Exhibition Kurt Schwitters, the chaos-world at the Picasso Museum
Picasso National Museum, Paris
From October 6, 2026 to February 7, 2027
No retrospective had been devoted to him in France for over thirty years: the Picasso Museum is bringing together more than three hundred works by Kurt Schwitters, the inventor of Merz, from October 6, 2026, to February 7, 2027.
A sonata without intelligible words, made of syllables and primitive sounds, occupied Kurt Schwitters for ten years, and he recited it himself, standing before the public. The same man painted, sculpted, designed advertisements, and edited a magazine. He gave all of this a single name, Merz, a fragment cut from an advertisement for Commerz- und Privatbank, which he applied to both a poem and a painting. The principle remained constant. He works with scraps and refuse (tickets, packaging, newspaper clippings, bits of wood) which he transforms into harmonious materials. Germany in the 1920s emerged from the war devastated, and he creates his works with what it discarded.
In Hanover, this logic extends to the walls: the Merzbau, an organic architecture of angles and recesses, gradually engulfs its own house until a bombing raid annihilates it. The Musée national Picasso-Paris brings together more than three hundred works and documents: paintings, sculptures, assemblages, collages, drawings, notebooks, photographs, books, and archives. No retrospective had been devoted to him in France for over thirty years. The connection with Picasso lies in the fact that both men brought everyday materials, assemblage, and constant experimentation into art. Schwitters ended his life in exile in England, busy building his final Merz environment in a barn in the Lake District. The chaos-world of the title is precisely this: a work that ultimately merges with a life.
To continue: our top new exhibitions in Paris and our articles about Picasso.
PICASSO NATIONAL MUSEUM-PARIS
From October 6, 2026 to February 7, 2027
5 rue de Thorigny, 75003 - Metro: Saint-Paul (Line 1), Chemin Vert (Line 8)
Tue. to Fri. 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. and Sun. 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Admission: €16 - Reduced rate: €12 - Free for under 26s and on the first Sunday of the month
