Bauhaus Spirit: 100 Years of Bauhaus (2018)

Free, bookings essential
Unclassified
Film duration: 95 minutes

Operating in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin from 1919 to 1933, the Bauhaus was a German art school that made a significant contribution to modernist art, design and architecture internationally. This insightful documentary takes a close look at the influence of the Bauhaus over the 100 years following its founding. Unpacking the social and political ideals emerging from the school – especially from prominent members such as Walter Gropius, Wassily Kadinsky, Paul Klee and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe – Bauhaus Spirit: 100 Years of Bauhaus looks closely at how these ideas have continued to influence international design.

Bauhaus Spirit: 100 Years of Bauhaus is presented in connection with Anni and Josef Albers, a free exhibition on display at the National Gallery from 8 June until 22 September 2024.

Exhibition curator Imogen Dixon-Smith (Kenneth E. Tyler Curator, International Prints and Drawings) will provide an introduction at the start of the film.

Anni and Josef Albers is a Kenneth E. Tyler Collection exhibition. The National Gallery gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Exhibition Patron Penelope Seidler AM.

Lifelong artistic adventurers Anni and Josef Albers were leading pioneers of twentieth-century Modernism. Guided by Josef’s theory of colour and Anni’s formal exploration of pattern making and weaving, the exhibition brings together prints by both artists from the National Gallery’s Kenneth E. Tyler Collection along with paintings and archival materials.

The Bauhaus was a brief but monumental modernist project. Across 15 heady years, students and masters came together in Weimar, Dessau and Berlin under the common goal of renewing artistic endeavour, rejecting the academies of the past to embrace a new spirit ‘dependent upon the cooperation of many individuals, whose work reflects the attitude of the entire community’ (Oral history interview with Anni Albers, 1968). Two figures in particular stand steady in the unsettled life of the school. Enrolling as students at the Bauhaus in 1920 and 1922 respectively, Josef and Anni Albers became two of the most persistent forces dedicated to implementing the Bauhaus vision until the school was shuttered in 1933.

For the Albers, principles absorbed during their time at the Bauhaus crackled like embers beneath their mature art practices in America. In 1963 the couple were introduced to up-and-coming printer Kenneth Tyler during a residency at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles. Anni, Josef and Tyler connected with great intensity over a shared commitment to innovation through practice, the marriage of craftmanship and industrial processes, collaborative thinking and high-quality art accessible to the masses.

Art Meets Film is a free program of film screenings presented in partnership by the National Gallery of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.