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
frame: 523 x 421 x 29 mm
Collection:
Tate
Reference: http://www.tate.org.uk/art
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.
Kurtschwitters seniman hebat
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