Wassily Kandinsky – Lehrer am Bauhaus

Exkursion

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) as a pioneer of an abstract art, he was undoubtedly one of the most significant professors at the Bauhaus. The exhibition “Wassily Kandinsky – Teaching at the Bauhaus” presented at The Bauhaus Archive Museum of Design in Berlin from 25 June to 8 September 2014, is the first time when original teaching materials and documents of Kandinsky and his students are displayed as a selection of works, gathered from international archives and collections. The aim of the exhibition is to provide a comprehensive outlook of the master’s teaching methods in the Mural Painting Workshop, the Basic and Main Courses, and the Free Painting Class at the Bauhaus and also the influence of them on his students work. Gathered from various international archives and collections, as a loan from the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, together with the extensive holdings of the Bauhaus Archive Museum of Design and the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, the exhibition presents teaching manuscripts (20 pages of text an original notes), 30 pictorial materials, 7 publications, 11 art prints and watercolors made by Kandinsky during his teaching time at the Bauhaus. The selection of 60 exercises, works and notes of his students, including Eugen Batz, Erich Comeriner, Lothar Lang (Fig. 1), Hans Thiemann and Monica Ulmann-Broner and the individual works of his colleagues, including Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Georg Muche, accompany the master’s works at the exhibition.


Lothar Lang, “mitte betont durch wettstreit blau-rot”, Arbeit aus dem Unterricht Kandinsky, 1929

The exhibition ‘Wassily Kandinsky – Teaching at the Bauhaus’ is curated Dr. Angelika Weißbach – the art historian and research director form the Centre Georges Pompidou / Société Kandinsky in Paris, on which research project is this exhibition based on. The selected collection of works is presented in a one-room space divided into 4 fields with crossing walls in the middle. The works presented on the middle walls displays the exercises of his students facing towards the Kandinsky’s materials and works displayed on the main surrounding walls, which brings out the relation between the master and the students depicting their reflection on his teaching methods and their influence. Kandinsky’s art prints and watercolors are presented traditionally on the walls whereas the manuscripts and notes are displayed on the tables covered with glass showcase. The warm, tungsten light from the top of the walls is kept considerably dimmed, which could recall the close atmosphere in the small classes of the master and his one-to-one discussions with the students, but in the same time it intensifies the small size of the exhibition space.

Presented in the Bauhaus Archive site being both the museum and research institute, this special temporary exhibition of the one of the most influential masters and in the meantime longest teaching professor of Bauhaus correlates directly to the building as one designed by the school’s first Director – Walter Gropius. The collection of many original different art works and exercises together with authentic notes and materials
made by Kandinsky himself, his students and colleagues have a clearly didactic character depicting and explaining profoundly the methods of the master’s teaching ways, his charismatics, personality and strong influence on the students. The student’s exercises are presented not only on the walls but also on an electronic device giving clutched number of objects. There is also another special object used in order to imitate the classroom of the master, namely the reproduction of the blackboard on which he posted pictures selected by him, from books and magazine brought as an inspiration for students (Fig. 2). This effect was ultimately not well achieved since the blackboard was not the original size and it was not exposed enough to ease the visitor, to differ it from the actual purpose and the simple background for the pictures.


Monica Bella Ullmann-Broner, “Verteilung der Farben auf dem Kreis”, Arbeit aus dem Unterricht Kandinsky, 1931

In order to display the complexity and innovativeness of Kandinsky’s methods, the amount of presented works and materials is considerably too great for one small room. As a result the objects are significantly crowded among each other, e.g. the manuscripts on the table right under the walls with Kandinsky’s materials give some obstacles to have a proper view on the works hanging on the wall. The divided spaces are too small for the observer to step back for the better perspective. Although, each wall and middle walls basins presenting other subject of the exhibition or specific courses taught by the master has been painted to distinctive colors, one can become distracted with the thematic and chronological order of the spaces. This confusion is intensified with the amount of objects trying to embrace all the aspects but fail since the chaotic thematic structure. The regular guided tour and the audio guides of the museum do not include this special exhibition, it is then more accessible for groups for which the guided tour may be reserved. During these tours there is one interactive game at the end based on assessing the particular parts of the exhibition with colors referring to Kandinsky basic class, which is not extensively involving the audience.

Nevertheless, the exhibition is a significant approach of the Bauhaus Archive Museum of Design in depicting the presenting the history and influence of the Bauhaus school. It consists an important historic aspect of the collection and especially displays not only the works of the school itself and its influence on architecture, design and art but the whole process of the teaching program lead by one of its crucial masters – Wassily Kandinsky. In order to understand the school’s history and all aspects of its work, it is vital to understand how they have evolved. However, one may receive the presentation quality including appearance and attractiveness considerably too chaotic with no logic of the allocation, too crowded with many repeating and unnecessary resources e.g. usefulness of many similar students’ sketches and exercises or the adequacy of the master’s colleagues artworks as a birthday gift to his teaching methods. Together with unsatisfactory technical qualities including small size of the room and the divided spaces accompanied by bad lighting conditions and allocation of tables limiting the visitor’s perceiving lead to puzzlement of the audience and will definitely reduce the perception of the exhibition message.


Erich Mrozek, Geometrische Form mit Freier Form durch eine Hauptspannung verbinden, 1929-30
QUESTIONNAIRE:

1. What is the occasion of the exhibition?
The approach of presenting for the first time the Kandinsky’s original teaching manuscripts and materials gathered from international institutions.

2. Which are the key objects / the 3 most important exhibits?
Teaching manuscripts and publications, authentic prints and watercolors of Kandinsky and his student’s exercises and notes.

3. Are those being presented adequately?
No, the exhibition is too chaotic and the presented works are too crowded.

4. How is the interaction between individual parts and the entirety?
They all sum up together to create the whole perspective of his teaching methods covering all the classes apart from the birthday gift artworks from his colleages.

5. What role do the objects play?
There are authentic materials used or created by Kandinsky during his teaching period, having a didactic role explaining his teaching methods.

6. How are meanings being communicated?
They were simply presented in an old-fashioned gallery style.

7. Which atmospherical mood emerges?
The small size and the dimmed light create the cosy atmosphere of the classroom.

8. How does the dramaturgy take place during the exhibition tour?
There was no dramaturgy.

9. How are topics and contents being transported?
The topics and contents were presented very chaotically with no logic of allocation.

10. What are key statements, which knowledge can be gained?
Kandinsky was a very inspiring master at Bauhaus, perceiving teaching as a very conscious and serious task by using various teaching methods in order to give the profound background of the synthetic design and strongly stimulating process of abstract creation and design.

11. Is it worth a second visit?
I would not recommend the second visit.

Text: Mimi Nguyen
Bilder: http://bauhaus-online.de und http://www.bauhaus.de