50 Years after 50 Years of the Bauhaus 1968

CONFERENCE
September, 14. + 15., 2018
Language: German (with english Translation)

The conference takes up central themes from the exhibition and explores them in depth through lectures by Bauhaus experts like Patrick Rössler (professor at the University of Erfurt), Philipp Oswalt (professor at the University of Kassel), and Marion von Osten (curator of the project Bauhaus Imaginista). Dealt with here are the ambivalent positions of some Bauhaus members toward the Nazi regime, especially in the area of graphic and exhibition design, as well as a probing of the history of Bauhaus reception dominated by Walter Gropius—including the 1968 exhibition in Stuttgart—and a global contextualization of the famous school.

The contribution by the British artist and author John Barker traces interconnections between the profiling of the Bauhaus as of the mid-1920s, the principles of the academic management of the Bauhaus as established by Frederick Winslow Taylor in 1911, and the labor concepts pursued by the National Socialists. The artist and curator Axel Heil (professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe), in turn, investigates the International Movement for an Imaginistic Bauhaus founded by Asger Jorn in 1953 and its relations to the radical artistic movements of the postwar era, such as the Lettrist and Situationist.

In addition to lectures, the program comprises a new film by the Vienna-based artist Ines Doujak and also a performance developed specially for the exhibition by the Spanish artist Maria Salgado, who responds to Helmut Heißenbüttel’s poem “Der Mann, der lesbisch wurde” of 1967. This poem—receited by Heißenbüttel himself while sitting in one of the most famous Bauhaus chairs—forms a prologue to the exhibition "50 Years after 50 Years of the Bauhaus 1968".

PROGRAM

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Friday, September 14, 2018
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4:30 p.m.
Iris Dressler, Hans D. Christ
CURATORS' TOUR
through the exhibition 50 Years after 50 Years of the Bauhaus 1968

6:30 p.m.
Iris Dressler, Hans D. Christ
INTRODUCTION, 50 Years after 50 Years of the Bauhaus 1968

7 p.m.
Philipp Oswalt (professor of architectural theory and design at the University Kassel)
LECTURE
Death through Idealization
Hannes Meyer and the Bauhaus Exhibition in 1968

8 p.m.
Maria Salgado (author and performance artist, Madrid)
PERFORMANCE
The 1 That Became a 3:
2 Variations on Helmut Heißenbüttel’s “Der Mann, der lesbisch wurde”

With her performance The 1 That Became a 3: 2 Variations on Helmut Heißenbüttel’s “Der Mann, der lesbisch wurde”, Salgado offers the audience an expanded restaging of this Heißenbüttel poem from the year 1967. By exchanging, replacing, or inserting terms in two different variations, she subtly shifts the meaning of “The Man Who Became Lesbian” and thus reflects and confronts Heißenbüttel’s recital of the German poem in 1967 with the live performance of her own Spanish variations.

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Saturday, September 15, 2018
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11 a.m.
Patrick Rössler (communication scientist, professor at the Philosophy Faculty,  University Erfurt)
LECTURE
“I had a good life in Berlin”: Herbert Bayer, the Studio Dorland, and German Advertising Graphics of the 1930s

In his lecture, Patrick Rössler illuminates the beginnings of the successful career of Herbert Bayer as graphic designer. He more closely examines the 1930s work of the Studio Dorland, founded by Bayer. This work, which involved former Bauhaus students like Kurt Kranz, the Neuner brothers, or Max Gebhardt, always navigated a fine line between artistic self-assertion and adaptation to the official state propaganda.

12 a.m.
Axel Heil (artist, curator, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe)
LECTURE

Axel Heil, in his lecture, explores the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus established by Asger Jorn in 1953 and his relationships to the radical art movements of the postwar era, such as the Lettrists and the Situationists.

1 p.m.
Lunch Break

2 p.m.
John Barker (artist and author, Vienna / London)
Bauhaus and The Human Motor (English)

The contribution by John Barker traces connections between the profiling of Bauhaus members as of the mid-1920s, the principles of scientific management as proposed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in 1911, and the concept of labor espoused by the National Socialists.

3 p.m.
Marion von Osten (curator of Bauhaus Imaginista, among other projects)
Worlding the Bauhaus
LECTURE

Marion von Osten, in her lecture, sheds light on the transcultural exchange relations of the Bauhaus with other radical pedagogical experiments and aesthetic movements. Moving beyond the Euro-American canon of Bauhaus historiography, Osten reflects back on the Bauhaus from the perspective of transcultural modernism. This view extending beyond national borders makes it clear that it is not the styles or the established categories that allowed the school to become an international point of reference, but rather its hybrid disposition and diversity of voices.

4 p.m.
BREAK

4:30 p.m.
Mona Mahal, Asli Serbest (artists and architects, Berlin)
Female Futures Lexikon
LECTURE PERFORMANCE

Based on her research-focused installation Female Futures in the current exhibition 50 Years after 50 Years of the Bauhaus 1968, Mona Mahall and Asli Serbest are developing a lexicon on utopian everyday life. It contains speculations about space and architectural projections informed by feminist theory and practice—designing alternative material, social, political, and aesthetic ideas of (co)habitation and seeking to explore modernism and Bauhaus culture from A to Z.

5:30 p.m.
PANEL

6:30 p.m.
Ines Doujak (Artist, Vienna)
FILM PRESENTATION

Ines Doujak, whose work Bauhütte (2018) was created specifically for the exhibition 50 Years after 50 Years of the Bauhaus 1968, will be presenting a new filmic work in the scope of the conference.