Like so many aspects of life in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century the Bauhaus was affected by the political situation in the country – its lifecycle mirrors that of the Weimar Republic. Berlin-born architect Walter Gropius formed his ideas of simplistic design with an altruistic ideology following his service in the army during World War I. He first put his ideas into practice in 1919 in Weimar, the political centre of the new Germany.
The growth of National Socialism in the area around Weimar and the school’s opposite political views effectively forced the Bauhaus to move to Dessau where a new building, which fully reflected the movement’s philosophy and designs was to be its new home.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be the end of the Bauhaus’s struggle with the Nazi party. The school in Dessau was also forced to close and became a training school for party functionaries.
Gropius was able to gather an impressive faculty of important names from the fields of art, design and architecture including Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Mies van der Rohe, who was to be the school’s last director. He found new premises in Berlin, a derelict factory in Steglitz, and moved operations there in 1932.
The reprieve was short-lived and the Bauhaus was forced to close its doors forever when the Nazis again intervened in 1933, the year they came to power in Germany.
Though its tenure was unfortunately short, the Bauhaus movement has had a far-reaching influence on modern art, design and architecture. Its mark can still be seen in Berlin – the Hansaviertel, Gropiusstadt and Neue Nationalgalerie all bear its architectural fingerprint. And of course there is the wonderful Bauhaus Archiv, with an extensive collection of Bauhaus objects and designs.
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Our objective is to redefine the political economy of modern/contemporary art practice away from its current dominance of narrative definition and return to a a practice where it is defined by its visual presence. The dominance of of the narrative over the visual presence in contemporary/modern art practice is a result of the commodification of modern/contemporary art practice caused by domination of private art galleries and government funded insinstitutions. We aim to democratise contemporay/modern art practice by returning the control of its political economy to the hands of the practitioners and have it defined by its visual presence and not by its narrative interpretation. Our aim is to have every household in every country of the world not only as owners of modern/contemporary art pieces but also as their narrative interpreters and to be share the practice of creating, critiquing and interpreting modern/contemporary art through social media as opposed to the current practice where private galleries, government institutions and elite collectors define and interpret narratively the meaning of visual representations.Contact Saatchi Art and ask for some free samples of my work and contact me in regard to free art for charities or for anything else.