An artist friend of mine whose main art work is collage told me a couple of weeks ago to go and see
Kurt Schwitters at Tate Britain over all the exhibition focused on his British period. He arrived in the UK as a refugee in 1940 from Norway and before that he escaped Germany & the Nazi. He was a German exiles and interned on the Isle of Man during world war II.
Anyway I am glad the I saw it the exhibition was excellent with a wide variety of his work. I first entered Room 1 which included works of the German period. The first thing I noticed was the use of different materials then just simple paper to create a collage such as fabric, wood, hair, ceramics, metal and not stuck on cardboard paper no, all the different materials had been put on a solid support wood or canvases in a precise way which go beyond collage and created actual unique assemblage art works at the same par as paintings. Schwitters considered all the different objects to have the same value as paint.
This wide application of different material is a practical application of the concept of Mertz which meant the equal evaluation of the individual materials. He explored this concept in his collages, assemblages, sculptures, installations and staging performance of his sound poetry with the culmination of it in the Merzbau, an architectural construction inside his house.
Kurt Schwitters Mertz Picture with Rainbow 1939
The second thing I noticed while looking at his work his that he moved around a lot due to the Nazi as most of the works are of a small scale so easy to transport. I did find this inspirational that even if he was in difficult conditions and no matter where he was he kept making art but also because as an artist myself living in completely different times and situation from him I do find that I am dealing with similar problems constantly moving in rented accommodation due to high prices kind of effects the size of one works as I am constantly looking at materials or to make art works that one can easily transport and store because while Schwitters had his wife who helped him transport his works from Germany. I generally have do it myself on public transport to the amusement of my fellow passengers so I tent to make my art work light and easy to transport and store because big art works are difficult to store with no available space or money. London might be getting bigger by the day but artists works are getting smaller due to lack of space & funding.
It is impressive that even during the internment period he was able to produce 200 works: abstract paintings, assemblages and portraits; considering the lack of art supplies which meant he had to be resourceful to obtain the materials he needed ripping the lino floors to make cuttings, dig up clay during his walks or making sculptures out of porridge. I did find sad that he was one of the last to be released from the camp.
Schiwtter collages while he was in England incorporate fragments from packaging, newspapers, bus tickets which where reflective of British life. While in 1945 while he staying in the Lake District he used more natural organic elements in his compositions, he also made naturalistic paintings of the landscape around him and where he created the Merz Barn a follow up to the Hanover Merzbau also considered to be one of the lost important works of European Modernism.
After he was release from the camps he moved to London where he explored the transformation of ready made images so there is shift in his collages as they incorporated ready made images, English words, typography, stamps, cartoon strips, food labels, magazine photographs such ex. Pine trees and where also included fragments of phrases which had direct reference to contemporary politics and popular culture but he still used everyday items so like in previous times his work kind of reflected the environment in which he found himself and was made in. In London he also performed the Ursonate.
Scwitters continued to explored small sculptures but in this period he focused more in making hand sized sculptures. He made this from found materials again such as stone, wood, bone combined with completely different elements such as dried fruit, he was combining painting with modelling which challenged traditional boundaries separating painting and sculpture.
Kurt Schwitters Difficult 1942-1943
Kurt Schwitters Relief in Relief 1942-1945
Kurt Schwitters Merz Picture 46A. The Skittle picture 1921
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