Magazine No 5 2019 / 2020 ZKM I Karlsruhe, Germany * Fritz Kuhr, 1928; student at the Bauhaus from 1923–27, member of staff in the wallpainting workshop 1928–29, teacher of drawing 1929–30 at the Bauhaus THE WHOLE WORLD A BAUHAUS* László Moholy-Nagy In the 1921 Weimar Bauhaus programme experiments with photography without Walter Gropius announced the creation of Painter, photographer, typographer, a camera (photograms). The book stage designer, art theorist and teacher a total work of art: “The Bauhaus strives for Painting Photography Film (1925) set 20 July 1895 in Bácsborsód / Austria- out his theory of “new seeing.” From a unity of all artistic creation, the reunification Hungary – 24 November 1946 in 1928 he was back in Berlin, designing of all the art disciplines – sculpture, painting, Chicago / USA intermedial decorations for the Kroll Opera and the Piscator Stage. the crafts and trades – to form a new art In painting, he experimented with of building in which they are all indispensable Born in southern Hungary as the son materials like aluminum and Bakelite of the Jewish farmer Lipot Weisz, components. The final, if distant goal of the and used Plexiglas placed in front of Moholy-Nagy – the later pioneer of canvases to create transparent three- Bauhaus is the unified work of art – the grand modernism – was raised by his uncle dimensional effects. His experiments building – in which there are no borders in Mohol in today’s Serbia. After led to the construction of a mobile his father left the family, his mother installation made of glass and metal, between monumental and decorative art.” (…) was helped by her lawyer, named the Room Modulator. In 1934 he “The Bauhaus wishes to train architects, Nagy, to bring up her six children. divorced his wife – the Bauhaus photo- painters and sculptors of all standards according This led to László choosing his own grapher and writer Lucia Moholy, new name and going his own way. who, along with Herwarth Walden, to their abilities to become either hard-working He began to study law but this was had strongly promoted his career artisans or free artists, and to found a working suddenly interrupted by the First World from 1921. In 1937 he emigrated to War, where he fought and was badly community of leading and young working the USA with his second wife Sybille wounded on the Russian front. After Pietzsch, via Amsterdam and London. artists, a community that knows how to design his recovery he focused entirely on On the recommendation of Gropius, he buildings in their totality – shell construction, painting. After the Hungarian Republic became director of the New Bauhaus of Councils fell in 1919 he went to fitting out, and ornament and decoration – Chicago, which was forced to close the Vienna, and then in 1920 to Berlin and following year due to lack of funds. In in 1923 to the Bauhaus, first in Weimar T in a like-minded spirit and unified design.” 1939 Moholy-Nagy opened the School and then in Dessau. Moholy-Nagy of Design and in 1944 the Institute of This “grand building,” based on ideals of taught in the foundation course and Design, the last school he was to teach Medieval cathedral construction, remained became the form master in the metals in. His last book, Vision in Motion (1947), workshop. Together with Gropius, he represents a synthesis of his work as a H utopian, but in several projects the Bauhaus became editor of the 14 Bauhaus teacher, artist, and theorist. did come close to the total work of art. In 1921, Books from 1924. His photographs led to a “photo boom” among students. Text: Astrid Volpert students took part in building Walter Gropius‘s “Writing with light” led him to abstract and Adolf Meyer’s “Haus Sommerfeld” in E Berlin. In 1923 numerous masters and students – from the weaving, carpentry, metal, and ceramics workshops – worked on the “Experimental House at Horn,” designed by painter and Bauhaus master Georg Muche. The Bauhaus building in Dessau, designed by T I The Whole World a Bauhaus presents eight chap- Walter Gropius and opened in 1926, and the ters with varied, exciting and surprising insights master’s houses there were also “total” works, into work and life at one of the most important art in which masters and students worked together O N academies of the twentieth century – the Bauhaus, and used products from the Bauhaus workshops. founded in Weimar in 1919. In 1926 the Bauhaus This led to the making of metal and wooden moved to Dessau, and in 1932, when the Nazis furniture, lamps, and also to the colour plans T made it impossible to continue there, it moved to for the interior. 1926 / 27, 1927 T Berlin, only to finally close forever in 1933. The wish to create a total work of art is also Aerial view, Bauhaus building Dessau, This exhibition presents photographs, works seen in the work of the theatre workshop, A R on paper, models, documents, films, and objects, in the expressionist plays of Lothar Schreyer inviting you to explore the wide range and diversity at the Weimar Bauhaus, in which language, of Bauhaus theory and practice in contemporary gestures, colours, and sculpture were all L O modernist design in architecture, everyday ob- radically interlinked. Plans for theatre by László jects, painting and theatre, and including theories Moholy-Nagy, such as the “Sketch of a Score and models of teaching. The Bauhaus always for a Mechanical Eccentricity: Synthesis of D endeavoured to create suitable and improved Form, Movement, Sound, Light (Colour) and environments, and to promote new ways of life. Smell,” also had the character of a total work of art, or a “total work,” as Moholy-Nagy put it. W In each thematic chapter in this exhibition you will U also find selected biographies of Bauhaus people, based on one work and illustrating differences and common ground in their careers. O C Throughout the fourteen years of its existence the Bauhaus underwent a constant process of redefi- R nition and reinvention. Strategy was enthusiastically T discussed and defined – and often disputed – by the three Bauhaus directors, the architects K Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies I van der Rohe, and the Bauhaus masters and students. For this exhibition, audio recordings of There was always lively debate and controversy some of these different positions at the Bauhaus concerning the purpose and significance of the O and also of contemporary critical voices from Bauhaus at the Bauhaus itself, and also outside, outside have been made, and you can listen to and this continues to this day. This is illustrated O these on headphones. by posters with quotations from various sources, N mostly from newspapers from 1945 to today. They show the reception history and the changing F interpretations of the Bauhaus. Boris Friedewald Curator of the ifa touring exhibition A R T Walter Gropius (author), Lyonel Feininger (illustration), Manifesto and program of the State Bauhaus Weimar with “Cathedral” cover, April 1920 Marianne Brandt, Ashtray, 1924 “Architects, sculptors, painters, we all T must return to the crafts!” Walter Gropius A Staatliche Bildstelle Berlin, House at Horn, children’s bedroom, view of the dining room and kitchen demanded in the Bauhaus Manifesto of Alma Buscher, Erich Brendel (furniture), 1919. Therefore, the first goal was to H have every student learn a craft in one of R Staatliche Bildstelle Berlin, Haus at Horn, living room, Marcel Breuer (furniture), Gyula Pap (lamp), Martha Erps (carpet), László Moholy-Nagy (wall light), the workshops. Artistic creation was only 1923 possible on the basis of a handicraft, E Staatliche Bildstelle Berlin (Carl Rogge), House Sommerfeld1920–21 in Berlin-Dahlem, view of the and the artist was a more intensive kind T courtyard, Walter Gropius und Adolf Meyer (architecture), of artisan. 1923 In early 1922, there was a debate about individual or mass production. Walter Gropius noted: “Master Itten recently demanded that we must decide whether T to create individual and unique works in C complete contrast to economic realities, or whether we need to get closer to O industry.” In this debate, Itten himself R came down in favour of the individually made unique work, quite in line with the T original Bauhaus idea. A Gropius announced a decisive new A direction in 1923, with the new slogan “Art and Technology – a New Unity.” This was F to be highly significant for the future development of the Bauhaus, and it led L to Johannes Itten leaving the Bauhaus. T In the catalogue of the large Bauhaus Exhibition of 1923 in Weimar Gropius stated that the Bauhaus was not a school S for handicrafts, and that its goal was W contacts with industry. The workshops would now focus on standardised proce- Otto Lindig, Dornburg ceramics Kitty (Catharine Louise) van der weaving studio De Wibstrik in workshop, Coffee pot L16, dures, making prototypes and models that 1923 Mijll Dekker (Kitty Fischer) Nunspeet in 1933. She became were suited to industrial serial production. Textiles designer 22 February a member of the Association for 1908 in Jogyakarta / Java Trades and Crafts, which made O 1920 The first results of this new approach T – 6 December 2004 in her eligible to participate in an were functional products consisting of just Nijkerk / Netherlands exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum a few parts and often very basic shapes, Amsterdam. She was also R such as the combination teapot by awarded a silver medal at the She was born on Java, where Triennale di Milano for two E Theodor Bogler, the “Slatted Chair” by her father was an administrator cellophane textiles. In 1934 Marcel Breuer, the legendary “Bauhaus on a tobacco plantation.