Making Lemonade out of Lemons: Merz and Material Poverty.

SCHWITTERS, Kurt, 1887-1948. Merzbau; ART materials; TEXTILES in art; 20TH century German art; WORLD War I & society; DADAISM

Kurt Schwitters is known for ‘Merz’, a term he used to describe the collages and assemblages he began to make sometime around 1918. With supports of paper, cardboard or wood but not of cotton or linen canvas, these are composed of detritus that he scavenged from the streets. His early Merz pictures in particular make liberal use of cloth, especially cloth that is soiled and frayed. This essay relates the unexpected lack of cloth as ground and its tawdry presence as figure to the extreme material shortages in Germany during the war and in the early Weimar era. It also considers how the reception of Merz can be productively contextualized by way of reference to the exigencies of the time, in particular to the Ersatzkultur (culture of substitute materials) that held sway. The political dimensions of Schwitters’ work are thereby brought to the fore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]