1.The comparison to the Hypnerotomachia is my own, and is largely based on the thematic contents of the original parable. Alberto Peréz-Goméz's most recent book Polyphilo or The Dark Forest Revisited: An Erotic Epiphany of Architecture, (MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992), speaks, albeit in highly eplicit and personal terms, to many of the autobiographical issues present in Schwitters' Die Kathedrale des erotischen Elends. According to Linda Fierz-David, what the Hypnerotomachia relates is a mystery, i.e. it is the story of a mysterious action, which has a secret purpose and in which the miraculous is the natural. See Linda Fierz-David, The Hynerotomachia (New York: Pantheon Books, 1950), p. 2. The relationship between the Hypnerotomachia/Polyphilo and Schwitters' Kathedrale are to be developed in the concluding sections of this book. The comparison of Abbot Suger's Cathedral at St. Denis is suggested by Christian Schneider in a brief article entitled "Schwitters Kathedrale. Eine Perodie," in Kurt Schwitters Almanach, 1983, Postkriptum, herausg. von Michael Erloff (Hannover: Kulturamtes der Stadt Hannover [Postkriptum Verlag], 1983), pp. 26-32. .
2.Elysabeth Yates Burns McKee (Gamard), "L'Esthétique de la rédemption: le Merzbau de Kurt Schwitters," FACES: journal d'Architectures, no. 27, spring 1993 (Journal of the University of Geneva) (Genève: l'Université de Genève, 1993), pp. 36-43. See also Dorothea Dietrich, The Collages of Kurt Schwitters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 164-205. For a comparison to John Soane's Museum, see Patricia Falguières, "Désoeuvrement de Kurt Schwitters," in Kurt Schwitters (Paris: Èditions du Centre Pompidou, 1994), pp. 152-159. .
3.As Gwendolyn Webster observes, this list of artists is not definitive. Indeed, with each successive generation of artists the individuals and movements that purport to bear Schwitters's influence expands. For a commentary on the impact of Schwitters on contemporary art, see Gwendolyn Webster, Kurt Merz Schwitters: A Biographical Study (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997).
For instance, the Fluxus Movement, of which Beuys and Paik were members at intermittent points in time, modelled itself in large part after the performance pieces of the various Dada soirées (Dada evenings). Performance art and certain aspects of Pop-art also owe a great deal to Schwitters. Schwitters was involved in Dada performances, including the famous Dadarevon which he himself organized. A continuation of the Dada-Constructivist Congress in Weimar (1922), this particular performance was essentially the grand finale of the Dada movement, at least in Germany. Participants included Kurt Schwitters, Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, Theo van Doesburg, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and El Lisstizky. The event also heralded Hannover - and Schwitters - as central components in the avant-garde movement in general. For a brief outline of "Dadarevon," see John Elderfield, Ibid., pp. 124-125. Comments on the relationship between the works of Schwitters and Marcel Broodthaers are discussed in Dieter Schwitters Almanach, 1983, Postkriptum, herausgegeben von Michael Erloff (Hannover: Kulturamtes der Stadt Hannover [Postkriptum Verlag GmbH, Hannover], 1983), pp. 37-49. .
4.Ernst Nündel, Ernst Nündel, Kurt Schwitters in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1981), p. 16. .
5. A chronicle of the artistic development of Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Hans Arp, and Theo van Doesburg, among others, is consistent with that of Schwitters. However, Schwitters' own artistic development lagged somewhat behind many of his peers, the result of his being situated primarily in Hannover (rather than Berlin, Munich, Cologne, or Paris), as well as the fact that he was a member of the petit-bourgeosie of Hannover and therefore inherently conservative in outlook. Yet Schwitters' perceived conservativism was for the most part a superficial reading of his works and person, as is evidenced by the radical nature of many of his creative productions. .
6. The Entartete Kunst exhibition, organized by the RDBK (Reichskammer der bildenden Künst), was put on in conjunction with the 1937 inaugural exhibition of Paul Ludwig Troost's Haus des deutsches Kunst (House of German Art) in Munich. The inaugural exhibition is known as Hitler's "day of German art;" works by artists classified as "degenerate" were displayed in order to explicate the differences between true German art and unGerman (bolshevik, Jewish, Bohemian, et. al.) art. See P.O. Rave's Entartete Kunst (Hamburg, 1949) and Hildegard Brenner's Die Kunstpolitik des Naionalsozialismus (Hamburg, 1963). Barbara Miller Lane discusses the general conditions surrounding Hitler's policies on art and architecture in her book Architecture and Politics in Germany 1918-1945 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 125-216. .
7. The full extent of Schwitters's "resistance" activities - as well as the repeated attempts to bring the artist in for interrogation - have only recently come to light. Schwitters suspected for some time that he was being shadowed by the Gestapo and that his incoming and outgoing mail was being screened for information regarding his political activities. While some of this was likely due to his position as an "avant-garde" artist (by definition at odds with the Nazi regime), it was also probable that his associations with noted members of the resistance (his publisher Steegemann's family) and his son's (Ernst Schwitters) refusal to participate in the activities of the Hitler Youth complicated his situation. In addition, Schwitters's mother-in-law's (Eleonora Fisher) vocal support of the Nazi regime coupled with her overt dislike of her son-in-law's approach to art and life probably didn't help matters. See Webster, pp. 249-277.
As noted by Hans Richter, in 1936, Schwitters sent a letter from Hannover, "...in the Nazi Germany in which he was regarded as a 'suspect', a 'cultural Bolshevik' and a 'lunatic'," to his friend and compatriot Tristan Tzara." In the letter, Schwitters informs Tzara of a mysterious "consignment." The consignment, as Tzara later related to their mutual friend Hans Richter, consisted of an album of photographs with a series of microfilms concealed beneath its cover. The microfilms revealed aspects of the true nature of Hitler's Reich, detailing such conditions as ration cards with minimal quantities of food, posters supporting the Reich in tatters around the city, and other aspects of daily life in Hannover that could be relayed through visual means. This documentation, including Schwitters' letter regarding the contents of his 'consignment', was later published by Tzara in the French periodical Regards. Schwitters' ability to veil his true intentions through the appropriation of bureaucratic language, a mark of the German 'resistance', is evident in the official tone of his letter to Tzara: "Dear Herr Tzara: Some days ago I received the news that the consignment despatched at the beginning of April arrived safely. I would now request you on behalf of Herr S. to forward the negatives of the consignment, together with a printed copy, securely packed in a sealed envelope, to our overseas department. The address is: Herre Ch. Iversen, Djupvasshytta ved Geiranger, Norge. He will be at the address indicated from the 3rd until the 8th of July. I would therefore ask you to despatch (sic) the consignment so as to arrive not later than the 8th of July. Please mark the envelope clearly 'via Amsterdam'./Please send the fee for publication to the same address, by postal order, before the 8th of July./As and when it is possible to assemble a new consignment, we shall naturally forward it to you. I am sure that you appreciate the difficulties that this work entails./With my sincere gratitude in advance for you assistance, I remain with very best wishes Overseas Department ." As Richter later observed, if Schwitters intentions had been revealed, "…he would certainly have been sent to a concentration camp…He was literally risking his life - but he had not forgotten the fee for publication!" See Hans Richter, Dada: art and anti-art, trans. David Britt (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1965), p. 153-154. This incident is also cited in Webster, p. 269. .
8.Schwitters' agitation against the Nazi regime was not affiliated with any organized political resistance, yet he did speak out against the fascists when the opportunity presented itself. One of the more interesting anecdotes regarding Schwitters' resistance to Nazi propaganda and the suppression of modern ("bolshevik," "Jewish," and/or "unGerman") art is recorded by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy. While the full text of her statement is too extensive to quote in full, I have included it in the appendix for reference. See also Robert Motherwell, edit. Dada Painters and Poets (New York: Wittenborn Art Books, 1981), pp. xxix-xxx. The original quotation is contained in Sibyl Moholy-Nagy's book on her husband entitled Moholy-Nagy .
9.Though pursued by their own government, both Kurt and Ernst Schwitters were still classified as German nationals and therefore held 'under suspicion' and without the necessary papers. The course of their various internments and intermittent separations, as well as information regarding the nature of the various camp facilities (including the famous Hutchison Camp on the Isle of Man, the site of the extraordinary Hutchinson University) is outlined in Webster, pp.307-324.
10.See Werner Schmalenbach, Kurt Schwitters (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1967). p. 7. .
11. Walter Benjamin (1931), cit. Richard Wolin, Walter Benjamin: An Aesthetic of Redemption (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. ix. .
12. Elgar's discussion of the Merzbau focuses on the social and cultural context of Wilhelmine Germany and the aftermath of World War One, with a specific emphasis on Hannover. Dietrich's analysis, contained in a chapter of her book entitled The Collages of Kurt Schwitters, aligns the project with Walter Benjamin's study of allegory in the Trauerspiel. My own previous work on the subject has looked at the Merzbau in terms of Walter Benjamin's Passagen-Werk. See Dietmar Elger, Der Merzbau. Eine Werkmonographie (Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter König, 1984) and Dorothea Dietrich, The Collages of Kurt Schwitters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp.182-183
There have also been smaller articles speculating on the genesis and organization of the Merzbau's content, including Patricia Falguières "Désoeuvrement de Kurt Schwitters (Idleness of Kurt Schwitters)" in the catalogue accompanying a recent exhibition of Kurt Schwitters ouevre at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. See Kurt Schwitters (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 1994), pp. 152-159. An article by Dietmar Elger chronicling the three Merzbauen is also contained within the catalogue ("L'ouevre d'une vie: les Merzbau," pp. 140-151). One cannot overlook the extent to which Ernst Schwitters has contributed to our understanding of the contents and extent of the Merzbau. Ernst Schwitters has published numerous short articles pertaining to the work, including "Der Merzbau oder die Kathedrale des erotischen Elend (KdeE)" in Collages, Kurt Schwitters (catalogue d'exposition), Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, 1971, pp. 16-17. .
13.Gwendolyn Webster, Kurt Merz Schwitters: A Biographical Study (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997). .
14. Uta Brandes, "Merzbau im Biedermeier: Die Kathedrale des erotischen Elends," in Kurt Schwitters Almanach 1982: Postkriptum ((Hannover: Kulturamtes der Stadt Hannover [Postkriptum Verlag GmbH, Hannover], 1983), pp. 39-54. In "Merzbau im Biedermeier," Brandes discusses both Schwitters personal relationship to objects in light of the Biedermeier period, and the intrinsic relationship of the Merzbau to other significant 'architectural' objects, including Etienne-Louis Boulée's "Cenotaph for Newton" (c. 1780), Richard Wagner's facade painting "Haus Wahnfried" (1873/74) (on a building by the architect Von Wölfel), Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building (New York, 1954-58), Vladimir Tatlin's "Tower for the 3rd International," (1920), and Johannes Baader's.sculpture "Dio Dada Drama" (1920). Brandes' article on Schwitters relationship to the various women in his life, including his wife, Helma, and friends Käte Steinitz (with whom he collaborated on selected projects), Nelly (Petro) van Doesburg (wife of the architect Theo van Doesburg), and Wantee, his mistress and nurse in England, discusses the intersection of these personal liaisons in both his work and personal life. See Uta Brandes, "Helma, Wantee, Käte, Nelly, Suze, Arren und andere," in Kurt Schwitters Almanach Nummer 9: Postkriptum ( ), pp. 71-118. Pages 91-118 include selected letters by Schwitters to various of his female acquaintances, thereby buttressing Brandes' claims of "distanced eroticism." The final section of her article, entitled "Erotisches Elend und reine Form (Erotic misery and perfect form)," is discussed at a later point in this book. The entire issue of Kurt Schwitters Almanach Nummer 9: Postskriptum (Hannover: Kulturamtes der Stadt Hannover [Postkriptum Verlag GmbH, Hannover], 1990), is devoted to Schwitters relationship to "Frauen. (women.)" Articles include those by Hans Freudenthal, a correspondent of Schwitters during the 1940's; and Kaus E. Hinrichsen. Gwendolen Webster details the specifics of Schwitters' manifold relationships throughout her biography on the artist. .
15. Janice Schall, "Rhythm and Art in Germany," 1900-1930 (PhD. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1989). While Schall's text is a more general account of the influences of Nietzsche's works on German art during the early part of the twentieth-century, she does provide a compelling account of Schwitters' Dada-Merz work (pp. 260-277). .
16. Annegreth Nill, "Decoding Merz," (PhD. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1990). Nill's book deals specifically with the early years of Merz, concentrating on the small Merz-bilder (Merz-collages) developed by Schwitters over a period five years (1918-1923). .
17. The notion of a Merzkunstwerk is an obvious play on the Romantic-Expressionist notion of a Gesamtkunstwerk (Total work of art), an idea that originates with Richard Wagner and continues to inform the imagination of German artists and architects throughout the course of the early- and, in some cases, mid-twentieth century. .
18. Marc Dachy, Kurt Schwitters MERZ: Ecrits choisis et presentes par Marc Dachy (Paris: Éditions Gérard Lebovici, 1990), p. 26. As Dachy remarks, Murayama, a member of the Berlin Dadaist organization, returned to Japan in 1923, where he concentrated mainly on choreography and theatre. See. fn9, p. 26. As Gwendolen Webster asserts in her biographical study of Schwitters, attempts to create spatial environments were not uncommon during the teens and twenties of the 20th century. Several of these installations were certainly familiar to Schwitters, in particular those by Lissitsky and a fellow German artist, Erich Buchholz. See Gwendolen Webster, Kurt Merz Schwitters: A Biographical Study (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1997), pp. 209. . Perhaps the best text in English regarding Plecnik's plan and phased construction for the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana is Peter Krecic, Plecnik: The Complete Works (London: Academy Editions, 1993), pp.53-160. With respect to Schwitters' impulse to pursue the transhistorical (the conflation of all successive "periods of art" in search of a primal whole), it is interesting to note the assertion of Plecnik's "two-sidedness" and the "playing of both strings" by the architectural historian Nace Sumi. See Krecic, Ibid., pp. 7-11, However, it is through my own travels to Ljubljana that I suggest the potential relationship between Schwitters and Plecnik, despite the unlikelihood of their direct, or even indirect, association. Though not stated as such, the project constitutes an autobiographical array that may be regarded as transhistorical - an interesting, if as yet undeveloped - parallel to Schwitters Merzbau. In addition, Max Ernst's collection of mural paintings (1923) for a house in the suburbs of Paris (Eaubonne) owned by the surrealists Max and Gala Eluard, are also filled with allegorical and hermeneutic symbolism. Ernst's paintings are discussed at some length in William A. Camfield's book, Max Ernst: Dada and the Dawn of Surrealism (Munich: Prestal-Verlag, 1993), pp. 1239-146. .
19Kurt Schwitters, "Ich und meine Ziele," in Das literarishe Werk, Bd. 5, p. 343. "Ausserdem ist sie unfertig, und zwar aus Prinzip." . .
21. Rudi Fuchs, Conflicts with Modernism or the Absence of Kurt Schwitters (orig. published as Konflikte mit dem Modernismus oder die Abwesenheit von Kurt Schwitters), (Bern: Verlag Gachnang und Springer, 1991), pp. 19-21. .
22. Annegreth Nill, Decoding Merz, PhD. Dissertation conducted at the University of Texas - Austin, submitted 1990, p. 4. .
23.Hans Richter, Ibid., pp. 152-153. .
.24. Kurt Schwitters, "Ich und meine Zeile," Ibid., p. 343. "Ausserdem ist sie unfertig, und zwar aus Prinzip." .
25. The last photographs of the Merzbau were taken by Ernst Schwitters after his father had already fled to Norway.
26. For a description of the transformations of Schwitters' residence and the development of his atelier, see Dietmar Elger, "Die Enstehung des Merzbaus," in Kurt Schwitters Almanach 1982: Postkriptum, edit. Michael Erloff, (Hannover: Kulturamtes der Stadt Hannover [Postkriptum Verlag], 1982), pp. 28-38. The original diagrams are contained in the Stadtarchiv Hannover. In a letter to Hannah Höch, written in January of 1934 shortly before she died of cancer, Helma Schwitters wrote that the 'Merzbau müsse nun ein weiteres Zimmer vor dem Atelier gerumt werden. Schwitters wich auf den Balkon aus, der für diesen Zweck vollständig verglast wurde. Von dort aus wuchs der Merzbaus weister, gleichzeitig enstehen Ableger auch an anderen Stelle.' However, a letter Schwitters wrote to his friend Christof Spengemann on the 18th of August, 1946 suggests the extent of the project: "Mein Merzbau war praktische nicht ein einzelner Raum, sondern über das ganze Haus verteilt (....)." Continuing, Schwitters states that "Telie des Merzbaues waren im Nebenraum, auf dem Balkon, in 2 Raumen des Kellers, in der 2. Etage, auf dem Boden." On the occasion of his visit to the site of the Merzbau as a guest of Helma Schwitters (8-9 October, 1943), Professor Doktor Hans Freudenthal writes; "Der Verbindung stellten einige Vermerzungen im Treppenhaus her." This latter statement was communicated to Dietmar Elger in a letter written to Elger on May 31, 1982, in anticipation of the reconstruction of the Hannover Merzbau in the Sprengel Museum - Hannover. Nonetheless, the actual parameters of the Merzbau continue to be in dispute.
27. Cited by Elderfield, p. 146. (fn Elger, 712). On page 155, Elderfield cites Ernst Schwitters recollection of the central room of the Merzbau, a room containing the column described as Die Kathedrale des erotischen Elends (The Cathedral of Erotic Misery), a title Schwitters eventually used to describe the entire project.
28. Schwitters did attempt to outline the extent of the Hannover Merzbau in a crude plan sketch he sent to Museum of Modern Art Director Albert Barr, Sr. during the 1940's. The letter was a request for grant monies to aid in a reconstruction of the piece.
29. Webster, p. 270, cit. Elderfield, p.157. Alfred Barr, Jr., at the time the Director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, "turned up unannounced on the Schwitters' doorstep in June 1935 (and) ensured that Merz was represented in two of the museum's exhibitions, "Cubism and Abstract Art" and the mentioned "Frantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism." .
30. Letter to A. Barr, 23 November 1936, quoted in John Elderfield, Kurt Schwitters, London 1985, p. 156; cited in Webster, p. 284. .
31. Briefe, p. 230 and p.246, cited in Nündel, p.57-8 (translated by Gamard). . .
32. In the late-1920's, Schwitters stated that only three individuals could understand the constitution and ideas of the Merzbau: the Sturm critic Herwarth Walden, the architectural historian Sigfried Giedion, and the artist Hans Arp (note that he refers to the Merzbau as a column, or Säule, in this particular quote): "Ich kenne nur 3 Menschen, von denen ich annehme, dass sie mich in meiner Säule restlos verstehen werden" Herwarth Walden, Doktor S. Giedion und Hanns Arp (sic)." See Kurt Schwitters, "Ich und meine Zeile," in Das literarishe Werk, Bd. 5, p. 345. However, he also made mention in another text associated with the Merzbau that the art critic F. Vordemberge-Gildewart and his friend Käte Steinitz were also able to access the work. .
33. The first reproductions of the piece appeared in the magazine G, published by Hans Richter, Mies van der Rohe, and Werner Graeff (no. 3). Two reproductions also appeared in the no. 2 issue of the magazine abstraction-création-art non-figuratif, published in the same year. . Kurt
34. Schwitters, "Ich und meine Zeile," Ibid., pp. 344-345. The dates of the project are somewhat slippery. It is likely that Schwitters began to intuitively construct what was to become the Merzbau as early as 1920 -21. However, he dates the formal inception of the project from 1923. The photographs which were published in 1933 were of the 'constructivist' phase of the Merzbau. However, Schwitters had previously published images of earlier aspects of the project, though not under the general rubric 'Merzbau'. Merz 21. erstes Veilchenheft was essentially an autobiographical sketch of his overall artistic development. It was also one of the last issues of his journal. .
35. Kurt Schwitters, "Le Merzbau," in Das literarishe Werke, Bd. 5, p. 354. .
36. Kurt Schwitters, "Ich und meine Zeile," Ibid., p. 346. . 'Ich und meine Ziele', LW 5, p. 344. Cited in Webster, p. 238. .
37.Schwitters claimed that only close friends and "those who would understand it" were introduced to the Merzbau - usually after one of the "soirées" he held at his home. .
38. Hans Richter, Ibid., p. 152. .
39. Notes and articles on the reconstruction of the Merzbau for a 1987 exhibition on Kurt Schwitters by the Sprengel Museum in Hannover are contained in the catalogue for the exhibition, entitled Kurt Schwitters (Hannover: Landeshaupt-Hannover, Der Oberstadtdirektor Sprengel-Museum Hannover, 1987). .
40. Dietmar Elgar, "L'oeuvre d'une vie: les Merzbau," in Kurt Schwitters (Paris: Editions du Centre Pompidou, 1994), p. 145. Hans Richter suggests that the "constructivist" phase of Schwitters construction was becoming progressively more fluid ("curvilinear") in nature over the course of time. This observation is notable given the fact that Schwitters' later editions of the Merzbauen in Norway and England are much more organic than the 'constructivist-purist' phase noted by other individuals who visited the project. These developments lend further credence to the notion that the Hannover Merzbau was a work in progress. As such, it was guided by a process that enabled Schwitters' to initiate his later editions based on the assumption that they were not entirely new constructions, but represented a continuation of the process itself. The most complete outline of the later Merzbauen is contained in Dietmar Elger's article for the Pompidou exhibition (Ibid.). See Hans Richter, Ibid. p. 153. .
41. The text which accompanied the opening of the reconstruction of Schwitters Hannover Merzbau did, however, aid in the understanding of the social and political context for the project. See Dietmar Elger, Der Merzbau: Eine Werkmonographie (Walter König: Cologne, 1984).
42.Resurfacing in what are considered to be romantic periods in the history of human culture and often used interchangeably, the terms alchemy (including alchemical processes), mysticism and hermeticism refer to the esoteric or occult arts, alchemy and hermeticism represent medieval chemical sciences and speculative philosophy aimed at achieving the transmutation of one material into another. Mysticism, often designated according to specific religious or ethnic practices such as "nature mysticism" or Russian mysticism, at once suggests both a generalized and highly specific approach to achieving a direct communion with an ultimate reality. This 'direct communion' can be physical (sexual), cognitive, and/or spiritual in nature and is often times unsanctioned by religious authority due to its being based in individual rather than collective experience. It has been likened by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience as reminiscent of an alcoholic or drug-induced experience of wholeness or oneness ('an anaesthetic revelation') whereupon the one (an individual) is effaced as a singular entity, becoming instead part of a universal or cosmic flow in direct communion with God. The liberative and decidedly brief nature of mystical experience - a condition described as immersive, oceanic, transient, ineffable and noetic in literature associated with the subject - is suggested by Schwitters' equation of art and religious immersion in his proclamation that "the immersion in art, like the immersion in religious faith, liberates man from the worries of daily life." According to James, mystic states are also marked by their contradictory nature, contradictions which abound in not only Schwitters' work but in the works of others who have played with 'dreamy states' and 'mystical consciousness'. It is perhaps no accident that the both the prescription for and result of a melancholic disposition was an embrace of alternative states of consciousness - in particular states that would alter the existential dissociation attributed to melancholy and, even more pertinent in Schwitters' case, epileptic seizures. See James, pp. 322-26. Quotes from a biography on J.A. Symonds (1895) are illuminating: "Often I have asked myself with anguish, on waking from that formless state of denuded, keenly sentient being, Which is the unreality?-the trance of fiery, vacant, apprehensive, skeptical Self from which I issue, or these surrounding phenomena and habits which veil that inner Self and build a self of flesh-and-blood conventionality? Again, are men the factors of some dream, the dream-like unsubstantiality of which they comprehend at such eventful moments? What would happen if the final stage of the trance were reached?" Despite innumerable attempts to describe mystical states of consciousness, it is important to recognize the inadequacy of language. .
44. Schwitters promotions and publications were not only limited to his self-assigned Merz project, but extended into any endeavor he believed mainained an abiding faith in the paramount project of art. Thus, he could include artists as diverse as Mondrian, Van Doesburg, Hannah Höch, El Lissitzky, Raoul Haussman, Tristan Tzara, and Hans Arp, while at the same time excluding those individuals he felt were corrupted by extrinsic agendas such as Richard Huelsenbeck. Nonetheless, it is clear that he included many more artists than he excluded. .
45. Elderfield, p. 27. Schwitters' simple declaration of Merz is as follows: "Merz stands for freedom from all fetters, for the sake of artistic creation. Freedom is not lack of restraint, but the product of strict artistic discipline." This statement originally appeared in Schwitters article entitled "Merz" which was published in Der Ararat (1920). It is republished in LW -5, p.76.
This page is the footnotes to this extract from MERZBAU
THE CATHEDRAL OF EROTIC MISERY