Daniel Sturgis

 

 

 

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Bauhaus: Utopia in Crisis


Juan Bolivar, David Diao, Liam Gillick Interactive Media Foundation & Filmtank with Artificial Rome, Maria Laet, Andrea Medjesi-Jones, Ad Minoliti, Sadie Murdoch, Judith Raum, Helen Robertson, Eva Sajovic, SAVVY Contemporary, Schroeter und Berger, Alexis Teplin, Ian Whittlesea


The diverse collection of artworks presented in this exhibition investigated the ways in which artists today are reframing the Bauhaus’s modernist legacy as one which includes political and subjective resistance. As such, Bauhaus: Utopia in Crisis addresses how artistic legacies intersect with contemporary concerns through understanding that the Bauhaus was a complicated interweaving of different positions and personalities and never a truly unified project.


Through archival research, the Berlin based artist Judith Raum presents a series of new films which examine the position and personalities of Bauhaus artists such as Lilly Reich and Otti Berger who, as women, were limited to expressing their creativity in the weaving workshop.


The Anti Faschistische Aktion logo of Bauhaus student Max Gebhard and Max Keilson is represented by the Weimar based Schroeter und Berger in a politicised repositioning which aims to claim the logo as a classic piece of Bauhaus design through its contemporary international reach.


The importance of the transgressive and performative aspect of Bauhaus pedagogy is referenced in the works of the London-based US painter Alexis Teplin who employs costumed characters to perform dialogues derived from fictions and historical modernist texts to animate her abstract compositions.


An essay by Daniel Sturgis  was published to coincide with this exhibition. A two day symposium coincided with the exhibition QUEER BAUHAUS and BAUHAUS UTOPIA IN CRISIS


The exhibition was featured by the Contemporary Art Society in their Friday Dispatch 




David Diao Conversation 2018, oil on canvas 117 x 177 cm

 



Alexis Teplin O & X 2016, Circus 2019, David Diao Bauhaus Still Looking to De Stijl 2018, Andrea Medjesi-Jones Please stand up 2018/19, Helen Robertson Invitation au voyage 2019, David Diao Conversation 2018, Judith Raum The Curtain 2019

 



Ian Whittlesea The Egyptian Postures 2018, Sadie Murdoch Breathing and Concentration Exercise 2009, & Die Maske ist der Romantische Stuhl 2009, Ad Minoliti Abstract Porn 2012

 



Ian Whittlesea Egyptian Postures 2016, Schroeter und Berger Antifaschistiche Aktion from an original draft by Max Gebhard and Max Keilson 2019