Against the Myths of the Bauhaus: Presentation of the Catalogue 50 Years After 50 Years of the Bauhaus

Tuesday, June 20, 2023, 7:30 p.m.

Hans D. Christ, Iris Dressler
BOOK PRESENTATION
Against the Myths of the Bauhaus: Presentation of the Catalogue 50 Years After 50 Years of the Bauhaus
As part of the lecture series For a New Art Academy! For a New Europe! of the Merz-Akademie Stuttgart
Language: English

Hans D. Christ and Iris Dressler will present their publication 50 years after 50 years of Bauhaus as part of the lecture series For a New Art Academy! For a New Europe! of the Merz-Akademie Stuttgart. The venue for this evening's event is the Württembergischer Kunstverein.

On May 4, 1968, a few hours after protests by enraged students in Paris led to the evacuation of the Sorbonne University, the exhibition 50 Years of Bauhaus opened at the Württembergischer Kunstverein. The show, conceived by Herbert Bayer, Ludwig Grote, Hans Maria Wingler and the then Kunstverein director Dieter Honisch, is still considered the most influential exhibition of the Bauhaus after World War II. In the same year, the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, which was conceived in 1953 as a successor of the Bauhaus, was closed.

Fifty years after the opening of 50 Years of the Bauhaus, the Württembergischer Kunstverein undertook a critical rereading of the 1968 exhibition: of the myths it (co-)constructed about the famous school, as well as the concealment of facts it afforded. In particular, the ambivalent relationships between some prominent “Bauhäusler” and National Socialism were examined in the fields of graphic and exhibition design. The relationship between the artistic avant-gardes and the industrial-military complex was also explored. Contrary to the historicizing reception of the 1968 exhibition, 50 Years After 50 Years of the Bauhaus also reflects on the Bauhaus in the context of artistic movements of the 1950s and 1960s such as the Mouvement International pour un Bauhaus Imaginiste or the Internationale Situationniste.

The book, designed by Studio Hermanos Berenguer (Barcelona), received the highest category – Gold – of the ADG Laus Award of FAD (Association of Art Directos and Graphic Designers of Catalonia) – one of the most important design awards in Spain.

More information about this publication you can find here.