Kurt Schwitters- Opened at customs





Artist


Date: 1887–1948

Original title: Zollamtlich geöffnet

Medium: Paper, printed paper, oil paint and graphite on paper

Dimensions:

Support:331x253mm
frame: 523 x 421 x 29 mm

Collection: Tate




Biography:



Associated with the Dada movement, painter, poet, and mixed-media artist Kurt Schwitters is best known for his collage and assemblage works in which he transformed appropriated imagery and text from print media into dynamic and layered compositions. Schwitters studied at the Dresden Academy of Art with Otto Dix and George Grosz, and after showing in Berlin in 1918 was introduced to Dadaists Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, and Jean Arp. It was at this time he began making assemblages from materials found discarded on the streets of his home city, Hannover, intending to reflect the ruined state of German culture; he called the works Merzbilder after the German word “Kommerz,” as in Merzbild 1A. The mental doctor (1919). Unlike the Berlin Dadaists, however, Schwitters’ main concern was art-making, not political activism, and he is remembered best for his innovative use of mixed-media and masterful sense of composition.

(https://www.artsy.net/artist/kurt-schwitters)


Statement:

In 1923 he wrote:

"We should not fight our enemies, but our mistakes. The enemy has more right to live than we to kill him….we should all feel like common members of a great nation: Mankind. He who loves his own country must love the whole world. This is world patriotism."

 “To say that Kurt Schwitters was an amazingly versatile artist and anticipated much is such an absurd understatement that the remark is almost dada,” wrote Walter Hopps in 1962, and it’s no less true today. The art of assemblage in particular is inconceivable without him, but his ideas reached into graphic art, architecture and theater as well, and he wrote all manner of texts, including short urban tales parallel o today’s flash fiction craze. The following is a brief homage to Kurt Schwitters ...


My Connection:

A German artist famous for his collages. The components that make up his pieces are especially interesting because they document his travels out of Nazi Germany in 1937 and beyond. 
 “Opened by Customs” is one such piece that includes information and fragments from his journey. Part of a Norwegian pamphlet, Nazi admin. label, and an airline receipt. The feeling that is attached also has such a presence. It feels almost rushed and hectic with a sense of urgency and anxiety. These fragments open such a tangible window into that chapter of history and his story.

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