Sue Spayth (left) and unknown students before Lee Hall, Blue Ridge Campus, c.1938, copyright and courtesy of Western Regional Archives, States Archives of North Carolina
In 1933, a radical artistic programme was established by Professor John Andrew Rice in North Carolina’s bible belt. The isolated rural town of Black Mountain was to become the historic location for a college which propagated groundbreaking educational and artistic practices and would go on to forge an avant-garde approach to artistic training.
As part of the first major exhibition to take place in Germany, the new show “Black Mountain College: An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933–1957“ will be housed at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart until late September. Given its close ties with European Modernism, where many of its teachers were German emigrés and former Bauhaus teachers fleeing the Nazi regime, including: the artists Josef and Anni Albers, stage designer Alexander “Xanti“ Schawinsky, architect Walter Gropius and dancer Elsa Kahl, it’s remarkable that only now, is the programme being brought to a German audience. Structured in three main phases and organised chronologically, the show offers a broad introduction to the college’s history. Co-curator Gabriele Knapstein explains that it’s possible to study “the avant-garde in the mid-century in a nucleus when you look into what was going on at Black Mountain, with their holistic idea of what good education and artistic training should include for everybody.”
Construction of a college building, Lawrence Kocher (architect), Lake Eden Campus, 1940-41, copyright and courtesy of Western Regional Archives, States Archives of North Carolina
College Building, A. Lawrence Kocher (architect), Lake Eden Campus, 1940-41, copyright and courtesy of Western Regional Archives, States Archives of North Carolina
In the college’s early years, the staff invited the architect A. Lawrence Kocher to design their new building, which the students and teachers would go on to construct, as per their interdisciplinary and multi-media programme. This included building, washing dishes and gardening in order to give a more rounded education founded on the idea of working with their hands. The structural apparatus of the exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, designed by raumblabor_berlin, is loosely based on the architecture of Black Mountain College and is intended to give an impression of its atmosphere and style.
Guided by a philosophy that posited anti-hierachical values between students and teachers, the college was governed together, without interference from foreign boards. Being financed through private foundations meant that the community had full autonomy over their approach to music, visual arts, theatre, dance, architecture, weaving, woodwork, literature, creative writing next to humanities and natural sciences.
Exhibition view Black Mountain College. An interdisciplinary experiment 1933- 1957 at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin. From left: Photography: Hazel Larsen Archer: Elizabeth Schmitt Jennerjahn and Robert Rauschenberg dancing, c.1948. Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1951. Robert Rauschenberg: Pink Door, 1954. Robert Rauschenberg: Untitled (Black Painting) Convention, 1952. Copyright Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, SMB, photo by Thomas Bruns
During the forties, the college attracted guest lecturers such as the composer John Cage, dancers Merce Cunningham and Katherine Litz as well as students including Ursula Mamlok, Robert Rauschenburg and Cy Twombly. Many of their works are interspersed throughout the space including Cy Twombly’s loose abstract canvases which stand aloft with Josef Albers’ impressive geometric works. Anni Albers’ woven textile pieces, also featured, are totemic of the college’s approach to handiwork, showing an inclusive attitude towards all artistic practices previously disregarded as “merely craft”.
Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1951. Bitumen and emulsion paint on canvas, 125.7 x 137.8 cm, copyright Cy Twombly Foundation, Photo by BPK, National Gallery in Hamburger Bahnhof, SMB, Marx Collection, on loan from private collections, courtesy Jochen Littkemann
Josef Albers, Variant, Adobe, 4 Central Warm Colors Surrounded by 2 Blues, 1948. Oil on Masonite, 66 x 90.8 cm, copyright The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015
Seemingly hundreds of pamphlets and documents, including the student’s bulletin, line the exhibition’s borders, where the archive is fecund with personal descriptions of the intimate performances that were given by its exceptional students, offering a cerebral and fascinating insight to the political diatribes of the day. The students’ artistic and intellectual exuberance permeates the archival material with frequent references to the electrifying experimental collaborations between John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Several audio devices are placed around the exhibition hall and offer enchanting soundtracks of classical scores and lecture recordings, opening up even more possibilities when paired with the surrounding visual material, which includes the poignant momentos that are Josef Albers black and white images of the community at work.
Photography lessons with Josef Albers, Lake Eden Campus, 1944, copyright and courtesy of Western Regional Archives, States Archives of North Carolina
Although the exhibition acts as a broad introduction to the College’s oeuvre, still you find yourself spending hours absorbing the minutaie poetic phrases, images or sound contained within it. It’s advisable to set aside a whole day for this presentation, or be prepared to revisit the exhibition in order to catch one of artist and composer Arnold Dreiblatt’s performances along with students from a number of European artistic institutions. Together, they have interpreted the historical documents in order to question the college’s model and ongoing legacy. In addition, hours worth of video documentation, poetic films and interviews with its alumni offer captivating insights to daily life at the college and also contain some frankly alarming anecdotes about the Black Mountain locals. In one interview with former student and abstract painter Doreatha Rockburne, she remembers encountering extreme racial rituals in the community by those who also considered the students “thieves” and “hippies.” Of course, such opinions were antithetical to the college’s practice, where Rockburne later explains how “Black Mountain saved my life. It was monumental.”
Text by Abigail Toll
“Black Mountain College: An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933–1957“ will be housed at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in cooperation with the Freie Universität Berlin and the Dahlem Humanities Center, funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. 5 June – 27 September 2015
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