Bauhaus Bodies

A century after the Bauhaus's founding in 1919, this book reassesses it as more than a highly influential art, architecture, and design school. In myriad ways, emerging ideas about the body in relation to health, movement, gender, and sexuality were at the heart of art and life at the school. Bauhaus Bodies reassesses the work of both well-known Bauhaus members and those who have unjustifiably escaped scholarly scrutiny, its women in particular. In fourteen original, cutting-edge essays by established experts and emerging scholars, this book reveals how Bauhaus artists challenged traditional ideas about bodies and gender. Written to appeal to students, scholars, and the broad public, Bauhaus Bodies will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern art, architecture, design history, and gender studies; it will define conversations and debates during the 2019 centenary of the Bauhaus's founding and beyond.

Elizabeth Otto is a professor of modern and contemporary art history at The State University of New York at Buffalo. She has published widely on gender issues in Germany's visual culture of the 1920s and 1930s, especially at the Bauhaus. Patrick Rössler is a professor of communications and empirical research methods at the University of Erfurt, Germany. His research has concentrated on media effects, political communication, and the history of visual communication, including Bauhaus graphic design and advertising.

List of Images Introduction: Embodying the Bauhaus Elizabeth Otto (University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA) Part I: The Bauhaus in Weimar and Beyond: Gendered Bodies and the Search for Utopia 1. Soft Skills and Hard Facts: A Systematic Overview of Bauhaus Women's Presence and Roles Patrick Rössler and Anke Blümm (Bauhaus Museum, Germany) 2. Bodies Drilled in Freedom: Nudity, Body Culture, and Classical Gymnastics at the Weimar Bauhaus Ute Ackermann (Bauhaus Museum, Germany) 3. The Spiritual Enhancement of the Body: Johannes Itten, Gertrud Grunow, and Mazdaznan at the Early Bauhaus Linn Burchert (Humboldt University, Germany) 4. Utopias of a New Society: Lucia Moholy, László Moholy-Nagy, and the Loheland and Schwarzerden Women's Communes Sandra Neugärtner (Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Science, USA) 5. Invisible Bodies and Empty Spaces: Notes on Gender at the 1923 Bauhaus Exhibition Paul Monty Paret (University of Utah, USA) Part II: A New Unity? Technologies and Techniques of Gender 6. Clothing Bauhaus Bodies Kathleen James-Chakraborty (University College Dublin, Ireland) 7. Paul Klee and the New Woman Dancer: Gret Palucca, Karla Grosch, and the Gendering of Constructivism Susan Funkenstein (University of Michigan, USA) 8. Ise Gropius: "Everyone Here Calls me 'Frau Bauhaus'!" Mercedes Valdivieso (University of Lleida, Spain) 9. Dörte Helm, Margaret Leiteritz, and Lou Scheper-Berkenkamp: Rare Women of the Bauhaus Wall-Painting Workshop Morgan Ridler (Montclair State University and Westchester Community College, USA) 10. Androgyny in Oskar Schlemmer's Figural Art Deborah Ascher Barnstone (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) Part III: Identities and Ideologies in Bauhaus Photography and New Media 11. Disorder or Subordination? On Gender Relations in Bauhaus Photographs Burcu Dogramaci (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany) 12. Bauhaus Double Portraits Karen Koehler (Hampshire College, USA) 13. "A School for Becoming Human": The Socialist Humanism of Irene Blühová's Bauhaus Photographs Julia Secklehner (Courtauld Institute of Art in London, UK) 14. Marcel Breuer and the Theatrical Interior Jordan Troeller (Harvard University, USA) List of Contributors Index