Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum Presents a Special Internet-Only Exhibition about Bauhaus Art

"Extra Ordinary Every Day" considers five themes in the work of the progressive German school

CAMBRIDGE, MA (June 22, 2003) - Twenty-one objects from the permanent collection of the Busch-Reisinger Museum are now part of a unique online exhibition about Germany's Bauhaus school of art. The interactive exhibition of objects can be viewed at www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/sites/eoed through December 31, 2008.

The primary goal of the Bauhaus, the progressive institution for the teaching of art and design in early-20th-century Germany, was to articulate modern culture through "new" forms designed for everyday life. Extra Ordinary Every Day: The Bauhaus at the Busch-Reisinger offers a "tour" of objects the Museum obtained for its collection during the period after World War II. The exhibition was organized by Kimberly Mims, who was Werner and Maren Otto Curatorial Intern at the Museum in 2000-2002.

"As this Internet exhibition demonstrates, we are no longer trapped by limitations of space and time in gaining access to Museum exhibitions," said Marjorie B. Cohn, acting director of the Harvard University Art Museums. "Even if you cannot travel to Cambridge, you can see this show; and we can keep it 'on view' far longer than the artworks themselves, some in light-sensitive media, would allow. The Moholy-Nagy film and sculpture, which is very fragile and cannot be operated without risk, can now be set into virtual motion on demand."

Utilizing information and images gathered from HUAM's new online database, Collections Online, the exhibition presents objects grouped into five thematic sections: Lamp, Chair, House, Stage, and Auto. By clicking on the images a visitor can secure more detailed information about each object. A list of artists associated with the Bauhaus whose works are in the Harvard University Art Museums allows users to link to Collections Online and browse further. The exhibition acts as an informative tool for navigating specific areas of the collection online and helps to relate artists and their works to one another in useful ways.

Artists included in the Internet exhibition are Anni Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer, Karl Hubbuch, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, and Andor Weininger. Of particular note is the 1930 film by László Moholy-Nagy entitled Lightplay: Black, White, Gray. The film has been digitized and put online in connection with Moholy-Nagy's Light Prop for an Electric Stage (Light-Space Modulator), which is in the collection of the Busch-Reisinger Museum and is the subject of the film. Supplementing Moholy-Nagy's film and apparatus are objects and documents that help to contextualize the artist's fascination with light and its display. These include his synopsis for a longer film on the subject of light that was never executed.

Extra Ordinary Every Day: The Bauhaus at the Busch-Reisinger, according to organizer Mims, "attempts to address the intersection of fine art and the production of useful things by imaginatively reconsidering relationships among the objects in the Museum's collections, using thematic groupings based on visual analogies. A second aim of the exhibition is to connect the Museum's functions as a site of both exhibition and archive by hyperlinking the objects in the exhibition to the online public database."

The Bauhaus
Founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar by architect Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus school operated during the relatively liberal period of the Weimar Republic, which emerged after the downfall of Kaiser Wilhelm II and his empire. The National Socialist Party, led by Adolf Hitler, closed the school definitively in 1933.

Extra Ordinary Every Day focuses on one part of the Busch-Reisinger Museum's collection, which in total comprises paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and thousands of prints, drawings, and photographs, including the archives of Lyonel Feininger and Walter Gropius. The virtual installation offers a glimpse into a much larger collection that can be viewed in person in the Busch-Reisinger Museum galleries and study room.

Extra Ordinary Every Day: The Bauhaus at the Busch-Reisinger was made possible by the Eda K. Loeb Fund.