I.
Oskar Schlemmer was one of the leading figures of the Bauhaus in the 1920’s Weimar Germany, famous in pioneering a radical theory of dance and theatre who’s insistence on incorporating technology and the mechanical world has never been matched. A life is replete with mysteries and contradictions—not least of which being his failed attempt to appease the Nazis--Oskar Schlemmer’s theory of man and the body encapsulates perhaps the greatest mystery of all; that of creating a new vision of humanity through dematerializing the body. Ironically, “dematerialization”, according to Schlemmer, only requires more material. His staging and theatre called for elaborate costumes, and set-designs to attempt to mask the hidden humanity underneath the weight of abstract shapes and forms, thereby allowing us the pure aesthetic contemplation of its movement and beauty[J1] . Schlemmer’s quest to liberate the body from the shackles of natural form led him even further into to collapse the distinction between man and machine, creating a paradoxical history that, on the one hand, was deeply anthropocentric, and, on the other, inhuman and abstract.[1] Critics have, of course, seen the problems behind both positions, and, to this day, Schlemmer is (wrongly) remembered as a member of that long, shabby company of modernists too obsessed with the possibilities of machine to produce durable artwork. However, before characterizing Schlemmer in such negative light, we must observe and review the consequences of his theory of man in the humanistic terms that he himself set out to prove.
II.
The discourse surrounding Oskar Schlemmer, then, revolves around his relationship and expropriation of machine culture. A large and grandiose part of Weimar culture at the time, fascination, horror, and embrace of the machine lay behind much of the contrasting imagery that made up the mad political and social landscape of Weimar.[2] Some artists, such as the Futurists, embraced, the machine, while others saw nothing but horror and desolation within it.[3] Faced with the terrors of machine warfare, as expressed in World War 1, artists were left with a choice; either embrace the machine, as the futurists did, turn away from machines entirely, or, in the third way[J2] that Walter Gropius defined , “domesticate” the machine and make it habitable and useful, rather than dangerous.[4]
III.
This third way was pursued actively in the Bauhaus, a group of artist, theorists, and craftsmen, that sought to unite all the art-forms toward a new way of living in harmony, rather than in opposition to, the machine society. Though the Bauhaus has often been mischaracterized as a group of soulless people desiring to make art into a mechanical, reproducible exercise,[5] the end goal of their art was, as Gropius described, to ‘tame’ the machine, and to make it habitable and useful for the modern man.[6] The Bauhaus ethos, then, was undeniably humanistic, as much as it might have been based on the practical dictates of the machine.
IV.
The way to bridge the gap between Art and Life, and thus enshrine and uplift man would be through the unity of artistic medium, represented by the Bauhaus members in Architecutre—the literal “house” of art. In their manifesto, Walter Gropius, written by Walter Gropius in 1919, architecture, both literally and metaphorically, became the symbol for a new world order that united the machine, art, and man, culture: “”.[7] The architectural metaphor became extremely important in the writings and theories of the Bauhaus, for the house represented both the domestic and social center of the world; a place where theory and practice converged to revolutionize society.[8] Though Schlemmer never sought to integrate dance within the home and daily life, as contemporary Dance theorists such as Rudolph von Laban and Mary Wigamn did[9], his emphasis on the stage as the place where transcendence can occur certainly replicates the emphasis on architecture that the rest of the Bauhaus members employed. *[J3]
IV.
Thus, architecture, and the stage, created for Schlemmer the forum in which he could produce his new idea of the body. The stage, as argued by Schlemmer, was to be the nexus of a new artistic order that united the distinct differences and contrasts between types and led man toward a higher awareness. This approach, which was nothing less than cosmic, explains why Schlemmer theorized about a grade world stage, a stage that could adapt itself for any purpose.[10] According to Schlemmer, shape and space were central to modern art, and as such, his architectural plans, as grandiose as they were, also represented the metaphysical project of unification that he had earlier described.
V.
Schlemmer’s emphasis on space, then, lies behind his crucial theories of dance and acting as well. In his seminal 1923[J4] essay, Man and Art Figure, argued that the quest of meaning in space led to a quandary, an impasse that would constitute not only the approach toward theatre, but also the approach toward man and life:
“Either abstract space is adapted in deference ot natural man and transformed back into nature or the imitation of nature…Or natural man, in deference ot abstract space, is recast to fit its mold. This happens in the abstract stage.”[11]
Man then, must submit himself to the rules of cubical and mathematical space in order to achieve this abstraction, and thereby, the “dematerialization” that allows him to transcend the body. It is on the stage, thus, that man can and does reform himself. The stage provided the testing-ground for Schlemmer’s theories, then, where, helped by the attendant rudiments of stage costume and set-desgin, Only through these accompanying elements could mankind reach his highest potential.
Schlemmer opened his seminal 1923 essay with, Man and Art Figure, a cosmic dictum about the history of mankind and the stage: “The history of the theater is the history of the transfiguration of the human form. It is the history of man as the actor of physical and spiritual events, ranging from naivete to reflection, from naturalness to artifice.”[12] Man, therefore, exists in flux, between two poles of being—nature and artifice, man and machine. The only way to transcend this difficulty, as described in regards to space, would be to choose one of the other, to choose the abstract assimiliation of space into the body. *[J5]
The school was founded in 1919 on the wings of the new Weimar Republic as an experimental art and training school. Striving to achieve a true form of craftsmanship once and for all, the Bauhaus members, from Gropius to Kandinsky, argued that the unity of all art-forms allowed man to come into his own. Man, according to the Bauhaus members, was the ultimate prupose of united art-form, the ultimate object and scale of their delights. Though the Bauhaus has often been mischaracterized as a group of soulless people desiring to make art intoa form of machinic excerise, it’s members from the very start had a humanistic basis and training.[13] The end goal of art was, as Gropius described, to ‘tame’ the machine, and to make it habitable and useful for the modern man.[14] The Bauhaus ethos, then, was undeniably humanistic, as much as it might have been based on the practical dictates of the machine.
[1] RESEARCH Schl. crtiics
[2] SEE other research
[3] SEE the FUTURIST MANIFESTO
[4] GROPIUS QUOTE, GIVE counterexamples
[5] WHO SAID THIS?
[6] FIND quotation about “taming the machine”
[7] QUOTE The Manifesto of the Bauhuas
[8] ?
[9] QUOTE guidebook
[10] QUOTE Schlemmer’s essay on the stage
[11] Schlemmer, Oskar. 1996. The Theater of the Bauhaus. PAJ books. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press., 22.
[12] Schlemmer, Oskar. 1996. The Theater of the Bauhaus. PAJ books. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press., 17
[13] WHO SAID THIS?
[14] FIND quotation about “taming the machine”
[J1]When phrased this way, I cannot help but be reminded of Brehct’s theatre’s similar attempt to cause “recognition of man” but alienation away from him…see BENJAMIN
[J2]Sonderweg?
[J3]You’re stumbling by combining too many arguments; move on rather than destroy yourself. I see too many hazards floating in the water; most of them should be avoided, and fast.
[J4]???
[J5]begin long exigesis of the essay, Man and Art Figure.
No comments:
Post a Comment