![\"Sue](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/06_Spayth_PC_1922_dance_classes.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n 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<\/p>\n
In 1933, a radical artistic programme was established by Professor John Andrew Rice in North Carolina\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
As part of the first major exhibition to take place in Germany, the new show \u201cBlack Mountain College: An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933\u20131957<\/a>\u201c will be housed at Hamburger Bahnhof \u2013 Museum f\u00fcr Gegenwart until late September. Given its close ties with European Modernism, where many of its teachers were German emigr\u00e9s and former Bauhaus teachers fleeing the Nazi regime, including: the artists Josef and Anni Albers, stage designer Alexander \u201cXanti\u201c 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\u2019s history. Co-curator Gabriele Knapstein explains that it\u2019s possible to study \u201cthe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the college\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s loose abstract canvases which stand aloft with Josef Albers\u2019 impressive geometric works. Anni Albers\u2019 woven textile pieces, also featured, are totemic of the college\u2019s approach to handiwork, showing an inclusive attitude towards all artistic practices previously disregarded as \u201cmerely craft\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Seemingly hundreds of pamphlets and documents, including the student\u2019s 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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cthieves\u201d and \u201chippies.\u201d Of course, such opinions were antithetical to the college\u2019s practice, where Rockburne later explains how \u201cBlack Mountain saved my life. It was monumental.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBlack Mountain College: An Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933\u20131957\u201c will be housed at Hamburger Bahnhof \u2013 Museum f\u00fcr Gegenwart \u2013 Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in cooperation with the Freie Universit\u00e4t Berlin and the Dahlem Humanities Center, funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. 5 June \u2013 27 September 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n More: Derek Jarman’s Super 8’s<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Construction](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/07_BMCRP_Box_90_Archietecture.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"College](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/08_BMCRP_Collegegebaeude_A.jpg\")
College Building, A. Lawrence Kocher (architect), Lake Eden Campus, 1940-41, copyright and courtesy of Western Regional Archives, States Archives of North Carolina<\/p>\n![\"Exhibition](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/14_Ausstellungsansicht_BLACK_MONTAIN.jpg\")
Exhibition view Black Mountain College. An interdisciplinary experiment 1933- 1957 at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum f\u00fcr 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.\u00a0 Robert Rauschenberg: Untitled (Black Painting) Convention, 1952.\u00a0 Copyright Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, SMB, photo by Thomas Bruns<\/p>\n![\"Cy](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/01_Twombly_Untitled_1951_Jochen_Littkemann.jpg\")
Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1951. Bitumen and emulsion paint on canvas, 125.7 x 137.8 cm, copyright Cy Twombly Foundation, Photo by BPK,\u00a0 National Gallery in Hamburger Bahnhof, SMB, Marx Collection, on loan from private collections, courtesy Jochen Littkemann<\/p>\n![\"Josef](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/02_Josef_Albers_Variant_Adobe.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"Photography](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/10_BMCRP_Box_90.jpg\")
Photography lessons with Josef Albers, Lake Eden Campus, 1944, copyright and courtesy of Western Regional Archives, States Archives of North Carolina<\/p>\n
Text by Abigail Toll<\/strong><\/p>\n