Exhibition Border crosser of modernism: Kurt Schwitters at the Zentrum Paul Klee
The centerpiece of the exhibition "Kurt Schwitters. Border crossers of the avant-garde" is the German artist's Merzbau. Schwitters had built one in his house in Hanover from 1923; it was destroyed by a firebomb in 1943 and has now been reconstructed for the exhibition at the Zentrum Paul Klee.
Image: Keystone
The Merzbau in the exhibition on the German artist Kurt Schwitters at the Zentrum Paul Klee is a kind of walk-in art grotto. Schwitters created collages in it from things that others had thrown away. He wanted to confront transience with artistic means.
Image: Keystone
The centerpiece of the exhibition "Kurt Schwitters. Border crossers of the avant-garde" is the German artist's Merzbau. Schwitters had built one in his house in Hanover from 1923; it was destroyed by a firebomb in 1943 and has now been reconstructed for the exhibition at the Zentrum Paul Klee.
Image: Keystone
The Merzbau in the exhibition on the German artist Kurt Schwitters at the Zentrum Paul Klee is a kind of walk-in art grotto. Schwitters created collages in it from things that others had thrown away. He wanted to confront transience with artistic means.
Image: Keystone
Kurt Schwitters never allowed himself to be pinned down to one artistic group in the early 20th century. His works combine art, architecture, design and literature. This diversity is shown in the exhibition "Schwitters. Border crossers of the avant-garde" in Bern.
20.03.2026, 06:30
SDA
"Radical innovator" and "border crosser between the avant-garde movements of his time" are attributes that the Zentrum Paul Klee (ZPK) ascribes to Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948). Schwitters' central artistic trademark is his "Merz" principle. His "Ursonate" (1923-1932), an epoch-spanning work of Dadaism, and his Dadaist poem "To Anna Blume" (1919) have ensured his fame to this day.
Schwitters' work and life influenced later generations of artists, such as Jean Tinguely and Thomas Hirschhorn, writes curator Martin Waldmeier in a press release from the ZPK.
Artistic recycling
The conditions after the First World War were formative for the "Merz" principle. "Everything was broken anyway, and the aim was to build something new from the broken pieces. But that is Merz," said Schwitters himself. He invented the term in order to bring all his activities together under this heading from then on. He created collages and assemblages from found and disposable materials - so-called Merzbilder.
And centrally: from 1923, the so-called Merzbau was created in his house in Hanover, a walk-in sculpture or art grotto made of wood, plaster and all kinds of found objects, combining architecture and collage. This Merzbau was destroyed by a firebomb in 1943. In the 1980s, the Swiss stage designer Peter Bissegger reconstructed the Merzbau using a few surviving photographs.
The Merz pictures and the Merzbau are considered an early concept of artistic recycling and remixing, as well as a precursor to today's installation art. For Schwitters, the value of art lay not in the material, but in the creation of intellectual value. This was shown in the ability to "create a new harmonious order out of chaos and to confront the transience of all things with artistic means", writes the ZPK.
Independent and unconventional
Schwitters cultivated contacts with international avant-garde movements such as Dada, De Stijl and the Russian Constructivists, but never joined them. Politically, he always maintained his independence and emphasized the autonomy of art.
The exhibition "Schwitters. Grenzgänger der Avantgarde" provides an overview of this artist's wide-ranging oeuvre. It is the largest retrospective of Schwitters' work ever shown in Switzerland and is arranged chronologically, from his early work to his years in exile. The centerpiece is the replica of the Merzbau, which is complemented by twenty assemblages, reliefs and sculptures. Collages, paintings, drawings, watercolors, prints, publications and typographic works are shown in the surrounding rooms.
The exhibition also presents previously little-known works. On display are portraits and landscapes that he produced in exile in Norway and England in order to earn a living.
Influential for Swiss graphic design
Kurt Schwitters was born in Hanover in 1887, the son of businessmen. After academic studies, he turned to expressionism and abstraction. He had his first solo exhibition in 1921, and from 1924 he was increasingly active in advertising as a designer and typographer. His idea here was to establish the cultural and artistic tasks of design and typography. Schwitters thus also left his mark on Swiss graphic design.
In 1933, when the National Socialists came to power, Schwitters was defamed as "degenerate" in Germany. At the end of the 1930s, he went into exile in Norway. After the German invasion of Norway, he fled to England. He died there in 1948, one day after receiving British citizenship.
The exhibition that the ZPK is now dedicating to him can be seen until June 21.
