Bauhaus

My Bauhaus

• school of design
• in Germany, I think
• practical and useful design
• accessible design
• started by a few men and women
• they were all designers/professors?
• geometric designs
• rectilinear and curvilinear
• shut down during WWII, I believe
• functionality important
• students taught several areas of design
• arts and crafts aesthetic?
• extremely important to design history

Real Bauhaus

• Bauhaus looking for utopian
• how to model perfect life
• how can we make things better
• 1919-1925 Weimar
• 1923 first public exhibition
• 1924 letter of resignation
• 1925-1932 Dessau
• 1928 Gropius replaced by Meyer
• 1930 Meyer replaced by van der Rohe
• 1932-1933 Berlin
• only open for 14 years
• roots of design education
• 1,250 students to pass through
• Broken Wings final days in Berlin
• art schools cornerstone of revitalization
• Weimar after WWI economy shot
• Walter Gropius there until 1928
• Gropius director of the Bauhaus
• Gropius uses cathedral as model
• 3 spires represent painting, sculpture, architecture
• thought all should be equally valued
• high sense of community spirit, believed in it
• Gropius had council of masters:
• Gerhard Marks- sculpture, pottery shop
• Lyonel Feringer- painting
• Johannes Itten- preliminary courses
• Itten's goal was to release students creative abilities
• focused on understanding of physical nature of materials
• study based on contrast
• analysis of old masters
• art made of found objects, all they had
• tools were limited to what they could find and manipulate
• in a way scientific, about analysis
• Itten leaves in 1923, same year as first exhibition
• started with focus on craft and old methods
• starts moving towards design thinking and machine
• great philosophical exchange
• elements of Cubism, De Stijl
• art and technology a new unity
• first exhibition in 1923 pivotal moment
• Itten replaced by Nagy, a Hungarian Constructivist
• interested in experimenting with resins, photo montage
• becomes Gropius' right-hand man
• piece by Nagy for tires, letterforms art and communication
• calls this typophoto- letterforms, design, graphics
• sees photography as replacing painting
• tries to develop new visual language for new age
• how do we incorporate appropriate technology
• how to adapt these technologies for our age
• making meaningful art with meaningful communication
• total integration of type and image
• looking for new language through experimentation
• invents photoplastik
• collage, assemblage, montage
• tension with city forces them to leave
• move to Dessau, and industrial city
• works well with Bauhaus creating objects for industry
• building's windows are curtains of glass
• modern building design, unlike previous one
• Sciemmer painting of Bauhaus students ascending stairs 1932
• Roy Lichtenstein version in 1989
• started creating for industry
• cover for Bauhaus Magazine, text and image one
• cover includes all elements of the Bauhaus
• made series of books about artists philosophies
• Baer develops universal alphabet
• did away with capitals in his type
• did away with serifs, experimented with flush left and rag
• contrast and hierarchy, bars, squares, open compositions
• strong horizons and verticals
• invitation for Kadinsky's bday has open composition, implied grid
• final building rather depressing compared to Dessau
• closed in 1933, recognized they could no longer run

If it weren't for all the political turmoil involved with the Bauhaus, I would have done anything to attend. I love the idea of experimenting with found objects, textures and contrasting elements. It's also interesting that they did practically everything, from furniture design to theater to collage. While I appreciate everything I have done thus far, I sort of wish there was more of a push to design outside the rules and push our ideas beyond the tools we are accustomed to. One of my favorite projects was the Alice book I did for Image and Color because I was experimenting the entire time..using all these different elements from calligraphy to dirt and flowers. I love that architecture played such a strong role..it reminds me of my Dad, who is always trying to talk to me about the Bauhaus. It's funny cause I never thought about how much building I did with toys as a kid. From linknlogs to marble towers to train sets, I feel I was always thinking systematically without even knowing it. This was probably just my Dad trying to brainwash me..but it worked and I'm glad. Maybe it's cause we're German..I can remember a lot of older relatives doing woodwork and handcrafts.

Avant Garde in Russia

Avant Garde in Russia:

• questioning spacial relationships, visual architecture
• reoccurring use of black bars
• Lazistky(sp?) Constructivist
• his early work is supremacist, practical application
• 1929 poster using photo montage
• photography seen as modern way of creating art
• photo montages become popularly used
• ides of montage in cinema, The Battleship Potemkin by Eisenstein
• experimenting with layering images, cutting images, juxtaposing sequences
• reveals power structure, social relationships
• Alexander Rodchenko most associated with Constructivism
• Rodchenko is doing graphic design, creating for the people, moral good
• 1910-1914 Rodchenko attends art school
• process is significance of the work
• starts working for magazine, uses collage, metaphor
• by 1932 Stalin is in power, oppose artists
• good art measured in functionality, therefore has moral value
• De Stijl is movement that develops in Netherlands, utopian approach to aesthetics
• De Stijl based on functionalism, should be useful
• characteristics include rectilinear planes, void of surface textures or decorations except for pure, primary hues and black and white, no illustration, mathematical structure
• looking for universal harmony to use in art
• Piet Mondrian is well-known in De Stijl
• Theo Van Doesburg is founder and leader, De Stijl dies with him in 1932
• ideas of De Stijl are applied to architecture, sculpture, painting, graphic design
• experimenting with structures, intellectual pursuit, text elements become structure
• in 1921 introduce format change exploring asymmetrical composition
• pivotal to modernist design and composition
• Van Doesburg worked with Dadaists

I think it's interesting that the artists seemed to take such a seemingly simplistic approach to design in the face of revolution. I don't know..I guess I've just been so exposed to American patriotism that I imagine art in response to governmental oppression to be loud and dramatic. But I guess these works have their own quiet drama going on if that makes any sense..as if their restraint was a message in itself. While I don't respond that emotionally to the works, who knows what my response might have been had I lived there at the time. I definitely appreciate the structural approach to design and exploration of spacial relationships..the resulting work is always clean, simple and balanced.

A Romance with the Revolution

Film: A Romance with the Revolution

• Russian Avant Garde
• such art was forbidden in totalitarian Soviet state
• modern artist Nikolai Punin
• Punin arrested 3 times, sent to concentration camp 1950
• first major undertaking was to commission exhibition of contemporary art 1919
• almost 2000 works from various artists
• during Revolution, young artists decorated streets with painted murals
• Punin had strong negative reaction to public sculptures of political figures
• felt that the human body should no longer serve as artistic form in sculpture
• artist Tatlin hoped future would be filled with beautiful, useful things
• in 1921 revolutionary artists founded their own museum
• Punin helped to procure funds to purchase paintings for museum
• bought works of Tatlin, Malevich, Kandinsky, etc
• 60 out of 70 taken with Punin were shot, he was released
• "My romance with the revolution was over" Punin
• established Research Institute of Artistic Culture, museum as base
• Punin helped Tatlin to construct iron spiral at his workshop
• Tatlin and Malevich were bitter rivals
• 1920s was a time when revolutionary illusions collapsed
• works eventually taken from the Institute for the Russian Art Museum
• had an extremely hard time gaining acceptance
• people now wanted tinted and lacquered photographs
• after 1935, works of Avant Garde were no longer exhibited
• they were replaced by socialist realism
• in 1940s, wave of repression began, Punin blamed for Western influence
• Malevich died in 1935, supremacist symbols on his coffin
• Tatlin cried at Malevich's death, lived quiet life
• Punin died in his barracks, buried without a coffin

While I thought the film was a little slow at times, I definitely learned a lot about Punin and the Avant Garde artists during the revolution in Russia. The works of the artists were beautiful, and I wish the film had actually shown more of the works. At times I felt the visuals were a little random and distracting, when they could have been highlighting more of the artists' works. It was a pretty sad story overall, and it's hard to believe that the incredibly intricate and imaginative works went so unappreciated. I felt the artists and especially Punin were misunderstood and treated as scapegoats by the government. It's just depressing to me that they had to die in concentration camps and be buried in nameless graves. I am very inspired by the works of these artists and I appreciated the romantic outlook and quotes from Punin throughout the film.