Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters (June 20, 1887 - January 8, 1948) was a German painter, who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters participated in the Dada movement during and after World War I. His particular contribution to that group was his Merz works, art pieces built up of found objects into large constructions or even what would later in the 20th century have been called 'installations'. The Sprengel Museum in Hanover has a reconstruction of the most famous of these installations called 'Merzbau' which was a redesign of Schwitters own appartement in Hanover. The Merzbau was destroyed in WW II.He composed and performed an early example of sound poetry, Ursonate (1922-32; the transliteration of the title is "Primordial Sonata"). His recording of this was later sampled by Brian Eno for "Kurt's rejoiner" on his album Before and After Science (1977).
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to a short extract from the Ursonate. (160kb; )
He is also the author An Anna Blume.
In 1937 he was included in the Nazi exhibition of 'degenerate art' (Entartete Kunst) at Munich. He died in Kendal, England, and was buried in Ambleside.
Kurt Schwitters, however, was never really involved in the Dada movement as such; though he was contemporary to it. In fact, he attempted to join the network of artists, largely based in Zurich but later present in Berlin, New York and so forth, only to be rejected by the leader of the Berlin movement, Richard Huelsenbeck on the premise that Schwitters was 'too bourgeois' for Dada... thus the emergence of his MERZ magazine.
Japanese musician Merzbow took his name from Schwitters.
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