Dinner in Kreuzberg

On Saturday, we walked and talked and spent most of the afternoon at home. We later in the day met up with an old friend and her husband (who we had never met) at their garden space in southern Kreuzberg. They bought along an old friend with his family who are from the northern part of Holland. The common language of the evening was English, since this is more universal for the Dutch than German. We spoke little about the Bauhaus and more about Obama's visit, his chances for success and whether he will survive past his first term if elected.

Although I have not formed an essential thesis about the Bauhaus, I found several items of interest and have come away with a continued belief that this art movement touched nearly every type of artistic production, although I haven't really found any specific art making practice or pedagogy that points to propaganda or political production. No political posters, no film work, no paintings of capitalists with their hands on a stack of money. However, what is apparent is the interesting disparity or contradictions in the different artists, designers and architects that taught in Weimar, then Dessau. Kandinsky, Schlemmer, Albers and particularly Itten held up the fine art aspects of teaching and often became a counter-point to the architects and handwork teachers that drove the commercial art aspects of the Bauhaus. Although not entirely a new notion, the team teaching aspect of the artist and craftsman teaching somewhat side by side helped create a dynamic that would point the student toward artistic but usually functional commercial production usually. But the Bauhaus would often find pupils working as painters, sculptors or set designers and not part of the "bau" or for commercial success.

A Geman Bauhaus link: Bauhaus Store
Tagline: "Wenn gut's werden muss" (When 'good' is a must?). From a utopian art movement to an online store of cheap household products. From a product brochure: "Bauhaus (1919-33) has become a byword for the synthesis of art and technology, functional aesthetics and forward-looking teaching methods. All over the world, Bauhaus design has come to epitomise modernity."