Tags
art, China Miéville, Claude Lévi-Strauss, collage, Dada, found objects, Kurt Schwitters, landscape, London, Manufactured Landscapes, Merz, mudlarking, Recycling, Thames
‘Found Landscape I’, acrylic and found objects on board, by Diana Hale, 2010
A walk along the Thames river bank at low tide, near Barnes, mudlarking
‘Found Landscape II’, acrylic and found objects on board, by Diana Hale, 2010
Aesthetics and rubbish, Merz, found objects – art as a form of chance
‘Found Landscape III’, acrylic and found objects on board, by Diana Hale, 2010
Recycling, upcycling, Salvagepunk, bricolage, assemblage
Bricolage was a term used by anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. He referred to the cultural significance of found objects as a “superabundance of objects, heavier, denser and imbued with many things that we have eliminated from them” (in Charbonnier, Conversations with Claude Lévi-Strauss, published in 1969).
‘Fragments’, Acrylic on canvas, incorporating Thames mud, by Diana Hale, 2010
Reinterpretation, realism versus abstraction, metamorphosis
In one of those strange series of coincidences, several things recently have reminded me of these pieces I did a couple of years ago. Firstly an article in the Guardian on the threat to the Merz Barn near Elterwater in the English Lake District, created by Kurt Schwitters in 1947 when he lived there in exile, which has had its Arts Council grant cut. The interior end wall art work had already been saved from the then derelict building by Richard Hamilton in 1965 when it was removed to the care of Newcastle University. It is on permanent display in the Hatton Gallery. The building itself, incomplete when he died in 1948, is still in situ and there are plans to create a museum. It was reconstructed in front of the Royal Academy in London last year for the Modern British Sculpture exhibition.
Merz (the term came from the 2nd syllable of Kommerz Bank, from an advertisement he used in a collage) – “the combination, for artistic purposes of all conceivable materials”. Schwitters also said of his assemblages or Merzbilder “The artist creates through the choice, distribution and metamorphosis (Entformung) of the materials.”
In a premonition of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Schwitters wrote in 1926 “New art forms out of the remains of a former culture.”
To quote from the caption to Schwitters work ‘(Relief in Relief)‘ on the Tate web site “Initially associated with the irreverent Dada movement in 1920s Germany, Schwitters developed an interest in collage and the complex visual inventions this technique made possible. He coined the term MERZ to describe his highly idiosyncratic approach to making art. Schwitters stayed true to these principles even when he left Germany after the rise of National Socialism and emigrated to Britain. He often took months over his constructions, painstakingly searching for the appropriate elements. In wartime Barnes, where glossy magazines for his collages were scarce, the artist used driftwood from the Thames.”
There is to be a major Schwitters exhibition at the Tate Gallery next year.
The Merzbau, Hanover, 1933 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
An image of Schwitters destroyed Merzbau in Hanover was used by China Miéville and Evan Calder Williams in their Salvagepunk presentation at the Serpentine Memory Marathon recently.
Their dystopian vision of a world surviving on salvaging rubbish is not such a fantasy as might be thought.
As part of the Metamorphoses – Transformations and Conversions festival at King’s College recently I saw the film Manufactured Landscapes based on Ed Burtynsky‘s photographic work. Images of people in China and Bangladesh inundated by, and living from recycling, all the detritus of the West are both humbling and horrific and make my efforts seem rather trivial.
As part of the 19th-21st October Bloomsbury Festival a temporary one person gallery appeared in Brunswick Square, another manifestation of Merz.
Designed by Peruvian artist Fernando Caceres and Philipp Dorstewitz it was constructed entirely from materials salvaged in the surrounding area, to reflect both the history of the Foundling Estate and its 18th century slums and the favela type constructions of South American city dwellers, but intended as a positive comment.
A good note to end on.
Related articles
- Merz Barn faces closure (guardian.co.uk)
- ‘Degenerate art’ memorial planned (bbc.co.uk)
- ‘Degenerate artists’ tribute is a mistake (guardian.co.uk)
- Mudlarking (brilliant-london.com)
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A really interesting post, Diana – thanks for the journey of discovery through all these scatterings of our world, each taking on new form and significance in art. Very thought provoking…
Love your blue colours, and fragments. Very nice work, Diana.
Hi. I love the landscapes… they seem very ‘aerial’ to me. The fragments of dishes speak volumes! jane
Thanks Jane – that is an interesting perspective! I love thinking of the stories behind the fragments.
inspiring…
Thanks!
Leaving the boundaries of cognition to a future rearrangement of the present
may explain some aspects of chance
Thank you for that possible explanation – I like the phrase ‘boundaries of cognition’!
This is fascinating. The found landscapes remind me of Georges Braque’s collages, though maybe those are ‘culturescapes’ more than landscapes. I did some ‘mudlarking’ (tangentially) myself a while back:
http://thehauntedshoreline.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/the-mudlark/
best wishes as ever from the Shoreline
Yes does the term mudlarking just apply to rivers? I guess beachcombing is broader but not quite the same, how about shorelarking? – anyway love your blog post as always!
Thanks Diana- I used ‘mudlark’ to refer to the mudfish, but also as a pun on the word ‘lark’, as in ‘jape’… but more generally I think ‘mudlarking’ is specific to rivers, yes. Here’s a remarkable tale of a latterday Thames mudlark:
http://www.archaeologyuk.org/news/090722-buttons
Job for life! Thanks for that.
What a great post Diana. Love your found landscapes and like that notion of art as chance. Had no idea about Schwitters / The Lake District and the Merz Barn until I saw the article this week. Good to know that a wall is preserved in Newcastle. The shed reminds me of the bricolage constructions you often see on allotments. Functional, recycled and nothing wasted. I was at a festival last weekend in which one of the performers was Masami Akita aka ‘Merzbow’, an acknowledged derivation from Schwitter’s Merzbau. His junk art aesthetic was well displayed as one of his main sound sources appeared to be what looked like an an amplified dustbin lid! Not easy listening though!
Thanks, and thanks for your recent references to John Cage which got me interested again in the notion of chance. Merzbow sounds great. I usually enjoy such musical performances unless they are too agonizing to listen too- I don’t like a lot of feedback!
See updates on Twitter on Merz Barn- some funding is available but they still need more and more publicity so maybe this will help.
As I have said, I learn so much of your world through your words and art, whether it’s “found,” photo, or painted. I was particularly taken with the recycling aspect of this post–how we have used this Earth. Often, I feel my recycling efforts are minimal but in looking at the China photo that you linked, I recognize no effort is not important. Informative and thoughtful post, Diana.
Karen
Thanks for the encouragement Karen!
Nice pieces of work i especially like your “Fragments”
The Abbott Hall gallery in Kendal have a number of works by Schwitters – he lived up in the Lake District while he was over here in exile
Glad you enjoyed the work Michael – thanks!
Fascinating post. This is mostly new to me – I read about the Merz barn in the Guardian this week, and that was new to me. I like the artworks, too!
Thanks Gerry – glad to be able to add to your already encyclopaedic knowledge of things cultural!
Interesting knitting of these threads Diana. I didn’t know the background of the Schwitters wall until now, although I remember being fascinated by it at the Hatton. Your post led quite a trail through links and articles! Most enjoyable, thanks.
For some reason I never went to the Hatton Gallery when I went to Newcastle. It has some amazing objects in the wall apparently including a bit of cartwheel and a child’s watering can as well as stones from a nearby stream. Glad you enjoyed the post.
The Hatton is not easy to find. We did a huge loop and found it very near where we started from, despite following the signs.
Beautiful post, Diana! I like to imagine the first photo set as depicting what one might find if one drained a Tarkovsky set 😉
Thank you for that wonderful thought Tyran. Stalker particularly I think!
Wow! I love your found object art. And I would enjoy that “shed” at the bottom of my garden.
I’m sure you have a lovely shed judging by your allotment! Thanks for appreciating.
Great stuff. Love the found landscapes. The Merz barn is fascinating. I hadn’t heard of it until the Guardian piece. Wish I’d known about it when I was right beside it last year!
Thanks David. I didn’t know about it last time I went to the Lake District, although that was a long time ago, unfortunately. I also forgot to photograph the reconstruction at the Royal Academy although I did see it!