Pécs exhibition recalls Hungarian ‘revolutionaries’ at the Bauhaus
Pioneers of Modernism
MúzeumCafé 20.
Germany’s Bauhaus was one of the most important cradles of Modernism. Inherent in the conception of the Berlin architect Walter Gropius, was not only the union of artistic genres, craftsmanship and later increasingly modern technical achievement, but also workshop experimentation with new principles. Thus young people rejecting the academic and seeking the new were drawn to the institute in Weimar, and from 1925 in Dessau, which in the end under the leadership of Hannes Meyer and later Mies van der Rohe in Berlin narrowed its focus to architectural training. Members of the most varied generations were recruited as teachers, not on the basis of their paper qualifications but because of their proven abilities. It was in Vienna that, through his wife, Gropius made the acquaintance of Johannes Itten from Switzerland. Exhibitions drew his attention to the New York-born Feininger, the Swiss Klee, the Russian Kandinsky, Muche, head of the Der Sturm art school, Lothar Schreyer, director of the Sturm drama school, and later Oskar Schlemmer and the Hungarian László Moholy-Nagy. The Hungarian students for the most part came following the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy from German-speaking families. Among the 30 or so Hungarian registered students, the career of 20 could be subsequently traced. Of these two are well known for their teaching – László Moholy-Nagy (1923-1928) and Marcel Breuer (1925-1928). The Hungarians at the Bauhaus mostly originated from Pécs, so the idea arose of organising an exhibition as part of the 2010 project ‘Pécs: European Capital of Culture’. Slowly there unfolded the rare possibility for a big international exhibition based on Hungarian initiative and conceptions to be premiered in Hungary. The exhibition’s second port of call is Berlin. Around 500 items in the display bear witness to the activities of Hungarians in an international context. Two of the earliest were the Transylvanian-born Margit Téry and Gyula Pap, whose metalwork was regarded as pioneering in Weimar. In the autumn of 1921 the intake represented something new from Pécs. With the possibilities of further studies in Budapest being excluded, it was no wonder that applicants appeared in Weimar after travelling through Italy, fleeing from the Serbs who had occupied Pécs. In Weimar, going beyond the effects of ‘isms’, under the leadership of Farkas Molnár they formed the so-called Constructivist-Utilitarian-Rational-International group, which became the effective promulgator of Constructivism in the Bauhaus. On the basis of principles enumerated by Doesburg and the Holland-based Vilmos Huszár, and publicised in De Stijl, they stepped forward with Hungarian resolution and a desire for the new. Among the students close to the Hungarians were Peter Keler and Franz Frahm-Hessler, the Estonian Rudolf Paris, as well Austrian, Czech and even Turkish artists. Their geometrical, colourful and dynamic works, as well as those of several for the most part unknown artists, are represented in the exhibition alongside creations of Andor Weininger and Farkas Molnár from Pécs.