Event 23

Jennifer Potter - Looking for Mr Schwitters

Modern art circles revere Kurt Schwitters as an “artist’s artist”, leader of the Dada movement and pioneer of pop art. But he ended his days as an exile, working in post-war Cumbria. Writer and artist Jennifer Potter follows the traces left after Schwitters was dismissed as a “degenerate” by the Nazis and forced into exile. Potter blends biography, memoir and art history in an attempt to understand Schwitters’ mysterious influence on her own life and writing. Exploring his revolutionary collages as well as an unfinished masterpiece hidden in the Langdale Valley, Potter reflects on exile and what it means to leave a mark on a place. Chaired by festival director, Adrian Turpin.