Gold spun from garbage: Kurt Schwitter's found art and inflation

Kurt Schwitters' Merzkunst transforms found materials into artistic collages. Besides wood, thread, and wire, he demands, 'shoes and fake hair, also ice skates [...] hell machines, a metal fish and a funnel [...]' (Merz, 1920) are equivalent elements of an artwork. Cut from 'Kommerz,' Schwitters' Merzkunst asserts a multi-layered definition of the term 'value,' referring specifically to the spheres of economy and philosophy. In his notion of 'equivalence' Schwitters' art theory draws similarly on the 'philosophy of values' and the phenomenon of hyperinflation, a major socio-historic factor shortly after World War I. Reprinted by permission of the German Studies Review