Bauhaus: Our Play, Our Party, Our Work
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Concept and design for an exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the Bauhaus School in Germany.
The exhibition took place in the Youth Wing of the museum, and was therefore aimed at bringing forward the ideology and the concepts which were prevalent in the school during its 14 years of operation.
The exhibition consisted of both original art work done by the teachers and students at the school, as well as new art work commissioned by contemporary artists and designers especially for the exhibition.
The exhibition took place on both gallery floors of the Youth Wing spanning an area of 800m².
The lower floor was dedicated to the foundation courses at the Bauhaus and provided an introduction to abstraction in art through concepts of form, color, space and materiality. The layout was designed according to the Walter Gropius’s diagram detailing the curriculum of the foundation courses at the Bauhaus during the first 3 years of study. The exhibits on this floor consisted of various installations which allowed direct interaction and experimentation with the different concepts prevalent in the pedagogic methodology of the Bauhaus and allowed the visitors to explore these ideas firsthand.
Along with these installations, animations of the different teachers at the Bauhaus such as Klee, Kandinsky, Gropius and Itten presented each individual’s artistic premise and rationale. Original art work done by these prominent figures was displayed on the perimeter walls outside the curriculum diagram and highlighted these various ideas in their own work.
The second floor of the exhibition presented the work carried out at the Bauhaus centering on the industrial, architectural and furniture designs which have since become cultural icons. In relation to the Bauhaus concept of “building as stage”, a 1:75 scale model of the Bauhaus School in Dessau designed by Gropius was constructed and enabled the visitors to physically interact with it. Multiple screens were incorporated into the model and presented different animations illustrating daily scenes at the school. Part of the model was constructed as an actual stage designed to open up and exhibit a puppet theatre commissioned specifically for this context and detailing the life of the students within the school.
Curators: Eli Bruderman and Noga Eliash-Zalmanovich
Graphic Design: Idan Vaaknin
Production: Lia Lahav-Keinan
Photos: Eli Posner, Israel Museum
Client: Youth Wing, Israel Museum
Building Area: 800 m2
Phase: Completed 2019
