Black Mountain: An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933-1957

by Eugen Blume, Matilda Felix (Editor), Gabriele Knapstein (Editor)

The interdisciplinary and experimental educational ideas espoused by Black Mountain College (BMC), which was founded in North Carolina in 1933, made it one of the most innovative schools, after the Bauhaus, of the first half of the 20th century. Visual arts, economics, physics, dance, architecture and music were all taught here on an equal footing, and teachers and students lived together in a democratically organized community. The first director of the school was Josef Albers, and icons such as John Cage, Walter Gropius and Buckminster Fuller were among the many luminaries invited to teach. In consequence, BMC witnessed the development of a cutting-edge range of avant-garde concepts and ideas that still influence the art world today. This richly illustrated book appears in conjunction with the Black Mountain exhibition. It is the first comprehensive publication on BMC in the German-speaking world and traces the key moments in the history of this legendary school.

Genres: Art

464 pages, Hardcover

First published July 5, 2015

Reviews

[Mike Polizzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A catalog that accompanied a traveling expedition of the works of various personalities associated with the Black Mountain Art College, the collected articles provide a good beginning survey of the experimental college's many phases and foci, utilizing primary sources as well- the book itself sports an experimental design and while some articles succeed more than others in capturing their allotted part of the college's past, on the whole the format works in invoking the spirit of the school and how its principles informed the mid-20th century avant garde. I most appreciated the final note on the college's closing from a former student and am left interested in further details regarding the paths its students followed after leaving the school.