MoMA | Tag: Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity

Posts tagged ‘Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity’

January 20, 2010 | Collection & Exhibitions, Events & Programs

Lessons from the Bauhaus

Posted by Pablo Helguera, Director of Adult and Academic Programs, Department of Education

Eugen Batz. Exercise for color-theory course taught by Vasily Kandinsky. 1929–30. Tempera over pencil on black paper. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin

The exhibition Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity finally comes to an end next week. As a final event of the various public programs we have offered in conjunction with the exhibition, we will present a symposium this Friday, January 22, entitled Before and After 1933: The International Legacy of the Bauhaus. The event will bring together a vast array of international scholars to talk about the remarkable diaspora of Bauhaus intellectuals that, following the school’s closing in 1933, spread throughout various parts of Europe, the Americas, and even Africa, contributing to the establishment of a modern design style and branching out into various pedagogical models and practices that to this day lie at the core of the curricula of art and design schools worldwide.

Here at MoMA—both among staff members and those who came to the related public programs and workshops—we are also left with plenty of food for thought regarding the enduring legacy of that famous school.

December 23, 2009 | Behind the Scenes, Collection & Exhibitions

Bauhaus Lab

Posted by Pablo Helguera, Director of Adult and Academic Programs, Department of Education

Bauhaus Lab has been a new experiment for us at MoMA: we sought to create a space where various audiences could both get a sense of the original curricula of the famed school, and participate in events and activities that carried the Bauhaus spirit into the twenty-first century. The planning of the Bauhaus Lab was an extensive process that involved several months of research, planning, and experimentation, and represented a true collaborative effort amongst the Education Department staff. In this video, my colleagues Amy Horschak and Laura Beiles discuss some of the thinking behind the activities we developed and tell a few behind-the scenes anecdotes about the project.

December 11, 2009 | Collection & Exhibitions, Design, Events & Programs

Ellen Lupton Inspires a New Kind of Visual Literacy

Posted by August Heffner, Design Manager, Graphic Design

After nearly a month of visiting the Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity exhibition, many of us throughout the Museum took away at least one powerful message: don’t be afraid to cross disciplines. The fearlessness, enthusiasm, and collaboration of the students and masters is apparent in the show’s work.

So, upon learning that design education legend and DIY hero Ellen Lupton would be running several workshops in the Bauhaus Lab series, our Graphic Design department decided not to make a poster for her visit, but rather to shoot and edit a video. Of course, stepping out of your area of expertise requires collaboration, so we teamed up with two of the Museum’s video experts: Beth Harris, Director of Digital Learning, and David Hart, Associate Media Producer. It was a humbling and exciting experience.

December 9, 2009 | Collection & Exhibitions, Events & Programs

A Bauhausian Ballet at MoMA

Posted by Pablo Helguera, Director of Adult and Academic Programs, Department of Education

Machine Project's Walking Tables and Wrestling Foals

In planning the programs for MoMA’s Bauhaus Lab, we wanted to give the public the opportunity not only to experience original Bauhaus curricula, but also to meet contemporary artists with multidisciplinary practices in an experimental spirit similar to the Bauhaus. The L.A.-based collective Machine Project most definitely falls into this category. (Machine’s approach to pedagogy as performance was previously presented this year at MoMA during the symposium Transpedagogy: Contemporary Art and the Vehicles of Education.)

December 7, 2009 | Viewpoints, Visitor Viewpoint

Visitor Viewpoint: Bauhaus Lab

Posted by Julia Kaganskiy, 12 Month Intern in Digital Learning, Education

Visitors Jeff Hnilicka and Sarah Sandman talk about the importance of creativity exercises at a recent Bauhaus Lab workshop.

We recently paid a visit to MoMA’s Bauhaus Lab as one of the free art-making workshops was concluding. There, we met two stragglers, Jeff and Sarah, who spoke to us as they continued tinkering with their creative constructions. Two young artists, they were exploring form, texture, color and improvisation in this workshop based on the practices of Paul Klee and Johannes Itten.

What brings you to this workshop today?

Jeff: Well, we’re actually artists. We’re part of a collective called Hit Factorie. There’s about twenty of us working collaboratively in Brooklyn. They [the Bauhaus artists] were masters of collaboration, and we wanted to learn from that. We’re really interested in these ideas of collectivism and immediacy.

November 25, 2009 | Collection & Exhibitions, Events & Programs

Bauhaus Lab: The Secret Ingredient?

Posted by Pablo Helguera, Director of Adult and Academic Programs, Department of Education

Bauhaus Lab: Johannes Itten and Paul Klee Curricula Workshops, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building

In MoMA’s Cullman Education and Research Building, you’ll find visitors sitting at clover-like Bauhaus tables (based on the original workshop photographs) working on drawing exercises devised by Bauhaus masters Johannes Itten and Paul Klee. Interestingly, Klee and Itten themselves were actually not so happy sharing a table—the dinner table, that is.

November 13, 2009 | Collection & Exhibitions, Tech

Bauhaus: from Weimar to the Web

Posted by Allegra Burnette, Creative Director, Digital Media

Screenshot of the timeline section of the website

Screenshot of the timeline section of the Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity website

Though the contributors from our department (Digital Media) might occasionally indulge in geek speak, we wanted to offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into some of the projects and collaborations in which we are involved across the Museum and beyond.

We are particularly excited about the slew of exhibitions coming up, starting with Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity, which opens this month. For the exhibition site, we worked with Hello Design in California. We hadn’t worked with them before, but we liked their approach to content and design for the subject matter. Because the Bauhaus has been such an inspiration to so many who came after, we asked Hello what inspired them. How did they create a simple, functional site that captures the spirit of the Bauhaus?

November 11, 2009 | Behind the Scenes, Collection & Exhibitions, Events & Programs

Bauhaus Lounge: When the Couch Matches the Art

Posted by Pablo Helguera, Director of Adult and Academic Programs, Department of Education

Bauhaus Lounge, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Center

Matching the artwork with the living room couch is one of the perennial concerns of any collector. But when it comes to the Bauhaus, which was as much about designing couches as it was about artworks, finding the right furniture piece shouldn’t be a problem. Or so it seemed to us at the Education Department. During the exhibition Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity, we imagined turning the reading room space in MoMA’s Cullman building into a Bauhaus Lounge, equipped with Bauhaus furniture for visitors to relax on while they watch a video of a reconstruction of Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet or browse through Bauhaus literature. We thought we had enough original Bauhaus-designed chairs lying around MoMA’s buildings that it couldn’t be too hard to put such a lounge together. We do have a Wassily chair (no one remembers where it came from) that sits in the Education offices; we also snatched away a few other chairs from a conference room and two Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chairs from outside of Glenn Lowry’s office waiting area (his office wants them back after the show).

November 6, 2009 | Behind the Scenes, Design

Bauhaus: The Graphic Design Department Goes Back to School

Posted by August Heffner, Design Manager, Graphic Design

Rendering of the title wall for Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity

In December 1938, hordes of visitors packed the opening of MoMA’s Bauhaus retrospective in the temporary galleries at 14 West Forty-ninth Street in Rockefeller Center. Guests followed painted footprints and abstract graphics on the floor guiding them through the show’s seven hundred items, while reading titles rendered in handsome pin-mounted condensed letterforms. The Bauhaus’s own graphic design and typography legend, Herbert Bayer came to New York to design the exhibition himself. And today, over seventy years later, it was both the Bauhaus and Bayer’s legacy that kept most of MoMA’s Department of Graphic Design awake at night, as we began to design the title wall for Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity.