Kurt Schwitters

This assemblage by Kurt Schwitters is an outstanding example of his Merz art. At first glance, it appears to be a conventional painting. It soon becomes clear, however, that the artist was not working solely with oil on canvas. Instead, he arranged a variety of materials and objects into a single composition. Particularly striking are items such as the two pieces of wood and the spiral spring. He also incorporated postage stamps, newspaper and advertising cuttings, bus or tram tickets, and tickets for events – all everyday objects. In addition, he pasted different papers and fabrics onto the surface. Some of the papers were painted, with shades of blue shaping the overall impression of colour. Using these flat elements, the artist constructed a geometric composition of irregular, angular forms. This recalls the compositions of Cubism and, in its restless movement, Futurism. Schwitters used materials that had previously been unfamiliar in art: everyday objects, waste, and found materials. In 1923, he remarked:

“If Dada seeks to form the basis for a new world by clearing away the old one, then Merz seeks to rebuild art from the ruins of the old world.”

In 1930, he put it like this:

“Everything was broken anyway, and the task was to build something new out of the fragments. That is Merz.”

The work was probably created in 1920, shortly after the First World War. Europe – and Germany in particular – lay in ruins. The November Revolution of 1918 had brought the German Empire to an end, followed by the establishment of the Weimar Republic as a parliamentary democracy. Germany was marked by chaos, a lack of order, and severe economic hardship. The title of this work, Dislocated Forces, may be an allusion to this situation.