An investigation of the irrational and the unconventional currents swirling behind the Bauhaus's signature sleek surfaces and austere structures.
The Bauhaus (1919-1933) is widely regarded as the 20th century's most influential art, architecture and design school, celebrated as the archetypal movement of rational modernism and famous for bringing functional and elegant design to the masses. In Haunted Bauhaus, art historian Elizabeth Otto liberates Bauhaus history, uncovering a movement that is diverse and paradoxical. Otto traces the trajectories of the school's engagement with occult spirituality, gender fluidity, queer identities and radical politics.
The Bauhaus is often associated with famous artists, architects and designers - notably Paul Klee, Walter Gropius, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Breuer. Otto enlarges this narrow focus by reclaiming the historically marginalized lives of many of the more than 1,200 Bauhaus teachers and students (the so-called Bauhausler). Otto reveals Bauhaus members' spiritual experimentation, expressed in double-exposed "spirit photographs"; their explorations of the dark sides of masculinity and emerging female identities; the "queer hauntology" of certain Bauhaus works; and the role of radical politics on both the left and the right - from Communism to Nazism.
