Photographs from the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin: Architecture and Products

Photography Exhibition
Where: Barnsworth Gallery
Opening Preview: Sunday, March 31st, 2:30-5:30 PM. Refreshments provided.
Special presentation by Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin research assistant and exhibition co-curator Sibylle Hoiman
Exhibit Dates: April 1st – May 11th, during regular tour hours
Cost: Free Admission

2019 is the centennial of the Bauhaus (www.bauhaus100.de/en/) – a German art school operational from 1919-1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts and was famous for teaching integrated, modern design. The Bauhaus was founded with the idea of creating a “total” work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk) in which all arts, including architecture, would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus “style” later became one of the most influential currents in modern design, Modernist architecture and art, design and architectural education. The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography.

The bauhaus.photo traveling exhibition provides a glimpse of the world’s largest collection of Bauhaus photography, comprising more than 70,000 images. 30 reprints will be displayed in Barnsworth Gallery at the Farnsworth House Historic Site, in addition to 70 images on display at Illinois Institute of Technology’s College of Architecture AIA Student Gallery. These 100 photographs show the wide variety of creative ways in which the medium was used at the Bauhaus.

The exhibition presents classic works by Lucia Moholy, László Moholy-Nagy, and T. Lux Fein-inger as well as images by lesser known photographers like Kattina Both, Irene Bayer, and Max Peiffer Watenpuhl. The collection also includes a few superb works by entirely unknown artists. The photos use dynamic diagonals, extreme perspectives, and refined tricks to visualize experimental and professional approaches to the medium of photography at the Bauhaus.

This exhibition is part of the Year of German-American Friendship initiated by the German Federal Foreign Office and the Goethe-Institut and supported by the Federation of German Industries (BDI).