Bauhaus: Art as life

Bauhaus

“There is a lesson here about much contemporary art education: the lack of common purpose, the overweening bureaucracy, the disillusionment and grasping for fees, the box ticking lostness of so much of it”. The Guardian

My relationship with the Bauhaus movement began at A-level when memorising key names, descriptors and dates which was as far as this education would inspire us to discover or fathom. Back then, ‘graphic design’ was a logo, a shop front, something your peers though of as cool and fashionable. I grew up surrounded in surf labels which were emerging into lifestyle brands; cutting edgy, Carson style aesthetics which supposedly gave our home, Cornwall, it’s own identity, sense of unity and patriotism. This, to our teenage selves, was graphic design.

Later, at University, in an effort to create a bond between 45 classmates and encapsulate decades of design history, lecturers split us into groups and gave us each a movement to study and present. Ours was Dada - “Dada is everything” was a challenging manifesto to break down. But I did get to see what others had made of the Bauhaus movement - basically strong lines, architecture, simple graphical forms, and, or course, Gropius.

It seemed that my chance of discovering the real Bauhaus rested on ‘Bauhaus: Art as life’ and I wasn’t let down. Embracing the large, challenging halls of the Barbican Arts Centre, the exhibit maps a complex and changing, 400 piece archive of artwork from the founding or Bauhaus by Walter Gropius in Dessau in 1919 to its closure in Berlin in 1933.

In my slightly limited exposure to the movement, I had only been privy to the uniformity of Bauhaus, the rationality and consistency - particularly within graphic design pieces. However, what is so striking and well documented throughout is the lifestyle of those who subscribed to Bauhaus. Details of dietary habits (garlic and offal?!), living quarters, fashion choices, the personalities of lecturers and students, all of which which were - for the most part - fun, lively, charismatic, even bizarre and zany; not unlike the Dadaist that followed. I certainly know who I’d be backing in a brawl between these offbeat characters and the hipsters of today’s Brick Lane. Not only is this presented through large scale photographs, personal posters and school advertisements but also though the breadth of pieces on show. Of course there are paintings and woodcuts, typographical studies and photography, furniture and architecture but there is also space within these for children’s toys; puppets and spinning tops, chess sets and weavings. A little later down the line, advertising for Nivea is displayed.

In following the timeline and key dates, the history of this era - oppression, hyperinflation - almost subconsciously presses on your thoughts and it was the rise of Nazism that contributed heavily to the closure of the school which had moved to Berlin. Some of the final pieces within the exhibit demonstrate the pressure that the aggressive regime put upon Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (director at this time). The sense of strong ideals and shared beliefs is a vital part of the Bauhaus school, so it seems no surprise that it closed during this period.

Bauhaus: Art as life is open until 12 August 2012. Go have a look and become a part of this quirky art school as well as seeing some incredible works by Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Marcel Breuer and Herbert Bayer.

Art as life

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