Bauhaus
(1919-1933) as an Art & Design educational institution had a great
influence on the development of the 20th century art, architecture,
textile, graphic, industrial design and typography. Bauhaus was aimed to reach the total work of art and operated
to educate new artists who could bring social changes.
From the
early stage of the Bauhaus, they explored the role and function of art that
closely related to our daily life in modern technology civilization through
various workshops such as metal, textile, design and architecture under each
meister. Their experiment and instruction method was not just purposed to
develop the individual’s creativity
and ability, but also guided to reach a total art through workshops by members
of the Bauhaus.
Particularly,
they mainly dealt with dynamic role of stage as space of harmony among human,
space and machine. For this, their study about ‘total
theater’
as a playground for primary experimentation was proceeding from the beginning
of the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus stage workshop was established by Walter Gropius in
1921 and it was led by Lothar Schreyer,
director, until 1923 and taken over by Oskar Schlemmer, painter and
choreographer, in 1929.
The leading
role of the Bauhaus, such as Walter Gropius, Oskar Schlemmer, Laszlo
Moholy-Nagy, Xanti Schawinsky, Paul Klee, Wasily Kandinsky experimented
synthesis among human, space and machine not only in their own area, but also
on the stage. They believed that their research about mechanical and abstract stage design, costume, doll, dance, humorous
movement, light and sound could even make a change of the modern human body and
mind. Thus, we could readily understand a characteristic of stage
experiments at the Bauhaus that tried to develop a new idea of modern man
collectively by Johannes Itten's word “Play becomes
work, work becomes party, party becomes play.”
Human Space Machine-Stage Experiments at the Bauhaus was planned
in collaboration with the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation since 2012. This exhibition
deals with the Bauhaus’s experiments
about new type of human response to changes of a new era, from World War I to
early 1930s. Exhibitions about architecture and design of the Bauhaus were
often shown, but this is the first full-scale exhibition ever to focus on stage
experiments in Asia. The exhibition is organized in seven sections; Section one
‘Body of Harmonization’,
section two ‘Atmospherical Devices’,
section three ‘Constructivist Figuration’,
section four ‘Eccentric stage mechanisims’,
section five ‘Sculptural choreographies’,
section six ‘Total theaters’, section
seven ‘Programmed
collectives’. In this exhibition organization make possible to recognize
characteristic of the Bauhaus as an arena of creative and experimental idea toward
multiple approach of art.
In addition,
this exhibition presents six Korean contemporary artists; Na Kim, Paik Namjune,
Ahn Sangsoo, Oh Jaewoo, Cho Sohee, Han Kyungwoo to show an enormous creativity
and imagination of the Bauhaus also thrive in 21th century Korea contemporary
art. Their artworks influenced by Bauhaus both directly and indirectly reminds
us the Bauhaus movement was not a particular tendency within a certain period,
but closer to the intrinsic manner of artists.
