Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

Bader, Graham

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Description: Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

BOOKPoisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

Graham Bader

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00317

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22629

This fascinating book offers a definitive new assessment of the oeuvre of Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948), a central figure of the interwar European avant-garde. Active as an artist, designer, publisher, performer, critic, poet, and playwright, Schwitters is best known for intimately scaled, materially rich collages and assemblages made from found objects—often refuse—that the artist described as having lost all contact with their role and history in the world at large. But as Graham Bader explores, such simple separation of art from life is precisely what Schwitters's "poisoned abstraction" calls into question.

Considering works reaching from Schwitters’s earliest collage-based pieces of 1918–19, through his 1920s advertising designs, to his seminal environmental installation the Merzbau, Bader carefully unpacks the meaning behind such projects and sheds new light on the tumultuous historical conditions in which they were made. In the process, he reveals a new Schwitters—aesthetically committed and politically astute—for our time. This authoritative account reframes our understanding of Schwitters’s multifaceted artistic practice and explores the complex entwinement of art, politics, and history in the modern period.

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Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Print publication date November 2021 (in print)

Print ISBN 9780300257083

EISBN 9780300270600

Illustrations 130

Print Status in print

Publisher (in print)

WorldCat

Google Books

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List of illustrations

Construction for Noble Ladies
Construction for Noble Ladies, detail
Bottle of Suze (La bouteille de Suze)
Charlene
White Form (Weiße Form)
An [To] Anna Blume poem
Untitled (collaged portrait postcard of Kurt Schwitters for Hannah Höch)
The Worker Picture (Das Arbeiterbild)
Herwarth Walden and his wife, Nell, in the dining room of their apartment on Potsdamerstraße, Berlin, with two works by Marc Chagall on the background walls
The War of the Nations: Portfolio in Rotogravure Etchings: Compiled from the Mid-week Pictorial
Barricades before the Mosse Press Building, Schützenstraße, Berlin
Prost Noske!—The proletariat is disarmed! (Prost Noske!—Das Proletariat ist entwaffnet!)
Drawing A6 (Zeichnung A6)
Germany: A Winter’s Fairy Tale (Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen)
Merz Picture 9b, The Great I Picture/Merz Picture K7 (?) (Merzbild 9b das große Ichbild/Merzbild K7 [?])
Abstraction No. 16 (Sleeping Crystal) (Abstraktion No. 16 [Schlafender Kristall])
Drawing (Zeichnung)
Abstraction 26 (Tender Symphony) (Abstraktion 26 [Zarte Sinfonie])
Abstraction 148 (Abstraktion 148)
The Worker Picture (Das Arbeiterbild)
Antistrike poster produced by the Council of People's Deputies
The Worker Picture (Das Arbeiterbild), detail
The Worker Picture (Das Arbeiterbild), detail
Alarm Clock I (Réveil matin I)
L Merz Picture L3 (The Merz Picture) (L Merzbild L3 [Das Merzbild])
Mz. 170 (Voids in Space) (Mz. 170 [Leere im Raum])
Merzbild 25A (The Star Picture) (Merzbild 25A [Das Sternenbild])
Revolving
The Worker Picture (Das Arbeiterbild)
Revolving, detail
Revolving, detail
Construction for Noble Ladies
Construction for Noble Ladies, detail
Device
Construction for Noble Ladies, detail
Mz. 410 (Something or Other) (Mz. 410 [Irgendsowas])
Brochure for Celle People’s Furniture (Celler Volks-Möbel), Hannover
Drawing A6 (Zeichnung A6), detail
Merzz. 96 Standing Yellow (Merzz. 96 stehen Gelb)
Mz 316 ische gelb (Mz 316 ische Yellow)
Untitled (itter) (Ohne titel [itter])
After the Marne, Joffre Visited the Front by Auto (Apres la Marne, Joffre visita le front en auto)
The Architect's Table
Untitled
This is Friedel Vordemberge's Wire Spring (Dieser Ist Friedel Vordemberges Drahtfrühling)
This is Friedel Vordemberge's Wire Spring (Dieser Ist Friedel Vordemberges Drahtfrühling), detail
Mz. 26, 33 Görlitz
Kynast-Fest
Cover of Merz 11 (Advertising Typography/Pelikan Issue [Typoreklame/Pelikan-Nummer])
Cover of Merz 11 (Advertising Typography/Pelikan Issue [Typoreklame/Pelikan-Nummer]), detail
Central spread of Merz 11 (Advertising Typography/Pelikan Issue [Typoreklame/Pelikan-Nummer])
Opening page of Typographische Mitteilungen
Pelikan Tinte
Pelikan Tinte, Schreibband, Kohlenpapier (advertising maquette for Pelikan ink, typewriter ribbon, and carbon paper)
Pelikan-Tinte (advertisement for Pelikan ink)
Interior page of Merz 11 (Typoreklame/Pelikan-Nummer)
Final spread of Merz 11 (Typoreklame/Pelikan-Nummer)
Central spread of Merz 11 (Typoreklame/Pelikan-Nummer), detail
Final page of Abstrakte Malerei und Typographie
Untitled (Pelikan Wagner) (Ohne Titel [Pelikan Wagner])
Untitled (WAGNER AND VIENNA) (Ohne Titel [WAGNER UND WIEN])
Untitled (Speckgumm) (Ohne Titel [Speckgumm])
Buchheister’s Skyy-scraper Hanover (Buchheisters Wollkenkratzer Hannover)
Untitled (Mz ELIKAN ELIKAN ELIKAN)
Untitled (Mz ELIKAN ELIKAN ELIKAN), detail
Pelikan-Tinte (advertisement for Pelikan ink), detail
Page from Merz 14/15, The Scarecrow (Die Scheuche)
Diagram of the Systemschrift (systematic script)
Poster for the exhibition Dammerstock Housing Estate: The Functional Dwelling (Dammerstock-Siedlung: Die Gebrauchswohnung)
Notice for the Hanover transit authority Üstra (Überlandwerke und Straßenbahnen Hannover AG)
This is Friedel Vordemberge's Wire Spring (Dieser Ist Friedel Vordemberges Drahtfrühling), detail
Letterhead design for the Hanover municipal gardens office (Städtische Gartendirektion)
Merz Werbe letterhead (Letter to Piet Zwart from Schwitters)
29/9
Hanover Merzbau, detail view showing west wall and the Blue Window
Hanover Merzbau, detail view showing east wall
Hanover Merzbau, detail view showing south wall
Plan of Hanover Merzbau, first completed room
Plan of Waldhausenstraße 5, Hanover, ground floor, indicating primary Merzbau room (#1, at rear) and ancillary spaces
Merzbau Hanover reconstruction
Frühlicht, vol. 1, no. 3
Studio photograph of Kurt Schwitters with The Holy Affliction (Die Heilige Bekümmernis)
House Merz (Haus Merz)
House Merz (Haus Merz)
Untitled (Merzcolumn) (Ohne Titel [Merzsäule])
The First Day (Der Erste Tag)
The Great Plasto-Dio-Dada-Drama: Germany’s Rise and Fall through Teacher Hagendorf or The Fantastic Life Story of the Oberdada (Das Grosse Plasto Dio Dada Drama: Deutschlands Grösse und Untergang durch Lehrer Hagendorf oder die phantastische Lebensgeschichte des Oberdada)
Segment of the Barbarossa Grotto, most likely identical to the Kyffhäuser grotto (part of the Hanover Merzbau)
Grotto with Doll’s Head (part of the Hanover Merzbau)
Madonna (part of the Hanover Merzbau)
Hanover Merzbau, detail
Hanover Merzbau, detail
Hanover Merzbau, detail
KdeE (Cathedral of Erotic Misery) (KdeE [Kathedrale des erotischen Elends])
Holy Stairs Sanctuary, Chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum
Photogram with White Heart/Photogram I (Fotogramm mit weißem Herz/Photogramm I)
Shroud of Turin displayed on the steps of the Turin Cathedral
Shroud of Turin, detail
Deposition and the Shroud of Turin of Giovanni Battista della Rovere
Newhaven Fishwife
Abstract Cabinet (Kabinett der Abstrakten)
Room of the Present (Raum der Gegenwart)
Room of the Present (Raum der Gegenwart)
Relief wall in the Merz Barn, Elterwater, England
New Merz Picture (Neues Merzbild)
New Merz Picture (Neues Merzbild), detail
Pipe and Sheet Music (Pipe et partition)
As with Picasso (Wie bei Picasso)
Untitled (Djupvasshytta, Relief) (Ohne Titel [Djupvasshytta, Relief])
Exhibition Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst), in the arcades of the Munich Hofgarten
Yellow Six (Gelbe Sechs)
Untitled (NTHER WAGNER HANOVER) (Ohne Titel [NTHER WAGNER HANNOVER])
Djupvand 3
The Körting Picture (Körtingbild)
Untitled (Merz Picture with Teeth) (Ohne Titel [Merzbild mit Zähnen])
Symphony for a Poet (?) (Sinfonie für einen Dichter [?])
Untitled (ord) (Ohne Titel [ord])
Picture with Soft Rod (Bild mit weicher Stange)
like an old master
47.15 pine trees c 26
C 35 paper clouds
Untitled (Merz Picture with Algae) (Ohne Titel [Merzbild mit Algen])
Untitled (The All-Embracing Sculpture) (Ohne Titel [Die allumfassende Plastik])
Untitled (Memory of Hjertøya) (Ohne Titel [Erinnerung an Hjertøya])
Passport of the German Reich
Collage (Duo-Collage)
Gramsci Monument
Robert Walser Kiosk
Kurt Schwitters Platform
Kurt Schwitters Platform

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Contents

Graham Bader

Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

Contents

Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22630

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Acknowledgments

Graham Bader

Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

Acknowledgments

Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22631

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Introduction: Schwitters’s Gift

Graham Bader

Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

The primary achievement of Kurt Schwitters’s art, the critic Walter Mehring wrote in an August 1919 review, was to utilize “objects themselves to achieve an objectless pictorial whole...

Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.1-15

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00317.1

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22632

Chapter subject tags:Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948Found objects (Art)Collage, GermanArt--Political aspects

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1. Revolutionary Aesthetics: The Invention of Merz, 1918–19

Graham Bader

Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

How does one make art in, and from, and of, revolution? To ask this set of questions is to probe the fundamental substance of avant-garde aesthetics...

Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.17-73

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00317.2

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22633

Chapter subject tags:Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948Germany--History--Revolution, 1918DadaismWalden, Herwarth, 1878-1941Art, Abstract

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2. Schwitters’s Ink: Picturing Words in the 1920s

Graham Bader

Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

Arguably no element was more central to Merz than language. From the infinitely varied textual scraps filling his collages, to the semantic gymnastics...

Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.75-119

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00317.3

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22634

Chapter subject tags:Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948Advertising layout and typographyCollage, German

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3. Photographic Memory: The Merzbau

Graham Bader

Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

This chapter takes as its subject what is undoubtedly Schwitters’s most significant, and significantly discussed, work: the Merzbau. Destroyed in a British bombing raid in October 1943...

Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.121-161

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00317.4

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22635

Chapter subject tags:Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948. MerzbauArt and photographySculpture, AbstractDocumentary photographyMemory in art

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4. Merz Away from Home: Schwitters’s Exilic Imagination

Graham Bader

Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

In 1931, around the time he began to develop the Merzbau as an integrated environment and in the same year he first publicized the Cathedral of Erotic Misery in “Me and My Goals,” Schwitters completed his plywood assemblage...

Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.163-193

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00317.5

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22636

Chapter subject tags:Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948Exile (Punishment)Collage, GermanNationalism

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Conclusion: Precarious

Graham Bader

Poisoned Abstraction: Kurt Schwitters between Revolution and Exile

n October 2010, as my thinking about this book was in its earliest stages, Houston’s Menil Collection opened the exhibition Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage. Including roughly one hundred of the artist’s works...

Author

Graham Bader

PublisherYale University Press

Related print edition pages: pp.195-201

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00317.6

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-22637

Chapter subject tags:Schwitters, Kurt, 1887-1948Installations (Art)World War, 1914-1918Art--Political aspectsHirschhorn, Thomas

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