Les Arts Décoratifs Goes Bauhaus Big Time With 900-Exhibit Survey
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The German Bauhaus movement is the subject of a major exhibition this fall at Musée des arts decoratifs in Paris. Only weeks after the 2016 Bauhaus Triennale in Weimar, Dessau, Berlin ended in early October in neighboring Germany, the French institution is p
Les Arts Décoratifs Goes Bauhaus Big Time With 900-Exhibit Survey
The German Bauhaus movement is the subject of a major exhibition this fall at Musée des arts decoratifs in Paris. Only weeks after the 2016 Bauhaus Triennale in Weimar, Dessau, Berlin ended in early October in neighboring Germany, the French institution is presenting a survey of more than 900 works.One of the most interesting aspects about Bauhaus is perhaps that though it is clearly associated with a group of architects, designers, and artists, it has become as much of a synonym for a whole bundle of ideas and concepts since Walter Gropius founded the famous school in Weimar in 1919, some of which didn’t necessarily originate in the Bauhaus itself. Given the large range of creative minds involved, defining the historical Bauhaus spectrum can become quite a challenge.The Paris show chooses Gropius’ Bauhaus manifesto as a starting point for its exploration, particularly his call to all “architects, sculptors, and painters” to “return to the crafts,” in order to foster a new synthesis of the arts, crafts, and industry as the foundation for a new and better way of living for everyone.Though the school was forced to close under the Nazis (with many of its leading thinkers moving abroad to further develop the Bauhaus ideas), the interdisciplinary approach to designing habitats has remained a powerful influence, portrayed at Les arts décoratifs with a wealth of exhibits, from objects, furniture, textiles, drawings, and models to paintings.Next to presenting prior movements, aesthetics, and theories influential to Gropius, particularly William Morris and the British Arts & Crafts movement and the Viennese avant-garde utopias such as the Wiener Werkstätte and Henry Van de Velde’s ideas for the Deutscher Werkbund, with exhibits by Morris, Van de Velde, Peter Behrens, and Wiener Werkstätte artists such as Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann, the exhibition comprises artistic and documentary exhibits by famous teachers and students. Works by Paul Klee, Vassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Oskar Schlemmer, Marcel Breuer, Laszlo Moholy Nagy, Theodor Bogler, Gunta Stölzl, Marianne Brandt, Herbert Bayer, and Walter Peterhans, among many others, illustrate the enormous creative potential the school generated, also after having moved to the specially constructed building in Dessau in 1925, and before its last director Mies van der Rohe was forced to close it in Berlin in 1933. “L’Esprit Bauhaus” runs through February 26, 2017 at Les arts décoratifs, Paris France. Click here for more information.Take a photo tour of the exhibition in the slide show Read more
