The Bauhaus is the most significant avant-garde art school of the 20th century. Established in Weimar in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus revolutionised methods of artistic education, creating ‘the new covenant between art and technology.’ Under pressure from conservative politicians, the school moved from Weimar to Dessau in 1925. There, it flourished and functioned until 1931, when the modernist building was taken over by the power-grabbing Nazi Party and this led to the school closing in 1933. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the Bauhaus staff and students realised its ideals, working both in Germany and as emigrées in the Soviet Union, the US, Japan or Chile.
The exhibition proposes to dismantle a monolithic vision of the Bauhaus, assuming the school engendered a homogenous style or a recipe for ‘the Modernist aesthetic’. It has been built upon a dialogue between invited artists, architects, designers and curators, with historic works and documents as well as subsequent reminiscences of the school (exhibited in Poland for the first time). It is an experiment in a communal and critical reading of the Modernist tradition in the context of contemporary creative, educational and social practices.
