Sound Poetry
Kurt Schwitters
German Dadaist Painter and Scluptor, Kurt Schwiters was born in
1887 in Hanover.
In 1918, he met Hans Arp in Berlin
and was highly influenced from his work that Schwitters began making colleges
which were called ‘Merzibiden' (Merz picatures). This name was extracted from
the word Kommerzbank. For the first
time he exhibited in 1919 at Galleri Der Sturm in Berlin, where he presented his abstract Merz-pictures.
Two years later in 1921 he created a sound poem ‘Ursonate'.
Part of Kurt Schitters' Ursonate:
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Fümms bö wö tää zää Uu, |
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Oooooooooooooooooooooooo, |
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dll rrrrr beeeee bö |
5 |
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Available from: http://www.costis.org/x/schwitters/ursonate.htm
The approximate reading time of the complete version of "Ursonate" is about forty-one minutes. The poem was completed 1932. It shows the poet's difficulties with the written version of the sound poem. A complete audio version of the poem can be found here.
Also visual clip of the poem made in Flash can be found in the following picture.
Schwitters's Dada activities included also ‘Merz-Matineen' and ‘Merz-Abende' at which
he introduced his poetry. Also Schwitters published a ‘Merz' magazine from 1923 to 1932 which wasn't published periodically.
Schwitters also worked in the following genres: Surrealism, Constructivism, Poetry, Painting, Collage, Sculptures, Typography and Graphic Design.
More information about his life and work can be found on the following sites:
Kurt Schwitters biography written by Gwendolen Freundel Webster - http://www.artchive.com/artchive/S/schwitters.html
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Schwitters
Art encyclopedia which includes a varieties of galleries and museums websites where can be seen Schwitters work http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/schwitters_kurt.html
Kurt Schwitters exhibition in Mexico City 2003 - http://kurtschwitters.org/index.html
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