, 80, 94, 173, 235, 391; for K d e E, 413, 418–19; for Merz-theater, 28–29, 74–76, 157–68; Merz use of, 24, 39, 72– 73, 135–36, 243, 444, 468, 469; for painting, 103, 396–97, 456–57, 458, 499n20; for poetry, 47, 103, 137, 192– 93; and process, xvii, xxvi, 177, 179, 396, 416–17, 433, 479; for sculpture, 44–45, 459; for Standard Merz Stage, 221; for typography, 204, 315, 316, 361, 379 mathematics, 226–27 Matisse, Henri, 479 Mavo (group), 239, 513n1 (text 83) May, Ernst, 269, 291, 308, 519n29 Mécano (journal), 185, 187, 422, 498n1 (text 43), 530n1 (text 126) Medusa, 82 Mehring, Walter, 82, 197, 198, 489n1 (text 9) Meidner, Ludwig, 190, 502nn3–4 Meisterschule für Deutschlands Buchdrucker (Munich), 321, 527n27 Mendelsohn, Erich, 233, 269; Amerika, 512n20; Einstein Tower, 339, 511n16, 512n22 mental illness. See madness Menzel, Adolph, 10, 236 Merz (concept): 88, 131, 135–37, 177, 188, 380, 424–25; and abstraction, 24, 434; applied to language, xvi, xxiii, xxiv, 87, 491n3; criticism of, 38, 40, 63, 78–79; and Dada, xvii, 69, 83, 94, 152, 189–91; as Dada, 504n2 (text 58); development of, 65–67, 239–40, 341, 406; and i, 122, 151, 167; K d e E as, 413; meaning of, 72; as pure, 86; as tolerance, 80; and style, 174–75, 192
Index
547
Merz (journal), xiv, 95, 189, 198, 237, 256, 421, 468 — Merz 1. Holland Dada, 167, 170, 181; writings in, 131, 132–37, 138–39 — Merz 2. Nummer i, xxiv, 167, 178, 253; writings in, 141–51, 152, 154–55 — Merz 3. Merz Mappe, 256 — Merz 4. Banalitäten, 176, 180, 345, 379, 515n21; writings in, 167–68, 169, 170– 71, 172 — Merz 5. 7 Arpaden, 169, 256, 502n1 (text 52) — Merz 6 / Arp 1, 173–76, 174, 498n4 (text 43), 507n8 — Merz 7. Tapsheft, 233, 253, 502n1 (text 52); writings in, 178–79, 180–82, 183– 85, 186–87 — Merz 8/9. Nasci, 228–29, 248, 325, 510n4 (text 78), 511n10, 513n1 (text 83), 531n4 (text 139); announcements for, 186–87, 198 — Merz 10. Merzbuch/Bauhausbuch, 239–40 — Merz 11. Typoreklame, 511n3 — Merz 13. Grammophonplatte, 293, 294 — Merz 14/15. Die Scheuche, 253, 515n18 — Merz 16/17. Die Märchen vom Paradies, 253, 515n18 — Merz 18/19. Grosstadtbauten, 232, 388, 388 — Merz 20. Kurt Schwitters Katalog, 248– 56, 249 — Merz 21. Erstes Veilchenheft, 414–21, 499n14 — Merz 24. Ursonate, 293, 468, 515n23, 521n6 (text 99) Merz (term): xv–xvi; as brand, 61, 243–44, 408, 474; definition of, 14, 25, 468; history of, 173, 189, 250; homophones for, xv, 488n1 (text 7); meaning, 72, 235; Schwitters as, 132–33, 181–82, 250 Merz-Advertising Agency, 255, 256, 276, 516n29; letterhead, 408, 408 Merz-architecture, 91–92; Haus Merz (Merz House), 74, 495n17; Castle
and Cathedral with Courtyard Well, 90, 91 Merzbau, xvii, xviii, 426–27, 428–31, 439, 440, 530n2 (text 133); and K d e E, 413, 414 Merz-drawings, xv, 67, 247, 252, 445; criticism of, 38, 42; using art reproductions, 521n4, 529n11; The First Day, 414, 415 Merz-Gesamtkunstwerk. See Gesamtkunstwerk Merz-painting, 55, 80, 237, 424–35, 474; criticism of, 77, 93; definition of, 24, 38; as a genre, 32, 66; materials for, 86. See also Merz-pictures Merz-performance: as recital, 180–81, 254, 294, 380, 421, 516n4 (text 92); as theater, 74–76, 157–60, 164–65. See also Dada Tour Merz-pictures and reliefs, 67, 80, 101–5, 442, 470; criticism of, 50, 82; as genre, 250–51, 444; material for, xvi, 417, 468; as model, 74–75, 136–37, 192 — SPECIFIC WORKS: Albert Finzlerbild / ALBERT FINSLERBILD, 383, 383, 424; Das Arbeiterbild. (The Worker Picture.), 54, 250, 493n3 (text 19), 514n7; Das Undbild (The And Picture), 250, 514n7; Franz Müller’s Wire Springtime, 50, 126, 492n3 (text 18), 498n1 (text 39); The Golden Ear, 445, 448, 531n6 (text 139); L Merzpicture L 3 (The Merzpicture.), 25, 81, 95, 173, 174, 250, 503n2 (text 55), 516n29; Machine Against Its Will, 448, 531n5 (text 139); Merz 1007 Rods and Circles, 514n9; Merz 1008 Wiesbaden, 514n9; Merz 1025 with Red Circle, 514n9; MERZ 1924,1. Relief with Cross and Sphere., 514n9; MERZ 1925,1 Relief in Blue Square, 515n13; MERZ 1926,3. Cicero, 424, 514n10; MERZ 1926,5 Vertical-Horizontal, 514n10; MERZ 1926,8 / Picture 1926,8 Shifted Planes, 514n10; MERZ 1926,12. “Little Seaman’s Home.,” 514n10; Merzpicture 1 A (The Alienist), 471,
Index
548
500n2 (text 46); Merz Picture 1 B Picture with Red Cross, 382, 382; Merzpicture 5 B (Picture with Red HeartChurch) / K Merzpicture K 4, 50, 492n3 (text 18); Merzpicture 9 b The Great I Picture / Merzpicture K 7 [?], 382, 382, 391, 514n8; Merzpicture 10 A / L Merzpicture L 4 (Construction for Noble Ladies.), 95; Merzpicture 46 A. The Skittle Picture, 514n8; Merz Picture K 6 The Huth Picture, 514n8; Merz Relief with Black Block, 514n9; Merz Relief with Red Wreath, 514n9; Picture 1926.1 Prayer over the City, 514n10; Picture 1926.2 Square on 8 Sides, 514n10; Picture 1926.4 With Red Circle, 514n10; Picture 1926.6 with White Lacquer Circle, 514n10; Picture 1926.7 Relief on White, 514n10; Picture 1926,9 Blue, Yellow, Red, Circle, 514n10; Picture 1926,10 Like a Star, 514n10; Picture 1926,11 As If by Ebneth, 514n10; Picture 1926,13 with Yellow Block / Merz Picture with Yellow Block, 514n10; Picture 1926,14 with Green Ring / Merz Picture with Green Ring, 514n10; Picture with Beam and Circle, 514n11; Picture with Sphere and Tail / Picture with Sphere and Red Wave, 514n11; Portrait of an Old Lady, 50, 492n3 (text 18); Relief with Painted Yellow Rectangle / Merz Relief with Diagonal Yellow, 514n9; Ring Picture, 81; Scrap-ofPaper Picture, 448, 531n4 (text 139); Tastende Dreiecke, 50, 492n3 (text 18); Tokyo Picture, 514n8; The Twin Picture, 514n8; Untitled (Yellow Three), 532n1 (text 149); White Relief, 514n9, 448, 531n7; Merz-poetry, xxiv, 31–32, 47–48, 66, 235, 253 Merz-sculpture and columns, 50, 172, 253, 414, 417, 448, 474 — SPECIFIC WORKS: Der Lustgalgen (The Pleasure Gallows), 73, 495n6; Die hei-
lige Bekümmernis (The Holy Affliction), 496n3 (text 33); Die Kultpumpe (The Cult Pump), 73 495n16; Untitled (Merzcolumn in the Studio), 194. See also Kathedrale des erotischen Elends Merz-theater: xxiv, 66–67, 325, 500n3 (text 47); artist’s participation in, xviii, xxi; and international peers, 80, 513n1 (text 83); and Standard Merz Stage, 208, 218–19, 252, 273; writing on, xxvi, 27–30, 74–76, 156–66, 503n4 (text 55) Mesens, E. L. T., 477 Metzig, Wilhelm, 400, 528n2 (text 122) Meyer, Adolf, 197, 232–33, 234, 314, 511n8, 511nn11–13, Michel, Robert, 257, 314, 344, 388, 388, 394, 527n26; partnership with Hillebrand, 524n16 Michelangelo, 418 Middle Ages. See Gothic age Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig: as architect, 232, 233, 269, 308; as artist, 197, 228; Brick Country House, 384, 384, 393; in Merz 8/9. nasci, 229; with Peter Behrens, 511n13, 519n19; and Weissenhofsiedlung, 286, 288, 289, 291, 292, 518n3 (text 98) Moholy-Nagy, László, xix, 80, 184, 197, 228, 243, 524n16; Construction, 382, 382, 391, 393; Room of the Present, 330 Molière, 465 Molzahn, Johannes, 35, 273, 344, 490n9 Mona Lisa, 304, 418, 427 Mondrian, Piet, xix, 228, 475, 527n20; approach to composition, 257–58, 261, 395; in Cercle et Carré, 343; as influence, 243, 479, 510n2 (text 78); in Mécano, 530n1 (text 126); in Schwitters’s slide collection, 383, 383, 392, 526n13 moon, 133, 134, 152, 253, 321, 322; light of, 20, 66, 448, 453, 532n2 (text 152) Morandi, Giorgio, 490n2 (text 12) Morgenstern, Christian, 489n1 (text 8)
Index
549
Motherwell, Robert, 69, 494n6 (text 26) Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 185 Muche, Georg, 59, 511n11 Müller, Franz (character), 50–52, 127. See also Franz Müller’s Wire Springtime Munch, Edvard, 87, 88, 89 Munich (Germany), 318–19, 320, 510n5 (text 78), 523n1 (text 108), 526n2; art academy, 17. See also Goltz, Hans; Meisterschule für Deutschlands Buchdrucker music: and abstraction, xviii–xix, 2, 18, 47, 235, 453, 510n2 (text 78); appreciation, 244, 338, 443–44, 447; and architecture, 233; as an art, 333, 451; boxes, 87, 88, 189, 506n6; and color, 1, 5–9, 11, 260–62, 266–68; and Dada, 435; folk, 501n6 (text 50); and light, 273, 432, 517n4; and Merz-theater, 29, 74–76; in the movies, 437; notation for, 8, 294, 518n1 (text 96), 520n1; origins of, 3; and painting, 6, 11, 259–62, 263– 68, 473; popular, 134, 189, 228, 299, 497n11, 499n15, 506n5; and portraiture, 460; and rhythm, xix, 6, 235, 392; Schwitters’s study of, 66, 253; tuning, 9, 487n19, 516n1 (text 91); and Ursonate, 293–94, 484n9. music theory, 1, 12–13, 344, 451–52, 455; applied to color, 8–9, 259–62, 264–68; handbooks for, 13, 453, 487n25 musical theater, 325, 506n5, 521n1 (text 102), See also Gieseking, Walter Muthesius, Hermann, 319, 523n4 Mynona, 185, 506n21 Naples (Italy), 299 Napoleon, xxiii, 155, 521n3 Napoleonic Wars, 524n5 Nassauischer Kunstverein (Wiesbaden), 248, 258, 513n2 (text 88), 516n2 (text 89) National Socialism. See Nazi Germany; Nazi Party Nationalgalerie (Berlin), 124
nationalism: and art, 155, 202, 231, 238, 416, 421; in art criticism, 33, 124–26; German, 462, 488n4 (text 7), 505n4, 508nn1–2 (text 66); rejection of, xvi, xxiii, 152, 153, 199–200 natural selection, 229 nature: and abstract art, 17, 66, 72, 432, 447–48; architecture and, 290; art as analogue for, 228, 238, 248, 333, 343, 484n13; as divine creation, 442; expressionism and, 58, 257–58; fragments of, xviii, 122, 229, 252–53, 426, 443; as guide, 2–10, 12, 427; imitation of, 44, 69–71, 128, 235, 249, 340, 406; impression of, 21, 453–54; and mind, xiv; and portraiture, 458, 459, 472–73; and representation, 45, 125, 451, 456– 57; return to, 243; study of, 99, 250– 51, 446; and technology, 325, 436; and tourism, 435 Naumann, Friederich, 7, 8, 486n7 Nazi Germany: banned art in, xiv, 330, 445, 527n25, 527n27; critics of, 528n4 (text 124), 532n2 (text 148); exiles from, xv; resistance to, 440. See also Degenerate Art Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP), 156, 461– 62, 499n16, 500n2 (text 46) Nebel, Otto, xxi, 52, 56, 59, 65, 67; as Sturm artist, 63, 489n2 (text 9); “Zuginsfeld,” 58 Netherlands, xix, 251, 257, 286, 498n2 (text 41), 514n10; architecture in, 179, 233, 237, 269, 287. See also Dada Tour; Stijl, De Neue Berliner Zeitung (newspaper), 25, 26, 93 neue Frankfurt, Das (journal), xiv, 330, 388, 527n25 neue Frankfurt, Das (urban plan), 257, 314, 511n8, 527n32; estates of, 291, 520n29, 520n33; typography for, 345, 527n25 Neue Kultur Korrespondenz (journal), 187
Index
550
Neue Optik (exhibition), 529n13 Neue Sachlichkeit (exhibition), 58, 529n2 (text 125) Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), xiii, 416, 507n1 (text 63), 528–29n2 (text 125). See also return to order Neues Bauen (New building), 287, 393, 522n5, 526n15 Neuhahn, Ella, 490n9 Neukölln (Berlin), 26 Neumann, Felix, 36–37, 490n1 (text 11) New Burlington Galleries (London), 445 Newton, Isaac, 9 New Typography, 271, 311, 313–14, 345, 353, 420, 528n7 New York City, 218, 219, 248, 517n1 (text 94), 531n6 (text 147) newspapers. See specific titles Nibelung Hoard, 418, 529n6 Nitzschke, Hans, 238, 274, 275, 441, 530n2 (text 137) Nobel Prize, 505n8, 506n20 Noi (journal), 187 Nolde, Emil, 59 nonsense, 34, 47, 226, 301, 442, 464; of critics, 50, 61–62, 94, 124; and Dada, 31, 72, 129, 170 Nord-Sud (journal), 500n1 (text 46) Normalisierung (adherence to norm/standard), xx, 173; in architecture, 337; in advertising, 315, 316, 522–23n1 (text 107); in theater, 219–21 Normenausschuss der deutschen Industrie. See DIN standards Norway: as holiday destination, 428, 435– 36; as home, xiv, xv, 439, 440, 441, 474 Nougé, Paul, 476 November Revolution (Germany), xv, 27, 66, 93, 197, 330; Schwitters’s experience of, 237, 341–42, 406–7 Novembergruppe, 53, 502n4 October Revolution (Russia), 154 opera, 74, 272, 304, 325, 328. See also Cavalleria rusticana
optics, 13, 22, 226, 355, 379 optophonetics, 276, 277, 279, 517–18n1 (text 96) orientation: in composition, 260, 261, 262, 408; mental, 357; perceptual, xxii, 443; personal, 251; as siting, 270, 337, 439; social, 285 orthography, 271, 276, 278–79, 294, 316– 17, 500n3 (text 46) Oslo (Norway), 439, 440, 441 Ostmark, 26, 488n4 (text 7) Oud, J. J. P., 257, 269, 270, 274, 516n3; Site Manager’s Hut, 384, 384, 393; at the Weissenhofsiedlung, 289, 291 Overzicht, Het (journal), xiv, 187, 202 Ozenfant, Amédée, 343 painting: abstract, 18, 22, 229, 236, 250, 257–58, 333; and architecture, 92, 179, 233; color and, 23, 47, 67, 103, 136, 162, 449n20; genre, 249, 323–24; landscape, 432, 443–44, 503n2 (text 54); lectures on, 381–83, 390–92, 396– 97, 451–52, 526n3; in oil, 41, 66, 69–71, 80, 288, 442; and politics, 155, 462; pure, 60, 230, 336, 453–54, 456–57; representational, 243, 299, 416, 446, 458–59, 472–73, 507n1 (text 63); and sculpture, 44; theory of, 1–13, 15–16, 259–62, 263–68, 447, 455; and time, 273. See also Merz-painting paintings (Schwitters), xiv, 71–72, 248–29, 432, 448, 458; portraits, 99, 435, 466, 470, 471–73, 474 — SPECIFIC WORKS: Abstraction 4 Resounding Glass, 447, 531n3 (text 139); Barn in Retelsdorf, Mecklenburg, 514n4; Bouquet, 514n5; The Cauldron Carrier, 240, 514n4; Cornfield, 514n4; Evening Landscape in Kollau near Leipzig, 514n4; Factory Fort (Wülfel Iron Works), 514n5; Krodotal bei Harzburg, 240, 487n24; Landscape from Opherdicke/Opferdicke Estate, 514n5; Ohlenhausen, 514n5; Portrait of Abbu
Index
551
paintings (Schwitters) (continued) Becker, 514n4; Rooms, 514n5; The Satellite, 514n5; Spinstress, 514n4; Still-Life with Communion Chalice, 69, 240, 494n2; Still-Life with Thistles, 514n5; Untitled (Farm in Retelsdorf, Mecklenburg), 514n4 Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband), 200, 202, 508n2 (text 66) Papier-Zeitung (journal), 399 Paris, 254, 353, 424, 464, 498n1 (text 43); Dada and surrealism in, 501n4 (text 51); Dutch artists in, 510n2 (text 78), 510n4 (text 79), 527n20; German artists in, 198, 510n5 (text 78), 525n2 (text 111) Partapouli family, 435 Pásmo (journal), 177 patriotism. See nationalism Pechmann, Baron von, 321, 523n12 Pechstein, Max, 84, 189 Pelikan–Werke, 237, 311, 312–13, 512n3, 522n3 (text 106) Pelizaeus-Museum (Hildesheim), 498n2 (text 40) PEN Club, xxv, 342, 407, 474 perception: of advertising, 312; of color, 267, 338, 447, 461, 463; and deception, 303; as de-formation, xvii, xix; and propaganda, 462; theory of, xxiv, 10–13, 20–22, 226–27; visual, 262, 263, 379, 397, 443, 453, 459. See also psychology; recognition performance: Dada, xxii–xxiii, 181–82, 196, 198, 422–23, 505n5; recitals, xiii, 83, 295, 380, 421, 504n2 (text 58), 529n17; of sound poetry, 192, 193, 254, 293, 294, 521n6 (text 99); theatrical, 211, 214, 218–20, 222, 272, 484n15. See also Merz-performance Péri, László, 511n9 perspective, 6, 71, 273, 391, 444 Peschkau, Emil, 3 Peters, Karl, 187 Pfeill, Karl Gabriel, 77 phonetics, 279, 281, 316, 379, 484n9
photography: collections, 380, 485n22; of architecture, 224, 289; as collage material, 521n4, 527n26; and i-concept, 141, 145, 149; in K d e E, 413; of Merzbau, 426, 427, 440; portrait, 251, 256, 332, 503n5 (text 54); of sculpture, 91, 192, 194, 414, 529n11, 530n4; as tool for comparison, 95, 229, 291; tourist, 435–36; and typography, 204, 311, 380, 386, 387, 394, 412; and vision, 70, 226; of war dead, 497n9. See also Rolleiflex camera; slide lectures photomontage, 386, 386, 394, 412, 412, 527n20 physiology, 11, 13; of vision, 14, 17, 20, 22 Picabia, Francis, 73, 82, 129, 185, 498n1 (text 43), 530n1 (text 126) Picasso, Pablo, 55, 82, 243, 444, 479; Schwitters as epigone of, 38, 59, 63, 188 Pille, Die (journal), 56, 61, 68, 77, 81, 83, 86 PIN, 477 Pinder, Wilhelm, 318 Platen-Hallermünde, August Graf von, 171, 500n1 (text 47), 502n9 pleasure: in advertising, 159; in art, 1, 15, 220, 275, 416, 462–63; and artifice, 3; in deception, 303; in nature, 4; in perception, 11, 18, 21–22, 295, 455; personal, 250, 251, 253, 288, 321, 421; in poetry, 295 Poelzig, Hans, 233, 289, 511n15, 511n20, 519n19 poetry, 18, 130,245, 334, 438, 451; material for, 47, 103, 137, 192–93. See also sound poetry poetry (Schwitters): 47–48, 83, 237, 340, 414, 447; and Merz, 66, 72, 250. See also Merz-poetry — COLLECTIONS: Die Märchen vom Paradies, 253, 515n18; Die Scheuche, 253, 515n18; Elementar: Die Blume Anna, 123, 141, 253, 507n3 (text 62), 515n18; Memoiren Anna Blumes in Bleie, 253, 515n18; Sturm-Bilderbücher IV: Kurt
Index
552
Schwitters, 65, 68, 253, 515n18; Tran Nr. 30. Auguste Bolte, 127, 253, 502n5, 515n18. See also Anna Blume: Dichtungen — SPECIFIC POEMS: “Die zute Tute,” 253– 54, 517n21; “i-Poem,” 141; “Indecent i-Poem,” 147; “The Last Fly,” 255; “Mordmaschine 43” (Murder machine 43), 33; “Pornographic i-Poem,” 149; “priimiitittii,” 254; “To Johannes Molzahn. Poem 37,” 35, 490n10; “Unstupid,” 253; “WW,” 194. See also “An Anna Blume” Poland, 488n4 (text 7) political art, xxiii, 154–55, 238, 415–16, 421, 445; Dada as, 72–73, 129, 198, 464 politics, 77, 153, 201, 203, 414, 500n1 (text 49); party, 486n7, 491n10, 508n1 (text 66), 518n7. See also Nazi Germany; November Revolution portraiture, 2, 55, 228, 458–60, 474; by Schwitters, 99, 307, 435, 466, 470, 471–73; study of, 236, 240, 249, 446 Post, Die (newspaper), 36 Potsdam (Germany), 233, 505n12, 511n16 Pound, Ezra, 530n1 (text 126) Prager Presse (newspaper), 254 Prague, 17, 254, 305–6, 518n1 (text 96) Prampolini, Enrico, 343 Preetorius, Emil, 318 Pressa: Internationale Presse Ausstellung (exhibition), 312, 313, 522n2 (text 106) Preuss, Hugo, 508n1 (text 66) prints (Schwitters): Kathedrale, Die, 73, 495n15; Merz 3. Merzmappe, 256; proletarian art, 154–55, 202, 507n3 (text 63) Proletkult, 154–55 propaganda, 73, 415, 457, 462–63, 499n16 prose and plays (Schwitters): fairy tales and grotesques, 254–55; musicality of, xxvi, 27; translations of, xxiii–xxiv, xxv, 483n3; 485n18. See also autobiographical statements
“The Borrowed Bicycle,” 255, 515n25; “Causes and Beginning the Great, Glorious Revolution in Revon,” 27, 50, 83, 181, 423, 499n15; “The Collision,” 325; “Courtship,” 255, 515n25; “Franz Müller’s Wire Springtime,” 27, 50, 126, 189, 496n22 (text 26); “Hamburg Harbor,” 255, 515n25; “Horizontal Stories,” 255, 515n25; “The Lottery,” 255, 515n25; “Lottery of the Zoological Garden,” 414, 499n14; “Magician,” 255, 515n25; “Merz-Painting,” xvi, 24, 25, 38; “Monkey Dead . . . Shop Closed,” 255, 515n25; “My Suicide,” 255, 515n25; “The Onion,” 27, 47–48, 83; “Peep Men and Pig,” 255, 515n25; “Pig Farmer and Poet Prince,” 255, 515n25; “Punsch von Nobel,” 254, 515n24; “Radio,” 255, 515n25; “Schacko,” 414, 417; “Seven Rabbits,” 255, 515n25; “Statements on my demands for the Merz Theater,” 27, 495n19; “Totenbett mit happy end,” 254, 515n24; “What Art Is,” 44–45, 83; “With the Aid of Technology,” 325–27 Proverbe (journal), 167–68, 187, 501n4 (text 51) Provinzialmuseum (Hannover), 238, 330– 31, 383, 505n9, 513n2 (text 82); collection of, 526n6, 526n9, 526nn12–13 psychiatry. See madness psychology: perceptual, xiv, 11, 13, 22, 488n6 (text 4); in theater, 158, 161, 163 public. See audience Punct (journal), 207 Punkt und Linie zu Fläche. See under Bauhausbücher Purism, 434
— SPECIFIC WORKS:
Querschnitt Verlag (publisher), 187 Räderscheidt, Anton, 197, 507n3 (text 63) Räderscheidt, Marta, 82 Rading, Adolf, 291, 519n19, 519n27 Raimund, Ferdinand, 521n1 (text 102)
Index
553
Rasch, Heinz and Bodo, 340, 406 Rathenau, Walther, 508n1 (text 66) Ray (journal), 228 Ray, Man, 530n1 (text 126) Read, Herbert, 445 reason, xix, 226–27, 231, 326, 442; opposed to artistry, 33, 48, 84, 103–5, 113, 426; and sense perception, 301, 462 Red Army, xxiii, 155 recognition, 297, 303, 420–21, 425, 439; of art, 84, 97, 103, 236, 442, 443; as creative act, xviii, xix, 122, 143–49, 229; and Dada, xxiii, 134–35, 170, 181; and judgment, 323–24; of referent, 453, 459, 473; of self, 298 ReD (journal), 274 Reichsarbeitsdienstgesetz, 440 Reichsforschungsgesellschaft für Wirtschaftlichkeit im Bau- und Wohnungswesen (RFG), 307 Rein, Leo, 93–94 Reinhardt, Max, 500n1 (text 50) Reiniger, Otto, 288, 519n10 religion, 46, 155, 209–10, 227, 238 reproduction: of artworks, 414, 418; of details, 253; of nature, 128, 243, 251, 451, 456–57, 458, 463; of objects, 7, 12, 15, 69–71, 396–97, 427; of reality, 273; of revolution, 342, 407; as technique, 69– 71, 99, 248, 446; in typography, 204, 361, 412; of visual impressions, xvii, 1– 2, 21. See also imitation; kitsch Rembrandt van Rijn, 236, 305, 434, 462, 475, 479 Renaissance, 191; churches, 305; as cultural period, 129, 133, 229, 307, 434, 475; and genius, 46 Renger-Patzsch, Albert, 274 Renner, Paul, 321, 345, 371, 400, 527n27 Retelsdorf (Germany), 238, 239, 241, 441, 512n1 (text 82), 514n4 return to order, 46, 196–97, 243; as reaction, 201, 275, 416, 528–29n2 (text 125); as reconstruction, 53–55. See also Neue Sachlichkeit
Reverdy, Pierre, 143, 145, 500n1 (text 46) revolution. See October Revolution; November Revolution Rheinisch-Westfälische Zeitung (newspaper), 42 Rhine (river), 95, 97, 99, 113, 529n5 rhythm: and architecture, 91–92, 179, 337– 38; artwork as, xviii–xix, 231, 235, 415– 16, 433; in composition, 19, 74, 238, 392, 417, 454; form as, xxvi, 39, 103, 457, 484n9; in found fragment, 122, 145, 147–49, 178, 229, 253, 502n6; in K d e E, 418; in music, 6, 12; opposed to technology, 244; personal, 240; in poetry, 32, 47, 193, 424; and reference, 468; as structure, 447; in typography, 353, 363, 365, 405; in Ursonate, 294, 295, 296 Ribemont-Dessaignes, George, 73, 530n1 (text 126) Richter, Alfred, 453 Richter, Hans, 182, 185, 197, 204, 504n8, 508n2 (text 68) Riemenschneider, Tilman, 532n1 (text 152) Rietveld, Gerrit, 232, 384, 384, 393, 510n3 (text 79) ring neue werbegestalter (group), xvii–xviii, 46, 257, 314, 344, 380 Ring, Otto, 497n2 RMS Titanic, 489n7 rococo, 288, 292, 321 Röhl, Peter, 530n1 (text 126) Rolan-Bubenzer, Franz, 76, 156 Rolleiflex camera, 397, 528n1 (text 121) romanticism, xiv, xviii, 155, 184, 290, 484n15 Rome, 299, 490n2 (text 12), 505n4 Rose of Hildesheim, 326, 524n4 Roth, Emil, 508n2 (text 68) Rotterdam (Netherlands), 254, 516n3 Royal Saxon Academy of Art (Dresden), xiv, xvii, 1, 69, 340, 406, 488n8 (text 4); site of, 486n5; teachers at, 66, 236, 240, 249, 446, 494n1 (text 26) Rügen (Germany), 189, 506n3
Index
554
Ruhmeshalle (Barmen), 248, 513n2 (text 88) Ruhr Valley (Germany), 134, 418, 499n16 Russia, xiv, 155, 173, 257, 463; and avantgarde art, 393, 509n1 (text 69); national identity of, 199–200, 204, 341, 467; and state art, 461–62. See also Soviet Union Russolo, Luigi, 343 S. 4. N. Magazine (journal), 187 Sachlichkeit (objectivity), 125, 230, 507n1 (text 63); in architecture, 225, 232, 336, 337–38; in graphic design, 205, 271, 401, 405; in theater design, 208. See also Neue Sachlichkeit Salvation Army, 197 Sami people, 435–36, 530n1 (text 133) Sartoris, Alberto, 343 Schaer, Adolf, 40, 42, 45, 490n6, 491n9, 492n3 (text 14) Schäffner, Katharine, 17–20, 21, 488n4 (text 4) Scharoun, Hans, 519n26, 520n30 Schauburg Theater (Hannover), 156 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, xx Schenzinger, Karl Aloys, 145, 471–73, 500n2 (text 46) Schiller, Friedrich von, xxi, 88, 169, 320, 523n10; “Song of the Bell,” 158, 493n2 (text 19), 501n1 (text 50), 503n1 (text 56); Wilhelm Tell, 496n1 (text 33) schizophrenia, xxi, 107, 117 Schlemmer, Oskar, xix, 81, 496n1 (text 30) Schlesische Zeitung (newspaper), 254 Schleswiger Nachrichten (newspaper), 254 Schmidt, Hans, 508n2 (text 68) Schmidt, Paul F., 81, 82 Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl, 84 Schneck, Adolf, 519n26 Schneider, Friedrich, 171, 502n12, 503n13 Schneider, Karl, 385, 385, 393, 526n15, 527n17 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 50, 418, 492n1 (text 18), 529n5
Schrimpf, Georg, 185, 505n11 Schröder-Schräder, Truus, 384, 510n3 (text 79) Schuitema, Paul, 344 Schultze-Naumburg, Paul, 95 Schumacher, Fritz, 385, 509n2 (text 75), 527n17 Schwitters, Eduard (father), 249, 340, 441, 446 Schwitters, Ernst, xxiv, xxv, 91, 341, 413, 485n22, 486n25; as Ernst Lehmann, 127, 175, 184, 185, 503n5 (text 55); in exile, 439, 440–41 Schwitters, Gerd, 341, 414 Schwitters (née Fischer), Helma, 66, 91, 236, 341, 440; as correspondent, 10, 191; as editorial assistant, 203, 207, 218, 340, 509n5; in the K d e E, 413. See also Fischer, Friedrich Schwitters, Henriette (mother), 65, 249, 288, 340 Schwitters, Kurt: as architecture student, 237, 249; as Dadaist, 73, 83, 134, 196– 98, 237, 253, 419, 474; in exile, xiv, xvi, xxv, 381, 439, 467; as graphic designer, 342, 347, 407, 421; as group member, 274–75, 257, 342, 344, 407; as “Merz,” 132–33, 181–82, 251, 475; politics of, xxiii, xxiv, 415–16; as “profiteer,” 35, 36, 61, 77, 504n2 (text 58); as soldier, 66, 237. See also anti-criticism; MerzAdvertising Agency; Merz-painting; Merz-performance; Merz-poetry; Merztheater — WORKS. See “An Anna Blume”; Anna Blume: Dichtungen; autobiographical statements; drawings; Haus am Bakken; i-drawings; i-poems; Kathedrale des erotischen Elends; Merz; Merz-architecture; Merzbau; Merzdrawings; Merz-pictures and reliefs; Merz-sculpture and columns; paintings; poetry; prints; prose and plays; Standard Merz Stage; Systemschrift; typographic designs; Ursonate
Index
555
sculpture, 382, 391, 396, 451, 453, 495n16; representational, 39, 44–45, 453, 459, 497n9. See also Merzbau; Merz-sculpture Segal, Arthur, 172, 503n2 (text 54) Sept Arts (journal), 187 Serner, Walter, 489n1 (text 9) Servaes, Franz, 50–52, 65, 492n6, 493n1 (text 24) Seuphor, Michel, 343 Shakespeare, William, 180–81, 327; Hamlet, 158, 490n5, 500–1n1 (text 50); Julius Caesar, 488n1 (text 7); Othello, 164 Shanghai, 248 Sicily (Italy), 299, 521n7 (text 102) Siebrecht, Karl, 308, 522n2 (text 105) Siegfried, 272–73, 517n3, 529n6 Silbergäule, Die (series), 27, 31, 489n1 (text 8), 494n7 (text 26), 495n15 “Silent Night” (song), 418, 529n10 Silvanus. See Wiesenwald, Hein Sistine Madonna, 305 slide lectures, 95, 380–95 Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD), 40, 491n10 Social Democratic Working Group (Sozialdemokratische Arbeitsgemeinschaft, SAG), 491n10 socialism, 129, 133, 155, 209–10, 231 Socialist Workers’ Youth (Sozialistische Arbeiterjugend, SAJ), 440 Sonata in Ur-Sounds. See under Ursonate Sophocles, 185 sound poetry, 192–93, 512n6; pronunciation keys for, xxv, 195, 254, 293–94, 477–78. See also Ursonate Soviet Union, 154, 286, 522n2 (text 106). See also Russia space: architectural, 224–25, 270, 302, 337, 379, 384, 393, 420; cosmic, 35; exhibition, 330, 383, 392; interior, 137, 139, 413, 428; measurement of, 226; of picture plane, 2, 381, 443, 444, 508n1
(text 67); radiating/resting, 361, 382, 383, 390–92; sculptural, xvii, 74, 382; as theatrical material, 29, 157, 160, 161; and time, xvi, 6, 11, 155, 260–61, 263, 273, 424; as typographic material, 204, 294, 345, 394, 403, 412. See also Space Stage Space Stage, 218–19, 219, 222–23 Spengemann, Christof, 80, 155, 197, 440, 526n1 Spengemann, Luise, 472–73 Spengemann, Walter, 440 Sprengel Museum (Hannover), 485n22 SS Imperator, 29, 75, 489n7 SS Monte Cervantes, 413, 528n3 (text 124) Städtische Bühnen (Hannover), 325 Städtische Gemäldegalerie (Bochum), 248, 513n2 Städtischen Kunsthalle (Mannheim), 58 Stadtmuseum Dresden, 81, 173 Stahl, Fritz, 188, 190–91 Stalin, Joseph, 517n5 Stam, Mart, 257, 289, 291, 300, 508n2 (text 68), 520nn30–31 Standard Merz Stage (Normalbühne), 206, 207–8, 211–13, 214, 218–23, 241, 252; and architecture, 269, 509n2 (text 75); model for, 206, 212, 213, 242, 273 standardization, xx; and architecture, 269–70, 520nn29–30; and efficiency, 325, 505n3; and form, 507n1 (text 63); of musical pitch, 9, 487n19; and style, 173–75, 269; in theater, 207–8, 211– 12, 218–22; and typography, 276–84, 528n3 (text 122). See also DIN standards; Normalisierung; Typisierung Stażewski, Henryk, 196 Steegemann, Paul, 31, 73, 238, 485n17, 489n1 (text 8), 495n16 Steidl, Robert, 499n15 Steinitz, Käte, 325–27, 329, 483n2, 511n7, 524n16, 525n2 (text 111) Stijl, De (group), xiii, 133, 140, 173–74, 422; affiliates of, 499n13, 516n3, 518n3
Index
556
(text 98), 527n20–21; architects of, 233, 510nn3–4 (text 79); as artistic vanguard, 128, 130 Stijl, De (journal), 182, 187, 269, 384, 504n8, 510n4 (text 79), 522n1 (text 105); Bonset in, 135, 498n1 (text 43); Schwitters in, xiv, 422–23 Stiller, Richard, 83 Stramm, August, 31, 47, 253, 489n2 (text 9), 506n6 Strese, Max, 53–55 Stresemann, Gustav, 184, 505n8 Strnad, Oskar, 509n2 (text 75) Strodthoff, Hermann, 527n29 Strzemiński, Władysław, 196 Sturm, Der (journal), xiv, 26, 47, 187, 220; and Das Kunstblatt, 63; Dolbin in, 218, 509n2 (text 75); Hilberseimer in, 511n9; i-manifesto in, xviii, 122; Merz manifesto in, xvi, 24; Mynona in, 506n21; Nebel in, 58, 492n6, 493n1 (text 20); Systemschrift in, 276; “Tran” texts in, 201; Walden in, 41, 124, 491n2. See also Galerie Der Sturm — SCHWITTERS IN: (1919), 24, 25–26; (1920), 36–37, 40–43, 49, 50–52, 53–55, 58– 60, 63–64; (1921), 68, 87–89; (1922), 93–94, 95–121, 122, 124–26, 499n15; (1923) 156–66; (1924), 127, 188–91, 199–200, 201; (1926), 243–44; (1927), 177, 274–75, 285; (1928) 276–84, 286– 92, 311–14, 323–24 Sturm-Bühne. Jahrbuch des Theaters der Expressionisten (book), 27, 74, 495n19 Stuttgart (Germany), 286–92, 380, 518n9, 519n10 St. Vitus’s Dance, 66, 340, 493–94n4 (text 24). See also epilepsy. style: architectural, 92, 269–70, 305, 307; of criticism, 56–57; general, 46, 140, 173–76, 271, 338–39, 420; individual, 2, 457; as “ism,” 228; lack of, 133–35, 169, 181, 270, 338; Merz as, 25, 28, 40– 41, 136, 192; and novelty, 165
surrealism, 434, 457, 464–65, 476, 479, 529n13. See also Éluard, Paul; Mesens, E. L. T Switzerland, 273, 286 symmetry, 4, 6, 311, 359, 446 Systemschrift (Systematic typeface), 276– 84, 278, 280, 283, 284, 316 Szczuka, Mieczysław, 196 Taeuber-Arp, Sophie, 82, 506n3, 522n1 (text 105) Tairov, Alexander, 273, 517n5 (text 94) Tanguy, Yves, 465, 531n6 (text 147) taste, 7, 15, 296, 305, 318, 436 Taut, Bruno: as editor, 91; in Magdeburg, 180, 233, 258, 511n19, 517n2, 522n5; at Weissenhofsiedlung, 292, 519n34; Woman as Creator, 320, 523n9 Taut, Max, 519n26 Technische Hochschule (Hannover), 299, 526n4 Teige, Karl, 344 Telegraf, De (newspaper), 503n6 (text 54) Tempelhof Airport (Berlin), 511n7 Temple of Concordia (Agrigento), 521n7 (text 102) Temple of Olympian Zeus (Athens), 302, 521n8 (text 102) Teutoburg Forest (Germany), 183, 505nn3–4 Tharandt (Germany), 4, 486n6 theater: acting in, 162–63; avant-garde, 517n5 (text 94); criticism, 509nn2–3 (text 75); exhibitions, 218, 272, 508n1 (text 69); Jewish, 524n1 (text 109). See also Merz-theater; Standard Merz Stage Themerson, Stefan, xxv, 486n25 Thoma, Hans, 124, 125 titles, 26, 247, 418, 448, 468 Tokyo, 513n1 (text 83), 514n8 Tomoyoshi, Murayama, 513n1 (text 83) Topp, Arnold, 82, 513n2 (text 88) Torres-Garcia, Joaquín, 343
Index
557
totality, 3–4, 136, 177, 250, 253, 277; of composition, 128, 264, 447. See also Gesamtkunstwerk; unity “Tran” (genre). See anti-criticism Treaty of Versailles, 488n4 (text 7), 499n16 Trotsky, Leon, xxiii, 155 Trump, Georg, 314, 344, 388, 388, 527n27 truth, 145, 172, 173, 303, 450; to material, 232, 300, 302 Tschichold, Jan, 293, 321, 345, 411, 527n27; Cassanova, 387, 387, 394; Die neue Typographie, 311, 387; as member of the ring, 314, 344 typefaces, 204, 295, 311, 313, 316, 528n3 (text 122); designed by Schwitters, 337, 409, 410, 411; historic, 271, 277, 278, 316, 399–400, 529n9; in Merz, 141, 414. See also Futura; Systemschrift Typisierung (adherence to type/standard), xx; in advertising, 315, 316, 522n1 (text 107); in architecture, 335, 337; in industrial design, 523n4; in theater, 207–8, 214, 218, 219–21 typographic designs (Schwitters), for celle volks-möbel, 307; for Dammerstock Estate, 337, 411, 411, 412, 412; for Frankfurt city, 284; for Hannover city, 390, 390, 395, 398, 399–405, 402, 404; for Hannover industry, 256, 311; for Karlsruhe city, 374, 418, 529n9; for Karlsruhe industry, 409, 409; for Pelikan, 311, 512n3, 522n3 (text 106); for Üstra, 389, 389, 529n29; for Weise Söhne, 376, 389, 389, 395, 410, 410, 527n30. See also Merz; Merz-Advertising Agency; Systemschrift Typographische Mitteilungen (journal), 315 typography: and art, 330, 420, 507n1 (text 63); and form-creation, 311–14, 380, 386–90, 392–95; for Hannover, 398– 405; rules for, 204–5, 271, 315–17, 344, 345–79, 407; and Schwitters’s writing, xxiii, xxiv, 95. See also New Typography
Tzara, Tristan, 82, 155, 500n1 (text 46); and Dada, 73, 132, 181, 495n10, 498n1 (text 43); in Mécano, 530n1 (text 126); quotations by, 167, 170–71, 172, 185, 186 Uhlman, Fred, 466 Ullstein Verlag (publisher), 292, 520n36 Uncumber. See Wilgefortis Union of German Graphic Designers, 256, 311, 516n28, 528n2 (text 122) United States, xiv, 237, 269, 272, 286, 448, 506n5; emigration to, 330, 526n15 unity: in architecture, 309; of artwork, xvii, 20, 158, 228, 415, 451, 458; in composition, 192, 392, 395, 397, 426, 472; as dynamic, xx; of expression, 103, 208; of material, 418; in music, 12; of self and society, 153, 226–27, 298, 318–19; in typography, 312, 344, 353, 361, 365, 394, 409; of urban design, 179. See also Gesamtkunstwerk; totality urbanism and urban design. See city planning Ursonate, xix, 414, 417, 474, 484n9; film of, 504n8; drafts of, 512n6; publication of, 468, 515n23, 520n1; Sonata in Ur-Sounds, 254, 293–96, 520–21n6, 521n8 (text 99); typography for, 237, 512n7 Üstra (transit company), 236, 389, 527n29 Utrecht (Netherlands), 135, 254, 384, 423, 510n3 (text 79), 530n4 Valori Plastici (journal), 39, 87, 88, 89, 490n2 (text 12) value: of artwork, 45, 155, 162, 231, 247, 457; artistic, 15, 140, 165, 166, 328; color, 12, 220, 472, 473, 499n20; of criticism, 81–82, 84–85; of Dada, 182; of explanations, 295; expressive, 222; formal, 359, 361, 367; of Gesamtkunstwerk, 166; hierarchies of, xiii, xxiii; monetary, 26, 28, 41, 147, 297, 442; as relative, xvi, 66, 265, 312, 437; sensory,
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443, 444, 446, 447; social, 152; spatial, 302; typographic, 204, 312. See also devaluation; evaluation Vantongerloo, Georges, 343 Veidt, Conrad, 413, 528n4 (text 124) verism, 42, 53 vie des lettres, La (journal), 187 Vienna (Austria), 80, 132, 509n2 (text 75). See also International Exhibition of New Theater Technology Viertel, Berthold, 466 viewer. See beholder Villa Berg (Stuttgart), 288, 518n9, 519n10 vision, 11, 226; physiology of, 14, 17, 20, 22. See also perception. Vitrac, Roger, 502n7 Vogedes, Alois, 77–79 Vogler, Heinrich, 31 Voigt, Friedrich Wilhelm. See Captain of Köpenick Völkischer Beobachter (newspaper), 500n2 (text 46) Voltaire, 498n1 (text 41) Vordemberge-Gildewart, Friedrich, 270, 343, 413, 516–17n5 (text 92); as member of die abstrakten hannover, 238, 274–75; as member of the ring, 314, 344 Wagner, Richard, 321 Walden, Herwarth, xiv, 32, 342, 407, 489n2 (text 9), 513n1 (text 83); against art critics, 25, 41, 63–64, 124, 491n2; and the K d e E, 413, 419 Walden, Nell, 63 Waldhausenstrasse (Hannover), 66, 200, 341, 413 Wandervögel (group), 43, 491n11 war, xxvi, 152, 153, 184, 200, 202. See also World War I Warsaw (Poland), 196 Warth Mills Camp (Lancashire), 503n2 (text 54) Wasmuth, Ernst, 187 Wauer, William, 63
waxworks, xxii, 38–39, 44–45, 119, 463, 531n3 (text 147) Weber, Alfred, 318, 523nn6–7, 523nn9–10 Weber, Ernst Heinrich, 488n6 (text 4) Weber, Max, 318, 508n1 (text 66) Weber-Fechner Law, 20, 488n6 (text 4) Weimar (Germany), xix, 28, 132, 254, 418. See also Bauhaus: in Weimar; Großherzoglich-Sächsische Hochschule für bildende Kunst; Haus am Horn Weimar Constitution, 486n7, 490n1 (text 11), 508n1 (text 66) Weimar Republic, xiv, 63, 505n8 Weise Söhne (Halle), 377, 389, 389, 395, 410, 527n30 Weissenhofsiedlung (Stuttgart), 257, 286– 92, 337, 519–20n28, 520n30, 520n33 Welt am Montag (newspaper), 61, 62 Wendingen (journal), 233, 511n17 Werfel, Franz, 492n2 (text 14) Werkbund, 269, 318–22, 523n12; founding of, 486n7, 511n13; members of, 345, 524n16, 527n17; and standardization, 522n1 (text 107), 523n4. See also Form, Die; Weissenhofsiedlung Wert. See value Wertung. See evaluation Westheim, Paul, 185, 288, 491n2, 507nn7– 8; Schwitters’s replies to, 53–64, 87– 89, 188–91, 201 Weygandt, Wilhelm, 95–121 White Rider (group), 77, 78 Wiesbaden (Germany). See Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbadener Fremdenblatt (newspaper), 255 Wiesenwald, Hein, 40, 43 Wilde, Oscar, 84 Wilgefortis, 88, 496n3 (text 33) Wilhelm II, 491n13, 493n3 (text 19) Willingshausen Artist Colony (Hesse), 10, 494n1 (text 26) Wils, Jan, 232, 269, 499n13, 510n4 (text 79) Woche, Die (newspaper), 95
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Wohnung, Die (exhibition). See Weissenhofsiedlung World War I, xiii, 307, 330, 464, 496n1 (text 29), 505n3; casualties, 31, 418, 489n2 (text 9), 497n9; politics and, 491n10; Schwitters in, 236–37, 249, 341, 406; reaction to, 40, 93 worldview, xxii, 32, 190, 196, 333, 457; Merz as, xvii, 72, 177, 239 Worner, Heinz, 466 Wright, Frank Lloyd, 232, 269, 510n1 (text 79) Wülfel steel mill (Hannover), 66, 237, 249 Württemberg (Germany), 287, 288, 518n7 (text 98), 518n9 X-ray, 145, 149 Yenidze cigarette factory (Dresden), 4, 486n5 Young German Order (Jungdeutscher Orden), 508n1 (text 66) Żarnowerówna, Teresa, 196 Zeit, Die (journal), 486n7
Zenit (journal), 187 Zietz, Hugo, 486n5 Zimmermann, Felix, 81–82, 83 Zinnoberfest (Cinnabar Festival, 1928), 325, 525n7 (text 110), 525n2 (text 111); Festschrift, 515n21, 515n27 Zollbau, 224, 509n1 (text 76) Zollinger, Friedrich, 509n1 (text 76) Zone, Die (journal), 187 Zoological Garden (Hannover), 134, 390, 499n14 Zurich (Switzerland). See ABC; Kunsthaus Zurich; Zurich Dada Zurich Dada, 181, 197, 479, 494n5 (text 26), 503n2 (text 54), 504n8. See also Cabaret Voltaire Zwart, Piet, 257, 311, 336, 386, 394, 527n21; as member of the ring, 314, 344 Zweemann, Der (journal), 47, 74, 187; Schwitters in, 24, 33, 38, 44, 46, 495n19 Zweemann-Verlag (publisher), 491n1 Zweig, Stefan, 466 Zwrotnica (journal), 187
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