[spectre] (fwd) exh. Black Mountain, an Interdisciplinary Experiment 1933-1957, Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof

[Andreas Broeckmann]

Exhibition

BLACK MOUNTAIN
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPERIMENT 1933 – 1957

5 JUNE 2015 – 27 SEPTEMBER 2015

http://black-mountain-research.com/exhibition/

Two works by Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg in the permanent 
collection of the Nationalgalerie originated at Black Mountain College 
in 1951 and 1952. These works form the starting point of an exhibition 
about the legendary American arts college, which existed from 1933 to 
1957 near Asheville in North Carolina. College lecturer John Andrew Rice 
founded Black Mountain as a learning community which, with its 
progressive principles and methods of education, moved beyond the 
teaching practices previously standard at colleges and universities. 
Black Mountain was conceived right from the start as an 
interdisciplinary and above all experimental college that promoted 
collaboration, in line with the forward-thinking educational system 
proposed by philosopher John Dewey. Not least thanks to the many leading 
personalities who taught and studied there, Black Mountain remains a 
fascinating example of a self-governed and self-sustaining college. Here 
teaching and learning were able to develop and evolve in an ongoing 
process of productive exchange. With the show in the Kleihues Exhibition 
Hall, Black Mountain College is presented as the successful model of a 
multi-disciplinary practice for the first time in a museum exhibition in 
Germany.

What set Black Mountain apart was Rice’s belief that the curriculum 
should include not just the natural sciences and the humanities, but 
that students should also receive teaching in the various disciplines of 
art. Rice regularly staffed the individual departments with radical 
thinkers who went far beyond the existing bounds of their subject. At 
the recommendation of architect Philip Johnson, in the College’s 
founding year of 1933 Rice appointed Bauhaus teacher Josef Albers – 
emigrating from Nazi Germany – as artistic director. Thanks to the 
passionate commitment of Josef and Anni Albers and of other emigrants 
from Germany who likewise taught at Black Mountain over the course of 
the 1930s and 1940s, the College profited in its early years from the 
educational principles and practical, applied-arts orientation of the 
Bauhaus and from the academic and artistic achievements of European 
modernism.

The exhibition begins by looking at the influence of the Bauhaus upon 
the cosmos of ideas at Black Mountain. Among the former Bauhaus members 
teaching at the College were not only Josef and Anni Albers, but also 
others such as Alexander Schawinsky and Walter Gropius. At the centre of 
the exhibition, whose architecture has been designed by raumlaborberlin, 
are selected key events and pioneering artistic achievements that were 
developed and explored at Black Mountain and which significantly shaped 
the history of art in the second half of the 20th century.

The exhibition aims not only to offer a historical retrospective but 
also to spotlight current debates on aspects of the education and 
training of artists today. As part of a concept developed by artist and 
composer Arnold Dreyblatt under the title PERFORMING THE BLACK MOUNTAIN 
ARCHIVE, students from various art colleges are presenting selected 
archival documents, literary texts and artistic scores within the 
exhibition itself over the entire duration of the show. Within the 
framework of a timing schedule drawn up by Dreyblatt, short performances 
will take place at various locations within the exhibition galleries 
every morning between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and every afternoon between 3 
p.m. and 5 p.m.

Curators: Eugen Blume, Gabriele Knapstein; Research Assistant and 
Coordinator: Matilda Felix

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.

An exhibition by the Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für 
Gegenwart – Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in co-operation with 
the Freie Universität Berlin and the Dahlem Humanities Center, funded by 
the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

For further information about the exhibition see
http://www.smb.museum/en/museums-and-institutions/hamburger-bahnhof/exhibitions/ausstellung-detail/black-mountain-lehren-und-lernen-als-auffuehrungskuenste.html


For further information about the Black Mountain College see 
http://www.blackmountaincollege.org