Another History for H.B. and R.L.

Peter Cripps’ Another History references Austrian artist Herbert Bayer (H.B.) and the Australian scholar Robert Lingard (R.L.). Lingard is a professor of education who, like Cripps, is interested in the speculative nature of culture and ideas. Bayer was an artist who taught for a time at the Bauhaus in Germany during the 1920s and then in the United States of America where he continued to advocate for artistic pursuits that were integrated into the fabric of a modern industrialised society.

Bayer was well known for his graphic design but also his ground-breaking exhibition displays. In the form of a drawing he proposed a radical viewing experience that encircles the viewer in a fragmented yet enclosed space. Cripps’ work realises Bayer’s drawing into a three-dimensional form with flat panels and the addition of mirrored surfaces that critique the system of viewing objects from the front. By re-creating Bayer’s proposal, Cripps’ work considers the role of history in art and how ideas from the past can travel with people and through time.