CHRIS FREMANTLE

I’ve never seen Kurt Schwitters’ intact MerzBarn on the Cylinders Estate in the Lake District. The wall on which Schwitters was working had been removed before I was born. I’ve been to a couple of events at the empty Barn and memorial to Artists considered degenerate by the Nazis, organised by Ian Hunter (who sadly died earlier this year,)and Celia Larner. I saw the reconstruction of the Barn in the courtyard of the Royal Academy in London and I’ve seen the ‘artwork’ installed in the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle.

At MoMA, Sanquhar, in a former butchery, I saw the MerzBarn when Schwitters was working on it. Dave Rushton’s models are stunning and this is particularly shocking in a way. You are sitting on a chair looking into a largish shoebox shaped object through a slot and you are transported – I meant genuinely transported.

Thanks to Simon Beeson, we were there and also experienced Florian Kaplick’s performative lecture on Schwitters, a Dadaist performance by the local youth theatre, a collaborative rendition of ‘Kaa Gee Dee’ by Florian and the Youth Theatre, and a collage of a piece writing of Schwitter’s called ‘Kreig’ with Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ performed by Florian at the piano and singing. The whole event was compered by Daniel Lehan and masterminded by Dave Ruston. Dave’s brother Phil says he doesn’t understand Conceptual Art. His wife Kathy was clearly enjoying herself. Alan who was at Art School with Dave had just installed a stunning piece of Merz Stained Glass for Dave.

The next question is which of the following two images was I standing in, and which is actually a model in the image?

Dave Rushton’s work has a level of recursiveness which is so intelligently and humorously executed it is a joy. You have to ask ‘What is a model for what?’ and ‘Where is the reality experienced?’

There is also the question of value. Dave’s perhaps masterwork (though the whole Merz project in Sanquhar might be the work) is installed in the meat fridge. It is an installation of Conceptual Art, by Art & Language in a gallery in Pripyat accidentally preserved by the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster which means that the work is preserved and unable to become a commodity.

Merz is alive, kicking and recursive in Sanquhar. It is providing a positive feedback loop for cultural development whilst providing a negative feedback loop against simplification and value extraction.