Kurt Schwitters

“There is no shortage of journals. Yet none has hitherto been devoted exclusively to the MERZ IDEA. To remedy this pressing need, I have therefore resolved to publish the journal MERZ, which is to appear four times a year.”

This is how Kurt Schwitters opens the text of the first issue of his journal Merz, which he published from 1923 to 1932. If you take the time to look closely at a page of the journal, there is a great deal going on. Some text is laid out in the conventional left-to-right direction. Elsewhere, however, text runs from top to bottom, or the direction of the lettering is vertical. Some pages are printed on red paper, a variety of typefaces are used, and graphic elements such as page numbers or illustrations are also integrated into the overall design.

From 1923 onwards, Schwitters published the journal through his own Merzverlag. This publishing house was based in Schwitters’ private flat in Hanover. He acted as editor, graphic designer and publisher all in one. His wife Helma assisted him with secretarial tasks, but otherwise he had no permanent staff.

Schwitters was inspired to found a journal during a trip to the Netherlands by Theo van Doesburg. As a result, the early issues are still strongly influenced by Dutch typography. Later editions were published bilingually in French and German. This is particularly striking given that, at the time, France was regarded as an enemy of the Weimar Republic. Schwitters also produced two issues as collaborative projects with the artists Hans Arp and El Lissitzky. These collaborations resulted in a greater variety of formats that are more experimental and increasingly shaped by Constructivist ideas. 

Schwitters used the journal as a means of staying connected from Hanover to the contemporary European art scene and of promoting his Merz idea. Advertisements for other avant-garde journals from Argentina, Japan, Yugoslavia and the United States reveal just how global this network was. However, Schwitters was unable to generate sufficient income through subscriptions and sales. Owing to this lack of funding, the journal was published less regularly from 1925, and its contents began to move away from the model of a conventional art magazine.