Bauhaus: Art as Life

I arrived at the Barbican centre to see the Bauhaus exhibition. I used to work across the road from the Barbican and had forgotten the sheer scale and imposing nature of the place. I don’t know much about this post-modern movement called Brutalism, but the stark and fortress-like monstrosity of the Barbican cannot be ignored, especially on a cold, wet London night. I hurried through the maize of concrete to find the entrance.

Inside, the Barbican is equally imposing, with block-like spaces and dark corers. This place, playing host to the Bauhaus exhibition, is, in it’s strange way, probably the best place for a Bauhaus exhibition to sit. These contrasting, yet very powerful movements complement each other and create an interesting overall effect.

I studied the Bauhaus a good many years ago, so I enjoyed wondering through the exhibition as names and works were remembered. It is always far more rewarding seeing art for real – rather than in a text book. Names such as the founder Walter Gropius, the expressionist Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, et al all came flooding back as I paused to examine examples of their work. The arts and crafts, the powerful graphic design and fonts, the photography and the architecture.

For the ex-graphic designer that I am, I was quite inspired. Even if from a top-level “shallow” perspective, without going into the whole psychology and analysis of the movement… I enjoyed the shapes of the teapots, the eery puppets and looking up close at the posters and photographs in a time long before mine.

What I never learnt back at school, and what struck us at the exhibition was the community spirit these creative personalities and artists had. What fun they had designing invitations for events and parties. The home-made gifts they made for each other on their birthdays, and the fun that came through in their work and photography. The joyful, playful approach and the passion in their approach - to enjoy and relish in their creativity and friendships. Just being silly. Maybe we’ve lost a bit of that as we all strive to pave a path for ourselves in today’s competitive world.

It struck me that maybe the hippies of the sixties and the revolution of Woodstock, was not the first modern break from society. Maybe these conservatively dressed artists of the Bauhaus were the real ones to start a revolution. Maybe. But then, in the late 1930s, times changed with the rise of the Nazis. Radically. So I guess we’ll never know.