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Merz (art style) is a synonym for the more common expression and term Dada, and traces back to Kurt Schwitters.
Contents
Origin
The made-up word Merz, however, traces back to Kurt Schwitters, who planned a Dada section in Hanover. But not being invited to the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920, Schwitters was on the look-out for a totally unique hat fitting only a single head"— his own.
The very moment
He found Merz by chance when creating a collage with the German word Kommerz (commerce). The result: a nonsensical‚ dadaistic’ word. Merz became Schwitters 's very synonym for his own way of Dada.
The very reception
Kurt Schwitters, father of installation art and a pioneer in fusing collage and abstraction—those two most transformative innovations of the 20th century art— influenced Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, the Fluxus movement and Joseph Beuys, too.