New York and Berlin Host Dueling Bauhaus Exhibits
The Berlin and New York exhibitions will share a core group of loans to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the avant-garde German school.
Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 8/13/2009 12:00:00 AM
Erich Consemüller, "Untitled" (Woman [Lis Beyer or Ise Gropius] in B3 club chair by Marcel Breuer wearing a mask by Oskar Schlemmer and a dress in fabric designed by Beyer), c. 1926, Private collection; Photo: Estate of Erich Consemüller.
New Yorkers and Berliners take note: Bauhaus is coming to your house. As the design community celebrates the 90th anniversary of the uber-influential school of art and architecture, a pair of dueling exhibitions will mark the milestone on both sides of the Atlantic.
Walter Gropius, Törten housing estate, Dessau. 1926–28, Isometric construction scheme. 1926–28, Harvard Art Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum. Gift of Walter Gropius; Photo: Rick Stafford © President and Fellows of Harvard College, © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
The first, "Bauhaus. A Conceptual Model", is currently running at Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau museum through October 4. Billing itself as the largest Bauhaus exhibition ever, it features more than 1,000 objects, including 25 supplied by New York's Museum of Modern Art, a cooperating partner that will be hosting their own exhibit, "Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity", from November 8 to January 18.
Marcel Breuer, "Wassily Chair," 1927 28, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Herbert Bayer
Both exhibitions are centered on the collections of a consortium of three of Germany's leading Bauhaus research institutions and museums--Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, and Klassik Stiftung Weimar--a collaboration only made possible since the German reunification two decades ago.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, "Armchair," 1927–30, Private collection. Courtesy Neue Galerie New York. Photo: Jeffrey Sturges © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with Lilly Reich, "Side chair (MR 10)," c. 1931, Private collection. Courtesy Neue Galerie New York. Photo: John Wronn, The Museum of Modern Art. © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
MoMA's 400-item exhibition consists of 150 works from the three German collections, 80-plus pieces from the museum's own archives, and works loaned from major institutions such as the Centre Pompidou and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The wide-ranging mix draws upon such disciplines as industrial design, furniture, architecture, art, graphics, textiles, ceramics--even theater and costume design. The talent pool represented is equally exhaustive, from Marcel Breuer and Lilly Reich to Josef Albers and Paul Klee.
Marcel Breuer with textile by Gunta Stölzl, “African” or “Romantic” chair, 1921, Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Acquired with funds provided by Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung. Photo: Hartwig Klappert; Herbert Bayer, "Design for a multimedia building," 1924, Harvard Art Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum. Gift of the artist Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
The exhibition is billed as MoMA's second comprehensive treatment of Bauhaus, but in fact it could be considered the first. The first "comprehensive" show, organized in 1938 by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, excluded works from the final years of the school under its third director, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Josef Albers, "Paul Klee, Dessau," 1929, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of The Josef Albers Foundation, Inc. © 2009 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
We would love your feedback!
VIEW ALL GALLERIES
