Kurt Schwitters
Kurt Schwitters was a German painter and played an important role in Dada. He worked in several genres and media, including Dadaism, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, collage, sculpture, typography and what came to be known as installation art.
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- We, the founders of Dada-movement try to give time its own reflection in the mirror.
- first edition of journal Merz, 1923
- The medium is as unimportant as I myself. Essential is only the forming.. ..I take any material whatsoever if the picture demands it. When I adjust materials of different kinds to one another, I have taken a step in advance of mere oil painting, for in addition to playing off color against color, line against line, form against form etc., I play off material against material, wood against sack clothes. (1921)
- Abstract Art, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson, London 1990, p. 68/69
- Art is a spiritual function of man, which aims at freeing him from life’s chaos. Art is free in the use of its means in any way it likes, but is bound to its laws and to its laws alone. The minute it becomes art, it becomes much more sublime than a class distinction between proletariat and bourgeoisie. (in discussion with the political Dadaists as Huelsenbeck, fh)
- manifesto Proletkult, 1923
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- My ultimate objective is to combine art and non-art in a Merzgesamtweldbild ["a complete universal picture"].