Work of a lifetime and linked intimately to his own life, Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau is the expression of the MERZ collage, in a work that brings together architecture, theatre, sculpture, painting and literature. His work evolves through time, based on two specific moments: the extraction of fragments, and the assembly of these elements into a new harmonious and meaningful entity. To Schwitters, the MERZ collage is not the mere manipulation of forms; it is the continuous process of transformation, from their initial state, of various fragments found in his daily environment, including material doomed to destruction: debris, rubbish, scrap, trash, remnants, etc. This transformation consists of one fundamental theme: uniting two opposing forces of reality---art and non-art---into one world: the Merzgesamtweltbild. Art is singled out as the supreme value of human existence, which has the power of transforming waste matter into a work of art. What is seen, through the artist's eyes and soul, is a colour, a light, a shadow, a line, a form, a space, a depth...What occurs in the MERZ collage is the true metamorphosis of the visible, sensible ordinary world.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.21341 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Lafontaine, Diane, 1960- |
| Contributors | Gomez, Alberto Perez (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | French |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Architecture (School of Architecture.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001654958, proquestno: MQ50687, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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