Reflections on Goldberg: Surrealism and Bauhaus

Jessica Wildman

The Bauhaus institution was a departure from the mostly anti-establishment ethos of the Futurist, Dadaist, and Surrealist art movements that preceded it. Bauhaus was the first institution to include performance in its interdisciplinary curriculum that sought a, “unification for all the the arts”, as written in Gropius’s Bauhaus manifesto (p 97). During the transition from Dada to Surrealism the arts eroded into violent grapples between artists and artist groups. Goldberg explains that during Tristan Tzara’s 1923 performance Le Cœur à barbe, “Breton and Péret protested loudly from the stalls, before climbing onto the stage to engage in a physical battle with the performers. Pierre de Massot escaped with a broken arm and Eluard, after having fallen into the stage sets, received a bailiff’s note demanding 8000 francs for damages” (p 88). 

While the performance world of the surrealists was escalating into attacks, “The cautious optimism expressed in the [Bauhaus] manifesto provided a hopeful yardstick for cultural recovery in a divided and impoverished postwar Germany” (p97). I wonder about the correlation between the escalating violence in the Dadaist/Surrealist performances and the postwar environment in Europe. Is there any evidence to connect the postwar environment and the violence that erupted between Dadaist artists? Was it simply that ideals of form and practice were at odds between?

I find it fascinating how influential the interdisciplinary Bauhaus model has become. The studio and critique structure of Cranbrook Academy of Art, without any actual classes, is perhaps one of many institutions that have emerged from the Bauhaus sensibility. I think the push for interdisciplinary fine art programs owes itself to the Bauhaus model. The definition of disciplines i.e. sculpture, has expanded as performance has become an ever growing field in the arts. Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia has a Sculpture and Extended Media program to include performance, while Cal Arts has its own Performance program. I wonder, did the world of art , it's critics and professionals require the institutionalization of performance for acceptance as an art form? Was Bauhaus truly the catalyst for this acceptance?