Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Lloyd Gibson, Sculptor and Newcastle University Alumnus

In association with the Hatton Gallery

Schwitters’ late works have mostly been assessed in relation to his ‘heroic’ period: the 1920s, Merz, and Dada. Some twentieth century art historians were, indeed, rather dismissive of Schwitters’ works in exile, claiming a decline in creative quality as the consequence of physical and emotional circumstances, ill health and poverty.

In this lecture Lloyd Gibson will propose that, on the contrary, the Merz Barn is a prime example of Schwitters’ life-long engagement with the evolving world of international Modernism. Far from his much-cited creative and cultural ‘isolation’ in the UK, the Merz Barn owes debts not only to Schwitters’ earlier works but also, very much, to developments in the (now mostly overlooked) field of international art during the immediate post-war period.

The lecture will be followed by a live Q&A with the speaker.

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