Celebrating 100 years of DADA this year, a retrospective on Kurt Schwitters’ exceptional work is both overdue and timely. In a curatorial collaboration Gallery Gmurczynska has now teamed up with Adrian Notz, the director of Cabaret Voltaire – where the DADA movement originated in 1916 – presenting “Kurt Schwitters: Merz”.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE “Kurt Schwitters: Merz” through 30 September, at Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich, CH gmurzynska.com

The show shines a light on Schwitters’ significant influence on a whole range of artistic generations succeeding him – from David Bowie to Damien Hirst and is also devoting individual sections to archival documents that cover the artist’s important ventures into poetry, theatre, stage design and sound which complement and further contextualize his unique visual praxis.

This impressive selection of seventy works stretching across all media includes key works of each period, some of which from significant collections. Adding a special highlight is the presentation in a fully transformed gallery space designed by the late Pritzker Price winning architect Zaha Hadid. This collaboration results from the idea of an architectural homage by Zaha Hadid to the famous “Merz Bau” of Kurt Schwitters.

Having successfully realized a similar project seven years ago, where Hadid transformed Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich into a Suprematist space in reference to Kasimir Malevich, this project pays tribute to the second important artistic influence on Hadid’s work – Kurt Schwitters. Also the gallery’s venue itself makes reference to the Dada movement: it’s located in the same building complex that once housed the famous Galerie Dada run by artists Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball.

Kurt Schwitters: Merz is accompanied by an extensive in-depth publication of more than 250 pages with previously unpublished archival material and newly commissioned writings by the former Museum Ludwig director Siegfried Gohr; Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects; Peter Bissegger, who recreated the Merzbau for Szeemann’s Gesamtkunstwerk show; Cabaret Voltaire director Adrian Notz; art historian Jonathan Fineberg, University of California – Irvine; and art historian Norman Rosenthal.