Bauhaus Construct ─ Fashioning Identity, Discourse and Modernism

Reconsidering the status and meaning of Bauhaus objects in relation to the multiple re-tellings of the school’s history, this volume positions art objects of the Bauhaus within the theoretical, artistic, historical, and cultural concerns in which they were produced and received.

Contributions from leading scholars writing in the field today – including Frederic J. Schwartz, Magdalena Droste, and Alina Payne – offer an entirely new treatment of the Bauhaus. Issues such as art and design pedagogy, the practice of photography, copyright law, and critical theory are discussed. Through a strong thematic structure, new archival research and innovative methodologies, the questions and subsequent conclusions presented here re-examine the history of the Bauhaus and its continuing legacy. Essential reading for anyone studying the Bauhaus, modern art and design.

Jeffrey Saletnik is Lecturer and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Art History and Archeology at Columbia University. Recently he was a fellow of the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin.
Robin Schuldenfrei is Junior Professor of Art History at Humboldt University, Berlin and Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Introduction Jeffrey Saletnik and Robin Schuldenfrei Part 1: Agents 1. The Bauhaus Manifesto Postwar to Postwar: From the Street to the Wall to the Radio to the Memoir Karen Koehler 2. The Irreproducibility of the Bauhaus Object Robin Schuldenfrei 3. The Disappearing Bauhaus: Architecture and its Public in the Early Federal Republic Frederic J. Schwartz 4.Pedagogic Objects: Josef Albers, Greenbergian Modernism and the Bauhaus in America Jeffrey Saletnik Part 2: Transference 5. A Refuge for Script: Paul Klee’s "Square Pictures" Annie Bourneuf 6. Lyonel Feininger’s Bauhaus Photographs Laura Muir 7. Excavating Surface: On the Repair and Revision of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's Z VII Joyce Tsai 8. Picturing Sculpture: Object, Image and Archive Paul Monty Paret Part 3: Object Identity 9. Designing Men: New Visions of Masculinity in the Photomontages of Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Elizabeth Otto 10. The Bauhaus Object between Authorship and Anonymity Magdalena Droste 11. The Identity of Design as Intellectual Property T’ai Smith 12. Bauhaus Endgame: Ambiguity, Anxiety and Discomfort Alina Payne