MERZ Gallery, Dave Rushton

The MERZ artist residency programme launched in Sanquhar in 2019. Initial support for six artists over two years came from Creative Scotland. The programme has expanded since 2019 from one residential building (Bothy) and now centres around four residential buildings (Tadpole, Snug and No 5), three of which have been reconfigured from neglected structures while No 5 is a small house. The residency buildings sit alongside MERZ gallery, the Museum of Model Art and ZIP studio. In addition there are four Polish n126 art-houses, two ‘representing’ Kurt Schwitters and Hannah Höch and a third representing four significant Sovietera film directors (providing a mobile interview studio). Dave Rushton spoke to us about MERZ Gallery and the artists’ residences.

“Since 2019 MERZ has offered accommodation, work and exhibition spaces for sixty five artists with short interviews on work in progress filmed by Summerhall TV. Our artists in residence have come from the UK, USA, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, Japan, Germany and France.” Since 2019 there have been several exhibitions and three annual festivals.

MERZ is based on principles loosely attached to Kurt Schwitters’ name for his work ‘Merz’ as well as early ideas from Conceptual art.

As a refugee from Germany, Schwitters located himself in Cumbria at the close of WWII. The chaos that had darkened Europe after WWI had provided a context for Dada while there was mutual support between the artists Hannah Höch and Kurt Schwitters. Taken together and in a roundabout way their struggle led to MERZ in Sanquhar a century later.

Rebuilding the derelict lemonade factory in Sanquhar as a gallery during the financial crisis of 2009 suggested the future would echo the past. Building work continued for a decade till 2020 when the town’s long-empty abattoir became the Museum of Model Art. The extrapolation of Schwitter’s Merz as collages from discarded materials informed taking what was found locally to use to rebuild spaces for artists, architects and writers in which to further explore building a creative future. We were interpreting art’s legacy in a metaphorical rather than a reverential or backward looking way.

Though related in its approach to ‘reconstruction and fabrication’ the Museum of Model Art draws on a different strand: exploring what art might be ‘about’ without necessarily being art itself, a model of art (possibly) as art (or not).

The residencies to date have focused on MERZ since 2020 while our attention for 2023 is beginning to broaden out in supporting an art ‘of scale’, to thoughts about working with models (physical and analytical). In some ways this is an Art as Conceit, something not quite what it seems, work in which representation can be misleading and appearances misread.

A recent project with local artists and international residents is a short animation imagining memories of Kurt Schwitters and Hannah Höch titled ‘Untitled (2022)’ which can be viewed here https://vimeo.com/741867683 www.merz.gallery

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