Residency in the Masters’ Houses

Living and Working in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site in Dessau

By Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

The Masters' Houses in Dessau are icons of modernity and world famous.

Walter Gropius in front of his home in Dessau (1926/27) by unknownBauhaus Dessau Foundation

It all started with him. Walter Gropius had the complex of Masters’ Houses built in 1925-26, with flat roofs, large studios and a terrace running all the way around, made of concrete, steel and lots of glass. One exemplary single villa he designed for himself as Director, and three semi-detached houses for his Bauhaus masters.

Untitled (Georg and El Muche, Wassily and Nina Kandinsky near the masters' houses, Burgkühnauer Allee, Dessau) (1926/1927) by unknownBauhaus Dessau Foundation

In the colony in the Kiefernwald the artists lived next door to each other as close neighbours. Wassily Kandinsky (on the right with his wife Nina) next to Paul Klee. Georg Muche (on the left with his wife El) next to Oskar Schlemmer. Lyonel Feininger next to László Moholy-Nagy.

Untitled (Nina Kandinsky, Georg and El Muche in front of their house in Dessau) (1926/1927) by Wassily Kandinsky (?)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

This model estate of modern architecture was for living and working in, for teaching, exhibiting and partying. Illustrious guests came from all over the world to get to know this hotspot of the international avant-garde. They included the collector Salomon R. Guggenheim, the artist Georg Grosz, the composer Béla Bartók, the dancer Gret Palucca and many others. It was seldom as quiet as it is here in this picture.

Dessau (1925 - 1928) by László Moholy-NagyThe Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

This model of living for a new age came to an abrupt end in 1932, when the Bauhaus school in Dessau was closed down under the Nazis and the Bauhaus members were forced out of the Masters’ Houses. During the war the houses of Gropius and Moholy-Nagy were destroyed by bombs. They were “reconstructed in soft focus”, that is, not as they had originally been, by Bruno Fioretti Marquez Architects in 2011-14. The other Masters’ Houses were elaborately restored from 1993 to 2002. Since 1996 the complex of Masters’ Houses has been part of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site.

Muche/Schlemmer Master House (1925-26), architect: Walter Gropius, 2018 (2018) by Walter Gropius (Architecture) and Yakob Israel Willmington-Lu (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

The Bauhaus Residency

Since 2016 artists have been living and working in the Masters’ Houses again, albeit only temporarily. The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation wants to foster contemporary discourse around artistic work in this very special place, and so invites young artists to take part in its Bauhaus Residency programme to get involved with its annual themes (2016 Movement, 2017 Substance, 2018 Standard) in their art and research.

Monica López De Victoria, Bauhaus Residency 2018, Master House Schlemmer, 27.9.2018 (2018) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

In the Muche and Schlemmer Houses the artists-in-residence can explore the ideas and people that made up the unique avant-garde school and over a period of several weeks develop their own standpoints for the future.

Bauhaus Residency: Presentation Anael Berkovitz at the Gropius House, 22.5.2018 (2018) by Yvonne Tenschert (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

In the Gropius House the artists display their work to the public at the end of their stay.

Presentation Martyna Marciniak, Florian Strob and Martyna Marciniak, Bauhaus Residency 2018, Gropius House, 2.8.2018 (2018) by Bruno Fioretti Marquez (Architecture) and Yakob Israel Willmington-Lu (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

The results are as diverse as the historic Bauhaus itself, making synergetic references to painting, design, textile design, music, theatre, performance, photography and architecture.

Anael Berkovitz, Bauhaus Residency, Schlemmer House, 13.5.2018 (2018) by Valentina Buitrago Garcia (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

The Residenzler

From 2016 to 2018 22 artists took part in the Bauhaus Residency. We are presenting seven of them and showing the work they created during their stay in the Masters’ Houses.  

Monica López De Victoria, Bauhaus Residency 2018, Master House Schlemmer, 27.9.2018 (2018) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Monica López de Victoria

Multi-media artist and synchronised swimmer from Miami, Florida, USA. Studied photography and video. With her sister Tasha she is part of the artist duo the TM Sisters. Together they develop multi-media video collages, interactive installations and performances. Her abstract play with colour, movement and geometric forms makes constant reference to the beauty and energy of sport.

Monica López De Victoria, Bauhaus Residency 2018, Master House Schlemmer, 27.9.2018 (2018) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

At the Bauhaus she experimented with various materials, including cutting, sewing and sticking coloured film sheets into abstract patterns and so coming closer to the Bauhaus masters:

“Living and exhibiting in the Masters’ Houses is for me a huge collage of energy, space, present and past, architecture, the city round-about and the people who visit it."

Monica López De Victoria von TM Sisters, Chromacasting, 2018, at the exhibition "Gropius House || Contemporary", Gropius House, Ensemble of the Masters´ Houses, 21.11.2018 (2018) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

"Leaving my work here in this place just feels logical and right.”

For her video installation she filmed herself as a synchronized swimmer and linked the theme of standards with that of rules and regulations in sport.

Bauhaus Residency | TM Sisters (2019)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Alexander Hadjiev and Mervyn Groot, Bauhaus Residency 2016 (2016)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Alexander Hadjiev and Mervyn Groot

Alexander Hadjiev (right) comes originally from Bulgaria and studied bassoon in Essen. Mervyn Groot (left) is a percussionist and composer from the Netherlands. During their stay they jointly developed musical pieces. Mervyn Groot invented additional musical instruments, drawing on the special nature of the architecture of the Masters’ Houses.

Mervyn Groot with sound machine, Bauhaus Residency 2016 (2016)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

To capture the exceptional acoustics, Groot built a sound machine.

“The Moholy-Nagy House is very interesting in its structure. It has three interlinked levels. That is like in music. A movement is played, a second movement is introduced and at some point the first is repeated. The two come together and there are endless possibilities for combining the parts of the music. The space’s sound is wonderful – really 3D.”

Alexander Hadjiev, Bauhaus Residency 2016 (2016)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Alexander Hadjiev worked with multi-media:

“Over the last few years I have seen how racism is on the increase. Young people react negatively to people who leave their homelands and to the exploration of foreign cultures. That’s why I made videos of people who have left their countries in my Bauhaus residency. It was important for me for them to tell their stories in their own native languages.”

For his presentation he then mixed these live with his music.

Bauhaus Residency | Alexander Hadjiev and Mervyn Groot (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Minha Lee, Bauhaus Residency 2018, Schlemmer House, 27.8.2018 (2018) by Yakob Israel Willmington-Lu (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Minha Lee

Born in Seoul, Korea. Studied Korean Painting in Korea and Inter-Media Art in Japan. In her work she combines the new artistic media such as video with traditional materials and techniques from Korean culture. Her works involve all the senses, provoking memories with smells or surface textures. Minha Lee explores the essence of community and living together and deals with the loss of spirituality in present-day life. The artist likes to show her works in places that are not conventional exhibition spaces – like in bars, harbours or temples.

Minha Lee, Bauhaus Residency 2018, Schlemmer House, 27.8.2018 (2018) by Yakob Israel Willmington-Lu (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

And so the Masters' Houses were an inspiring environment for Lee: “I firmly believe that an individual artist needs an artists’ group. That’s why I think the Masters’ Houses as an artists’ colony is such a great idea.

The houses are far enough apart, but since two houses are joined together, you can very quickly decide that you want to meet up with somebody now.”

Presentation Minha Lee, Bauhaus Residency 2018, Gropius House, 30.8.2018 (2018) by Bruno Fioretti Marquez (Architecture), Minha Lee (work of art), and Yvonne Tenschert (Foto)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

During her residency, Lee looked at the standardisation of the Bauhaus architects’ living space and the inhuman living conditions caused by mini-apartments in Asia. She made a micro-apartment out of traditional Korean paper.

The paper is treated with a soya oil varnish and its smell is supposed to recall the wall-covering of tiny Korean apartments. The installative paper box symbolises the efficiency of a one-person refuge.

Bauhaus Residency | Minha Lee (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Amor Muñoz, Bauhaus Residency, Schlemmer House, 2017 (2017) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Amor Muñoz

A law and art graduate from Mexico, she focuses on social themes and explores the relationship between technology and handcraft. For her performances she combines experimental electronics with traditional media such as drawing and textile techniques. In her involvement with the Bauhaus she discovered an affinity with the work of Anni Albers, who became involved with linguistic systems of order in Pre-Columbian textiles while travelling in Mexico.

Amor Muñoz, Bauhaus Residency, Schlemmer House, 2017 (2017) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

In her project on systems of language and memory the artist taught herself to weave on the loom and produced conductive woven pieces that can transmit sound and light information.

Amor Muñoz, Matter and Memory, 2017, at the exhibition "Gropius House || Contemporary", Gropius House, Ensemble of the Masters´ Houses, 21.11.2018 (2018) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

During her residency she developed a graphic binary language based on computer language. Zeros and ones are used in a certain sequence and transformed into graphic patterns which stand for each letter of the alphabet.

Her prototypical textiles in turn contain coded information which can be decrypted using the binary language system.

Bauhaus Residency | Amor Muñoz (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Andrea Canepa, Bauhaus Residency, Schlemmer House, 18.9.2017 (2017) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Andrea Canepa

Fine artist from Peru, currently living in Berlin. In her sculptures and performances she makes reference to the history of modern architecture and asks whether there is a common visual language. She had already been confronted with the ideas of the Bauhaus and became familiar with Josef Albers’ colour theory at art college in Peru. Her performance plays with movement and geometry and was inspired by Oskar Schlemmer and his ‘Triadic Ballet’.

Andrea Canepa, Bauhaus Residency, Schlemmer House, 18.9.2017 (2017) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Canepa used wooden boards in various forms and colours, with each platform being allocated its own movement which the dancers can carry out.

Andrea Canepa, Until it lives in the muscle, 2017, at the exhibition "Gropius House || Contemporary", Gropius House, Ensemble of the Masters´ Houses, 21.11.2018 (2018) by Thomas Meyer (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

In turn, the platforms work similarly to vocabulary; they symbolise something different depending on how they are arranged. As Canepa says, “I think the Bauhaus approached art in a very analytical way but without losing its experimental and playful side in the process.

That’s sort of how I work too. I always ask about the fundamentals, about how things are constructed. You need to know that so that you can start playing.“

Bauhaus Residency | Andrea Canepa (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Rudy Decelière, Bauhaus Residency, Schlemmer House, 22.6.2016 (2016) by Yvonne Tenschert (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Rudy Decelière

Sound artist born in France, living in Geneva, Switzerland. Normally he works in a darkened studio away from the world. But instead of dealing with sounds and tones as he usually does, Decelière experimented with light and photo-sensitive paper during his residency. 

Rudy Decelière, Bauhaus Residency, Schlemmer House, 22.6.2016 (2016) by Yvonne Tenschert (Photo)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

In the Masters’ Houses, where he felt fairly isolated, he observed the way the light fell in waves through the studio window and how this play of the light changed during the course of the day. He documented this transient atmosphere thus,

Bauhaus Residency | Rudy Decelière (2018)Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Credits: Story

Text / Concept / Realisation: Astrid Alexander

Editing: Astrid Alexander, Cornelia, Jeske

Translation: Catherine Hales, Stephan Schmidt

Videos: Leuthner Filmproduktion

With quotes from: Haus Gropius || Zeitgenössisch. Bauhaus Residenz-Programm 2016–2018. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Neuen Meisterhaus Gropius 01.01.2019 bis 14.02.2020. Herausgegeben für die Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau von Claudia Perren und Alexia Pooth. Mit Texten von Claudia Perren, Alexia Pooth, Julia Rosenbaum, Ariane Beyn, Michael Diers, Magdalena Droste, Caroline Jansky, Edition Bauhaus 56, Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld/Berlin 2019

© Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau

www.bauhaus-dessau.de

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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