exhibit #3

Bauhaus: Workshops for Modernity (MOMA)

[the exhibit website, the catalogue of all the pieces on view, and a video.]

The First Years
Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, the lifespan of the Bauhaus coincided almost exactly with the Weimar Republic. "Building" was to be the goal of all making at The Bauhaus… Gropius' mission, essentially, was to unify technical knowledge and aesthetic ambition. To this end, they taught in workshops rather than studios- reinforcing the concept of art as something to be built, rather than just made. Two of the original faculty members: Kandinsky and Klee.

• Johannes Iten, Aufstieg und Ruhepunkt- lovely, bright colored, cubist
• Paul Klee's "Mystisch-Keramisch (I. D. Art eines Stilllebens)"- lovely, dark painting with bright colors

objects in this gallery: vases, pitchers, plates, tiles, candelabra, a wine pitcher, a beautiful brass samovar by Sucker.

1923: A New Unity
• The postcards for the '23 Bauhaus exhibition are so cool… so modern, you feel the spirit coursing through- artists excited about their work and excited for people coming to see. Gerhardt Marcks' two slim hands raising that clean, geometric building- my favorite. A beautiful expression of the school- an elegantly precise, geometric artistic vision, created by young and vibrant people.

• Josef Albers- big fan of his luminous glass grids. Glass Fragments in Grid Picture is my favorite, all three are great- beautiful, bright color, geometry that feels both precise and dirty, alive- reminds me of the Christmas lights in Austin.

• Paul Klee's hand puppets look like they belong in the Burton exhibit. His drawings too- I really like "Puppentheater" and "Der Angler." It's interesting that with the recurring emphasis on basic forms and primary colors, that Klee is one of their most famous teachers. I always thought of him as stylistically different than that.

• I enjoy Kurt Schmidt's Form und Farborgel mit bewegenden Farbklängen- fascinating piece, a striped/painted wooden relief, a little like a maze [read the description] It is like experiencing the rising and setting sun, the progress of music- it is a piece that evolves in the movement of the viewer. Really fascinating.

• Schrammen's Maskot- dark, smooth wood, geometric shapes, quasi-robotic, a subtle joyfulness. A really cool piece, and indeed the mascot of a Bauhaus student.

objects in this gallery: carpet, cabinet, chairs, cradle, newspaper shelf.

([maybe delete this section] How many of these objects were actually used? Were they made to provoke, to be thought about- or for actual use? I have a feeling they were for use. At least some of them certainly were; they sold chairs. And surely they were more interested in uniting and crossing disciplines, rather than merely provoking and surprising with their objects, ala Duchamp. Anyway, I think it would be cool to know about the family that raised their baby in a Bauhaus cradle.)

A New Teacher: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
• I love Josef Hartwig's chess set- holy crap they should sell these. Pieces shaped like the movement rules of the piece (the Knight shaped like an L, the Bishop an X.) Hartwig was the master craftsman in the Weimer Bauhaus wood-carving and sculpture workshops. The chess sets exemplify "an unqualified faith in the potential of pure logic and geometric abstraction to provide a visual language appropriate for a new, more rational world." Beauty, utility, and logic- three of the central traits of the Bauhaus really convey themselves to me in this set.

I like all the Kandinskys… Schwarze Form is cool. Kurt Schmidt's marionettes are pretty cool; the whole concept of the 'mechanical cabaret' is intriguing. All of the kitchenware looks like it could be sold in the Moma design store today. Gleaming, elegantly geometric. Modern was perfected 90 years ago.

The Move to Dessau
Now the Bauhaus is in a bigger, more thriving, more industrial city than sleepy Weimar…

• It's fascinating seeing Moholy-Nagy's photos of the Bauhaus artists. They're all so hip. So frozen in time. I really like Kandinsky's "Drawings for sixteen movements for Modest Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition." Especially XVI: The Great Gate of Kiev. They're beautifully clean and geometric.

• I really like Moholy-Nagy's Constructions in Enamel, enamel gives a particular texture and look which I always find appealing (for instance, in Johns' work.)- wow, a factory produced these according to his specifications! One of the most fundamental contemporary art concepts I can think of, "the artist in the technological age as producer of ideas, not objects" was already in the place in the '20s. Sorry Hirst!

• Moholy-Nagy's Nickelplastik- clean, geometric, beautiful. The coil vibrates- much like a Miro work I saw last year. I love it. So exciting to see a work that is still alive!

objects in this gallery: lamps, chess sets, wall hangings, fruit bowl, liquor pitcher, tea caddies, ash trays, tea saucer, ink pot.

Art and Technology: A New Unity.
(I can't actually remember if this was the name of a gallery, or just part of a plaque, but it really does say it all.)

• I love this particular corner- the white circular table, two clean black chairs, before Kandinsky's "Auf Weis II" on a black wall- the adjacent wall blue, the floor gray. This would be such a cool room in an apartment. So clean and modern and stylish.

• Albers' Goldrosa and Upward- beautiful luminous glass. They are identical except color (dark pink and blue) and yet he made them individually, not on an assembly line. What a fascinating counterpoint to the Modern impulse to remove craftsmanship from the production of art.

• Light Prop for an Electric Stage (Moholy-Nagy) - the coolest god damn thing. An indescribable collection of gleaming geometric pieces, metal, glass, mirror, different shapes and textures, a wooden ball, projecting different shapes of lights, moving like a perpetual motion machine, and it looks like some sort of kitchenware Frankenstein, except beautiful- gleaming, categorically beautiful. What a fascinating object. The mind that makes this thing is just indescribably gifted.

• The collages in this room are pretty cool and crazy. So whimsical. Marianne Brandt, the main collagist on display- interestingly, collage wasn't even her main discipline. Just more evidence of the versatility of the Bauhaus artists. Our Unnerving City, the busiest, is my favorite. Helfen Sie Mit! reminds me of something Mark would make.

• I love Kandinsky's pictures, "Design for a ceramic tiled music room"… lovely texture, broad, flat backgrounds with intricate geometric objects within.

objects in this gallery: tables, lots of chairs, ceiling lights, writing desk, cabinet, kitchen table and chairs.

Hannes Meyer's Directorship
Gropius retired to focus on his architecture practice, and Hannes Meyer took over. He promoted well-designed affordable objects for mass production- a critique of luxury, a bit of a critique of the earlier years of the Bauhaus, their aesthetically flowery creations. His wikipedia page nicely illustrates the successes and controversies of his time as director.

• More photos of Bauhaus artists- Klee smoking a cigar, guys leaping in the air playing sports, a jazz band, a group of students hanging out. By 1928 the school was well known in Germany and beyond… Meyer promoted the school as "a tight knit community of teachers and students representing a new generation…" they "appealed directly to potential students through lively photographic images of a vibrant student body at work and play."

It's fascinating to look at a map and think of it as a living, breathing city… great artists, young and new creatives walked on those streets, they hung out, they explored the shops and restaurants and back alleys of the city, these lines on the paper.

objects in this gallery: ceiling lights, lamps, chairs, tables. Unpretentious, plain wooden furniture, smooth and simple, foldable, very much a precursor to Ikea.

Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe and the Final Years of the Bauhaus
Hannes Meyer was dismissed by the right-wing Anhalt government for his Communist sympathies and affiliations (ah- makes sense, Mr. "low-cost unpretentious mass produced works for the common man.") The school focused more on architecture and interior design in its last years. In July 1933, in the face of political and economic pressure, the faculty dissolved the school by unanimous vote.

Kranz's Untitled Picture Series- a cool collection of water color frames… it reads like an animatic. Distinctly cinematic indeed- the frames sequentially relate to each other. So cool. Could be an acid trip or an imac screen saver.

Klee's Feuer Abends- a lovely work, nice and clean horizontal rectangles, dark greens, blues, grays, browns, violets, a small bur bright red square in the middle. Fire in the evening. Very pretty.

Klee is a texturally dazzling painter. I love the texture and the pastel palette of Hauptweg und Nebenwege.

The paintings in this gallery are rather nostalgic- Schlemmer's Bauhaus Stairway, painted shortly after the Dessau Bauhaus closed; Kandinsky's "Massiver Bau," a "souvenir of a friendship [Klee] and a home as he prepared to leave Dessau…" I really like this one. Sweet pink colors, the soft brown background. I Really liked Albers… "Skyscrapers," beautiful- black on white, white on black, black on honey gold. Beautiful, clean, geometric works.

objects in this gallery: chairs, architectural drawings.

Architectural drawings on one wall, chairs in the middle, and on the opposite wall, a series of paintings that seem to poignantly say farewell to the Bauhaus experience. Schlemmer's Bauhaus Stairway… they are moving upward. But they're also going away.

****general observations****

Fascinating to think of these are real, breathing, young, adventurous people… To think of their revolutionary objects, now pieces in a museum… the life blood still flows through them. This particular exhibit must be thought of in terms of the people and culture that produced the works.

• A recurring, perhaps the central, concept of the exhibit is the unity of practical use and aesthetic beauty. Chairs that are beautiful and simple, teapots and other kitchen ware, "wall hangers" (basically quilts.) Design is pretty central to the movement.

• What is it about geometry? What makes the simple, rational elegance of geometry the system that modern art returns to, again and again? The Cubists, Mondrian, The Bauhaus, the minimalists… "timeless modernity," a strange phrase, but that's what this gallery largely reminds me of. How is it that modern art was perfected 90 years ago, you know? Is my generation less adventurous? This gallery is a useful/funny/sad reminder that younger is not always more advanced, more progressive… elements of my great-great Grandfather's generation are responsible for cooler, more adventurous work than what this generation seems to have produced. To be fair I'm undervaluing my peers and overvaluing the Bauhaus (and without the benefit of retrospect to determine greatness), but there's certainly some truth in this.

• Again, it's cool imagining this in their moment, as a thriving community of artists. To think of students going to watch these marionette shows, or attending the play that Kandinsky staged, getting their photographs taken. It's a hip culture.

• It's interesting thinking of this as a community that the Nazis were determined to shut down. Their art was different, modern, rational, but how dangerous Were they, really? Was this really a politically/socially charged place, threatening to the Nazis, or were they just crazy bullies? I guess every indicator in the history of that movement would indicate the latter. What was it like for the students, after it ended? What happened to them, where did they go?

• A recurring theme- particularly of interest to Kandinsky, it seems- the interdisciplinary fusion of arts. Illustrations of Music, Art as Theatre, Light and Design as Film. Again and again, these fusions are discussed and explored and created.

• this artistic center is organized like a school- the whole thing reminds me a little of the theatre, actually. That said- what does the work of a mediocre Bauhaus student look like? What does bad art in this style look like, and how was it treated by the Bauhaus? I'm curious about how they treated inferior students- encouraging and welcome for the ride, or less so?

• My overall top favorites: Schmidt's Form und Farborgel, Hartwig's chess set, Maholy-Nagy's light machine, and Albers' colored glass grids.