Edited by Karin Orchard. Text by Terje Thingvold, Isabel Schulz.
In the 1930s, anyone traveling to Djupvasshytta in Norway might have run into the improbable figure of Kurt Schwitters, selling his landscapes and portraits to visiting tourists. Schwitters (1887–1948) had discovered the beauty of Norway on his first trip there in 1929, subsequently holidaying in the northwestern part of the country. In January 1937, the artist followed his son Ernst into exile, and constructed his second Merzbau, the Haus am Bakken (House on the Slope), near Oslo, where he remained until the Germans moved in to occupy the country in April 1940. Schwitters in Norway is the first book to examine the stylistically looser and more colorful collages and assemblages, with their pronounced use of natural materials such as stone, driftwood and feathers, as well as the abstract and landscape paintings, from this particularly productive period of the artist's life. With nearly 100 color plates, this volume greatly enriches our picture of one of last century's most influential artists.
"Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) was one of the most individual and multifaceted artists of the first half of the twentieth century. He demonstrated his overwhelming creativity in all fields of the visual arts, particularly in assemblages and collages, in abstract and representational paintings, drawings, reliefs and sculptures; in numerous areas of applied arts such as typography, architecture, oratory, and performance; in all branches of literature such as poetry, drama, prose, and art criticism, in addition, finally, to music. His artistic development and interests elude strict categorization, as his oeuvre is devoted entirely to his own personal "Merz" concept. Merz does not differentiate between genres, between the important and the trivial, or between art and life: "Merz means creating relationships, preferably between everything in the world." The highpoint of Schwitters' recognition as an avant-garde artist during his lifetime coincided with the success of international constructivism and the trends initiated by Bauhaus and DeStijl in the 1920s. He founded his one-man art movement outside the significant art centers in the provincial capital of Hanover, but at the same time he also maintained an extensive network of international contacts that stimulated him in a wide range of activities. His contradictoriness and particular combination of tradition and innovation, reflection and the joy of discovery, and of strictness and playfulness, find expression in Schwitters' own characterization of himself as "citizen and idiot." His primary artistic merit rests on the consequential and continuous pursuit of the "collage principle," in the transformation of refuse and found objects into works of art. While artists such as Pablo Picasso and Hans Arp only temporarily occupied themselves with the collage, for Schwitters it formed the lifelong artistic fundament of his work. At the result of his activities, the "collage principle" also became one of the most influential and determining factors of twentieth-century art.
FORMAT: Pbk, 9.5 x 11.25 in. / 212 pgs / 127 color / 37 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $55 ISBN: 9783775724203 PUBLISHER: Hatje Cantz AVAILABLE: 5/31/2010 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Karin Orchard. Text by Terje Thingvold, Isabel Schulz.
In the 1930s, anyone traveling to Djupvasshytta in Norway might have run into the improbable figure of Kurt Schwitters, selling his landscapes and portraits to visiting tourists. Schwitters (1887–1948) had discovered the beauty of Norway on his first trip there in 1929, subsequently holidaying in the northwestern part of the country. In January 1937, the artist followed his son Ernst into exile, and constructed his second Merzbau, the Haus am Bakken (House on the Slope), near Oslo, where he remained until the Germans moved in to occupy the country in April 1940. Schwitters in Norway is the first book to examine the stylistically looser and more colorful collages and assemblages, with their pronounced use of natural materials such as stone, driftwood and feathers, as well as the abstract and landscape paintings, from this particularly productive period of the artist's life. With nearly 100 color plates, this volume greatly enriches our picture of one of last century's most influential artists.
