Neither can the reconstruction adequately explore the temporal
nature of the work. The fact that the Merzbau was developed
over the space of a number of years, and that it retained the
material residue of its earlier stages, in many ways supercedes
the significance of its formal appearance.41
However difficult it may be to assess the exact parameters and
meaning of Schwitters' elaborate undertaking, it is still possible
to establish a series of readings - some admittedly more speculative
than others - that may aid in the understanding of the project.
Though Schwitters himself regarded the formal aspects of his
art to be of significance, questions surrounding content cannot
be wholly disregarded: his philosophical and literary preoccupations,
while obscure, clearly resonate throughout the entirety of his
artistic productions. Even a cursory review of the literary
content of the Merzbau reveals allusions to alchemy, mysticism,
hermeticism and romanticism.42
The search for traces of embodied meaning, while important,
must be understood to parallel the artist's understanding of
the nature of art itself. Eventually, these parallel pursuits
became interwoven in Schwitters' artistic universe, evidenced
by his dual doctrines of Formung and Entformung (roughly 'forming'
and 'deforming'). The way in which Schwitters interpreted the
problem of form in the work of art as a dynamic 'metaphysic'
of becoming rather than a static end in itself is displayed
by his actions as well as the products - all of which could
be subject to further 'action' at a later date. Neither anecdotal
evidence nor the record of Schwitters' own statements regarding
the Merzbau, however useful, can in and of themselves afford
meaningfully insight into the project. Initial interpretations
of the work as that of a madman are still relevant today, and
given Schwitters' success at concealing his motives and subject
matter while simultaneously playing at revealing it, the Merzbau
remains a highly enigmatic, circumspect work. Yet as John Elderfield,
a principle chronicler of Schwitters' life and works, states,
the Merzbau "was not the by-product of an amusingly eccentric
way of life, but a visually and thematically remarkable, complex
and ambitious work of art." 43
Thus Elderfield, rather than marginalizing the project or granting
it recognition as a curiosity, understands the work as central
to Schwitters' entire artistic oeuvre by suggesting that there
are both visual and thematic intentions to the Merzbau and that
glimpses of the artist's intentions may no longer be said and
therefore 'heard', but can be shown. However, these intentions
are displayed in all manner of inconvenience, arrayed like clues
in a scavenger hunt that can only be interpreted according to
yet another foraging game - a foil consistent with Schwitters'
melancholic personality. Found in one constellation of poems
or collages, in his letters and publications, in a photograph
of the work or a newly unearthed chronology, visual and thematic
clues are woven together as threads of a worn tapestry - a tapestry
backed by Schwitters' highly personal artistic doctrine - thus
revealing elaborate and difficult internal and external associations
and references.
These tendencies, coupled with several earnest autobiographical
explanations that were at the time radical for their self-exposure,
contribute to the rather odd mosaic one is confronted with when
viewing the labyrinthine nature of his overall development.
Thematic and visual sources are not completely lacking, but
seem to go underground, or in the case of the Merzbau, are hidden
behind closed doors and ample material and verbal dissembling
by the artist himself. Consistent with his regard for art as
nature, prominent themes do surface, all of which are found
in esoteric spiritual and intellectual traditions. These themes
are not historically bound, but remain constant, backgrounded
material that resists normative critical speculation. Central
to alchemy, hermeticism and the occult arts, they include an
emphasis on process (intermittently staged as product), performative
autobiography, a-temporal temporality, love and death, disease
and decay, melancholy, organic unity, and aesthetic redemption.
Merz, the movement for which Schwitters is known and by far
the most significant of his creative episodes, occurred over
an extended period of time, from 1919 until his death in 1948.
It should be remarked at the outset, however, that Schwitters'
Merz was not a movement in the traditional sense (he was the
both the progenitor and sole 'member'), but a methodology, or,
to put it more exactly, a way of life. While there are aspects
of many, if not all, the major avant-garde movements present
in Schwitters' work, Merz represented a singular departure from
the organizational and collective goals of other avant-garde
groups. Admittedly, none of these groups were in themselves
a coherent unit, yet they shared certain aims and collaborations.
Schwitters was unique in this sense, preferring to forge his
own path. To this end, he became a one-man promoter, publisher,
and organizer. 44
The public and private aspects of his art, however, were not
conceived as separate entities, but as a tightly knit field
of endeavors under the general rubric of Merz. Schwitters' revolution
was both personal and thematic, contingent on the interface
of autobiographical circumstances and the context, or contexts,
in which he operated. Materially and thematically dynamic, this
interface propelled the ongoing development of Schwitters' unique
project for art and life.
Kurt Schwitters' faith in the project of art, in its immediacy
and necessity of communication through visual and literary means,
suggests a similar mode of inquiry. This is perhaps why he endeavored
in so many different media to articulate himself; the normative
means by which art and literature operated were, in Schwitters'
mind, no longer adequate to the task of representing the true
nature of human experience. It is also why he invoked the proposition
that art is the result of "strict artistic discipline".45
To him, art was not only a religion and a philosophy; it was
a way of life, nothing of which was determined according to
discrete categories. Most importantly, however, the production
of art, the revelation of the creative capacity and vision of
an individual, constituted an ethical imperative; it was a way
of life that could not be corrupted by forces or ideas that
lay beneath its lofty realm. For Kurt Schwitters, the Merzbau,
his Kathedrale des erotischen Elends, was the site of his most
extensive and elaborate inquiry into the fundamentals, elements
and firmament of his creative endeavors. At once restive and
restful, it was the primary residence, the summa theologia,
of his living art.
© Elizabeth Burns Gamard
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