Schwitters’ Army Mobilizes

COLLAGE PROJECT

Schwitters’ Army Reunion Weekend in Sanquhar, Scotland
9-10 September 2022

The Schwitters’ Army Reunion Weekend, Friday 9 September & Saturday 10 September 2022, is a gathering of Veterans of The Schwitters’ Army and their friends in Sanquhar, Scotland.

REUNION WEEKEND | ABOUT SCHWITTERS’ ARMY | OFFICIAL HOTEL | SCHEDULE OF EVENTS | REGISTER | ABOUT SANQUHAR | COLLAGE ARTIST RESIDENCIES | GET UPDATES | EMAIL

A Collection of International Art that Demonstrates Collage as a 21st Century Art Movement

The Schwitters’ Army Collection of Collage Art at MERZ Gallery is a permanent collection of international collage art curated by Ric Kasini Kadour in January and February 2020. Kadour writes, “Why? Because this is what we do in the collage community: we engage, we exchange, we manifest with one another. We emerge into a new state of being together. That is what makes art powerful. It connects us and takes us into the future.” 

The Collection is a survey of art by collage artists, alive and active in 2020, who responded to a Call to Artists (deadline 31 January 2020) and shipped, via post, a single collage to MERZ Gallery.

When the art arrives at MERZ Gallery, Kadour unpacks the collage, registers the collage in the Schwitters’ Army Finding Aid, and installs the collage in MERZ Gallery and on the Schwitters’ Army website.

This process of registering artwork is underway and you can follow along. Over the next two months, Kadour will be sharing reports and posting collage in the collection on Kolaj Magazine and a variety of social media. 

INSTAGRAM

@kasini Kadour shares his personal experience of being at the residency in Sanquhar.

@kolajmagazine We will post collage registered to the collection.

@merz.gallery Kadour will post reports on work he is doing while in residence, pictures of the gallery and installation of artwork, process work, and events. 

Kadour explains the project:

The Schwitters’ Army Collection of Collage Art is a performative act. It is about demonstrating how art history is made. I don’t mean that in a grand, dramatic sense. Boxes of art, finding aids, and printed catalogs are how art historians relearn, rediscover who knew who and who made what and why. History doesn’t simply happen. History is made in part through the lives, actions, and choices of those living it. But it is also made by those who remember it, who write it down, who tell the story of what happened. Collections are an important tool of documenting, recording, and telling the story. I want collage artists in 2020 to be remembered. I want their story told fifty years from now. My hope in building this collection is that some graduate student in 2074 finds this stuff and it inspires them to tell our story, how we lived, what we believed. And I hope they see that we were artists deeply engaged with each other through the spirit of mutual support, collaboration, and community. 

Read more about Kadour’s Residency at MERZ Gallery HERE.