bauhaus imaginista International Programme 2018

How do we rethink the Bauhaus from a global perspective today? From its inception the Bauhaus was international and in dialogue with other world cultures. To mark the centenary of the school, ‘bauhaus imaginista’ explores the transnational reception of the Bauhaus in the 20th Century with a particular focus on Asia, Africa and the Americas.

bauhaus imaginista is divided into four chapters. Each chapter departs from a focal object selected from Bauhaus masters and students. These include a copy of the 1919 Bauhaus Manifesto by Walter Gropius, the 1927 drawing Teppich (Carpet) by Paul Klee, the collage ein bauhaus-film by Marcel Breuer from 1926, and ‘reflecting light plays’ by Kurt Schwerdtfeger from 1922. The curatorial approach has been to decipher these objects in relation to their historical specificity, but also in terms of an international genealogy of forms, ideas and practices going forward.

bauhaus imaginista has been developed through extensive international research and collaborations with a team of curators from different parts of the world. In 2018 the project was further developed through a series of exhibitions and discursive events in partnerships with Le Cube, Rabat (Morocco), China Design Museum / China Academy of Art, Hangzhou (China) the Goethe Institute and museums and archives in New York (USA), the National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto (Japan) the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (Russia) SESC Pompéia, São Paulo (Brazil) the Goethe Institute and University of Lagos (Nigeria) and the Kiran Nadar Museum, New Delhi (India).

bauhaus imaginista is a common project by the Bauhaus Kooperation Berlin Dessau Weimar, Goethe-Institut and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Federal Cultural Foundation, on occasion of the centenary ‘100 years of bauhaus’. The project is directed and curated by Marion von Osten and Grant Watson and developed in cooperation with international team of researchers, artists and designers.