Oskar Schlemmer, László Moholy-Nagy & Farkas Molnár: The Theater of the Bauhaus: Bauhausbücher 4

by Oskar Schlemmer, Farkas Molnar (Artist), László Moholy-Nagy (Photographer)

Now reissued in Lars Müller’s Bauhausbücher facsimile series, The Theater of the Bauhaus is one of the great documents of modernist multimedia art The Bauhaus revolution left no discipline untouched, and the new conceptions of theater and stage design developed by Oskar Schlemmer, László Moholy-Nagy and their students were especially transformative, unprecedented and influential. Published as the fourth Bauhaus publication in 1925, The Theater of the Bauhaus was the ultimate statement on Bauhaus theater. Addressing everything from stage design to costume, spatial dynamics and choreography to the human body, and abundantly illustrated with documentation of performances and diagrams, the book presents an energetic vision of a total art.

Bauhaus theater was essentially shaped by Schlemmer, who had taken over the stage department in 1923. Moholy-Nagy, who was appointed to the Bauhaus the same year, took an interest in abstract kinetic and light phenomena, which he examines in his essay "Theatre, Circus, Variété." Farkas Molnár focused on stage architecture, which he discusses in detail here.

84 pages, Hardcover

Published January 12, 2021

About the author

Oskar Schlemmer was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school.

In 1923, he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working at the workshop of sculpture. His most famous work is Triadisches Ballett (Triadic Ballet), which saw costumed actors transformed into geometrical representations of the human body in what he described as a "party of form and colour".

Along with Schlemmer's diary, his private letters to Otto Meyer and Willi Baumeister have given valuable insight on what happened at the Bauhaus; especially his writings of how the staff and students responded to the many changes and developments at the school.

Reviews

[Alissa Clemmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

very interesting, read it for a class project