The starting point of the lecture by Prof. Dr. Regina Bittner is Ivana Tomljenovic's film bauhaus in 57 sec, a unique document of life at the Bauhaus at the end of the 1920s and is now part of the MSU Zagreb collection. The Zagreb-born student found an experimental learning environment at the Bauhaus Dessau, which promised an alternative to training at traditional art academies. Her fellow student Otti Berger, also from Croatia, shared this experience and spoke of “institions of dead conventions” in an interview in the Bauhaus magazine in 1929. This snapshot of the memories of these two Bauhaus women forms the starting point for reflections on historiographies of the avant-garde school. 

The lecture reflects on the formation of a specific Western hegemonic Bauhaus narrative in exhibitions, publications, collections and conferences. This is not just about “untold histories” and the associated change of perspective. Rather, the geographically far-reaching encounters of the Bauhaus challenge linear chronological narratives of influence and transfer, center and periphery, and can rather be depicted in an interwoven structure of different narratives. Could the synchronicity of the film and the rhythms of weaving that characterized the work of the two Bauhaus women be understood as an invitation for polyphonic and controversial readings that also make the Bauhaus relevant to the questions of the present?

Regina Bittner is head of the Academy and deputy director of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. She is responsible for the conception and teaching of the postgraduate and transdisciplinary programmes on transcultural modernism in design, architecture, and Bauhaus studies. She has curated numerous exhibitions on the Bauhaus and the cultural history of modernity, including the collection presentation “Versuchsstätte Bauhaus. The Collection” at the Bauhaus Museum Dessau. 

She studied cultural studies and art history at the University of Leipzig, completing her doctorate at the Institute for European Ethnology at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Her research interests combine cultural anthropological approaches in architectural and design theory with questions of decolonisation, transcultural modernity, and critical heritage and its communication in teaching and curatorial practice. Since 2019 she has been an honorary professor at the Institute for Art History and Archaeology at the Martin Luther University in Halle. From 2021 to 2022 she was a visiting professor at the Institute of Cultural Studies at the University of Leipzig.

The lecture is part of the international project Bauhaus Ecologies, led by Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, which focuses on exploring the ecological, social, and cultural dimensions of the Bauhaus in a contemporary context. Project partners include the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb in collaboration with Academy of Fine Art. 

In the fabric of Bauhaus Narratives
Prof. Dr. Regina Bittner
Gorgona Hall
Thursday, February 6, at 5 pm