Merzbild Rossfett Kurt Schwitters Date: 1919 Style: Dada Genre: abstract Media: assemblage Dimensions: 17.4 x 20.4 cm Location: Private Collection

The Hannover Merzbau by Kurt Schwitters. Photo by Wilhelm Redemann, 1933.

These included socks of Moholy-Nagy stolen as he slept, a lock of Hans Richter's hair obtained in the same way.Others honoured in this way were Mies van der Rohe, Mondrian, Arp and Lissitzky. Among the grottos we know existed were: the Goethe cave, the Nibelungen cave, there were caves of murderers, deprecated heroes, hero worship and friendship. As the merzbau developed grottos were often covered by the geometric facade. Some were locked in permanently while others were accessible through doors or hatches. The Merzbau continued to grow as Schwitters worked on it until December 1936 when he fled the Nazis. When it was left he said it was unfinished and that in principle it could continue indefinitely. Schwitters never returned to Germany and the Merzbau was destroyed in a bombing raid on the night of October 8-9th 1943. Schwitters worked on the Merzbau for thirteen years. In that time it moved from a dadaist starting point to, stylistically, a constructivist conclusion. It can not be considered only as a finished work of art, the process is obviously crucial too.

A visitor inside the Sprengel Museum’s Merzbau reconstruction. Photograph © 2011 André Homan

El Lisickij, Proun

El Lisickij Copertina della rivista Merz, volume 2, n.º 8, 1924.

El Lisickij10 Proun Room 1923

11 Proun Room ricostruzione 1971

Max Ernst. Éve la seule qui nous reste (Eve, the Only One Left to Us) from Histoire Naturelle, introduction by Jean (Hans) Arp. 1926. (Reproduced frottages executed c. 1925). One from a portfolio of 34 collotypes after frottage

Max Ernst. Les Moeurs des feuilles (The Habit of Leaves) from Histoire Naturelle, introduction by Jean (Hans) Arp. 1926 (Reproduced frottages executed c. 1925). One from a portfolio of 34 collotypes after frottage

André Masson, Battle of Fishes,1926, MoMA, New York (Sand, gesso, oil, pencil, and charcoal on canvas)

Meret Oppenheim, Colazione in pelliccia, 1936

Picasso, Guernica, 1937

Maurizio Cattelan, Untitled, 2004

Nicolas Poussin, Strage degli innocenti, 1628-1629, olio su tela, Chantilly, Musée Condé