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?
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