SYNOPSIS: From Bauhaus | To Black Mountain

Without the past there can be no present or pathway to the future, and with the knowledge that the telling of history determines who is most enfranchised in the everyday, there is at least one story about the history of art and education in the 20th century deserving a much closer and careful examination.

By investigating one of the most enduring spans in the history of modern art—from 1919 to 1933 and directly thereafter 1933 to 1957—representing the respective years of operation for the Bauhaus school, which closed the same year that Black Mountain College opened—renowned artist, writer and historian, Max Eternity, goes beyond familiar tropes and conversations on the subject.  Eternity illuminates a multitude of crucial transatlantic arts and humanities relationships in the Western world during those times, whereby sharpening and refining the historical lens.

Observed in the study of Germany's Bauhaus and the United States’ Black Mountain College, and by playing close attention to the social impact of these educational (forums) institutions and their respective players, From Bauhaus | To Black Mountain presents an intriguing and voluminous, yet concise, historical record in a manner accessible to layperson, practitioner, and academic.

In the malleable present and within the great hallways of collective memory, From Bauhaus | To Black Mountain offers an intellectually exciting and richly detailed understanding of the roots, and other aspects, of early to mid-century modernism’s family tree.

HIstory of Bauhaus (brief)

Asheville Art Museum: Eternity Interviews Pam Myers on BMC and Commissioned Works

Ronald Robertson Studies Building at Black Mountain College, oil on Masonite, 17.9 x 18.6 inches. Gift of the Artist. 2013.19.04.21.

A popular resurgence of interest in Black Mountain College (BMC) continues to grow nationally.  There are numerous exhibitions happening this year recalling the school’s rich historical past while holding high its living legacy, with a show entitled  Geometric Vistas: Landscapes by Artists of Black Mountain College opening on August 6th at the Asheville Art Museum in North Carolina.  And for my latest feature article at MaxEternity.com, I spoke with the excutive director of the Asheville Art Museum, Pam Myers.  Read more.

Conversations: Lessons from the Weimar Republic with Eric Weitz

Germany’s Weimar Republic lasted only 14 years, yet produced immense creativity and intellectual achievement.  And in my latest article, published at MaxEternity.com, I interviewed Eric Weitz, Dean of Humanities and Arts and Distinguished Professor of History at The City College of New York.  Weitz is also the author of Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, and in our conversation we talked about global politics—how much of it mirrors Germany’s Weimar Republic, especially in the US—and we talked, as well, about how the Weimar Republic launched the [Bauhaus] birth of modernism.  Describing what the Weimar Republic was like, Weitz says it’s an “interesting, strange juxtaposition of both crisis and artistic creativity, and I think they are related…the fragility of the economy and the political system inspired artists to innovate.”   Read more.

Andrew Reach on From Bauhaus | To Black Mountain

“I think you are writing a very important book on the subject of the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College—in a way not touched in academia, as far as I know—inclusive to the interconnections with the Jim Crow South, and shedding light on new territory about African American modernists. I think also your perspective is fresh, in comparison to the usual suspects in mainstream academia who have dominated the subject. On a side note, the cover art you created for this project is beautiful, and connects with the modernity of the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College.” 

Andrew Reach

Architect | Artist

www.andrewreach.com

Haus am Horn: The First House Built by Bauhaus School @ Houzz

Photo by Kate Jordan Photo - Discover modern home design design inspiration

In a story about the Bauhaus, the Haus am Horn is featured at length in an article writtend by Eva Zimmerman.  The Haus am Horn for the first architectural project by the staff and students of the Bauhaus.  Built in 1923, the Haus am Horn consited of a house with all the essential furniture and other furnishings necessary for everyday life.

Zimmerman writes:

All the Bauhaus workshops helped build and furnish the house, which emerged as a residential prototype.  

It was supposed to be the beginning of a Bauhaus village that would be like a university campus today. However, after the state elections of 1924, the power structure in Thuringia changed, and the new conservative administration cut the school’s budget by half. In 1925, the Bauhaus moved to Dessau, and the village did not come to fruition.

Zimmerman acquired an excellent selection of photos for the piece, which includes images of early furniture designs by Marcel Breuer.  And curiously, although many architects came and went at the Bauhaus, the Haus am Horn was actually designed by an artist, named Georg Muche.

By Eva Zimmermann - See more Home Design Photos

Interviewed for the article is Michael Siebenbrodt, the director of the Haus am Horn and curator of the Bauhaus Museum, and it's fair to say that overall Zimmerman has really done her homework for the piece, which I recommend reading for anyone truly interested in the origins of modernism.  The article is found here. 

Conversations: Ruth Erickson, Curator @ ICA Boston, Part Two

Ruth Asawa, Dancers, c. 1948, oil on blotting paper 12 x 19 inches. Weverka Family Collection. © Estate of Ruth Asawa. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

In the first part of my interview with curator Ruth Erickson, she talked about how the Leap Before You Look exhibition was designed to engage museum visitors.  Now moving deeper in the dialog, Erickson talks more specifically about the different departments at  Black Mountain College and how that influenced the exhibition, saying that “a lot of people remark on [how]we mixed media and styles, just as it was a very heterogeneous place at Black Mountain, there is a real mix of styles.” 

Within this framework, Erickson says “there’s an area of pedagogy that we look at experimental architecture—we have some of the Bucky [Buckminster] Fuller models that he had of geodesic domes” that now reside at Stanford University.

The exhibition took 4 years of research and development, during which time Erickson says she and the curatorial team looked at thousands of art and articles.

Speaking to architects who had a hand in shaping the Black Mountain College (BMC) experience, Erickson starts off by talking about Lawrence Kocher, who in addition to his relationship to BMC, was a long-time editor for Architectural Record.

“One of the most important architects was this guy named Lawrence Kocher, who had been in Pennsylvania—an important player who brought down the Breuer/Gropius plans for the new campus,” says Erickson, which in the end were deemed too costly to build.   “Kocher taught really interesting classes” at BMC, she says, including a class “for low- income housing.”  Adding that, Kocher “is in some ways the most important architect at Black Mountain.”

Erickson also talks about Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, and this span of the interview concludes with Erickson taking at length about artist Ruth Asawa

Leap Before You Look is on display at UCLA’s Hammer Museum for another week, and travels North later this year, opening on September 17^th at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio.