Output details

Addendum: architecture, sculpture and the space of transition

Addendum was commissioned for the Merzman Festival, a series of exhibitions, talks and events in Manchester and the Royal Academy, London where Kurt Schwitters' Merz Barn was re-created. To support this the publication related to a series of high profile re-workings of the legacy of Kurt Schwitters. It provided an academic framework around the work, whilst exploring the idea of Merz as a reading of the city (in effect the shift from research and theory into application). The essay, 'Metamorphosis: Kurt Schwitters and the growth of Merz' is a footnote to a much more comprehensive body of literature exploring ideas around the series of Merz buildings. The essay, 'Translation and Transformation: Reading, Space and the City' is a different, more elaborate kind of addendum, using the themes of translation and transformation to construct a speculative reading on the contemporary city. It was important that the work was not just summative, but also challenged familiar readings of the city. The format makes reference to the original Merz publications and involved working with a designer and photographer in order to both acknowledge the historical legacy and mark relationships to the contemporary city. The research was further explored as a model for an evolving exhibition form in the essay for Cube Gallery on the work MERZEN by Office for Subversive Architecture. The project was a material collage using recyled materials, adapted over the course of the show. The essay used Schwitters as a model (and the work 'YMCA Flag, Thank You, Ambleside,' 1947) to contemplate the relationship between the artist and the architects. Similarly, 'docu-merz' was an installation curated at Pavement Gallery, and used Schwitters' Merz stage designs as a multi layered model enhanced by the projection of film of the developing OSA installation at Cube and documentary material from the Schwitters archive.