Iwao Yamawaki, Cafeteria after lunch, Bauhaus, Dessau (1932)
Essay by Attila Vajda
Upon my visit to the Tate Modern I selected the Japanese Photography and the Bauhaus room. I didn’t know much about the Bauhaus or Japanese photography before and the images seemed to resonate. The objects photographed, the angles used were similar to works of surrealist photographers I find powerful and I felt a wish to know more about the connection between them. Also, I am keen on learning about the technical ways of photography.
What is the message behind such images? What is the importance of the different angles? Why photograph at all? A set of three, square format abstracts by Kiyohiko Komura use cropped images of body parts. A pair of knees, montage of a floating torso, curves. The subject and representation reminded me of Kertesz Andre and a series of photographs by Shikanosuke Yagaki were similar to Brassai’s photos. According to the exhibition notes on the wall Iwao Yamawaki, an architect and photographer is close to the initial ideas of the Bauhaus, he studied at the Dessau branch of the school under Walter Gropius and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Uses unusual angles, photographs impressive light-shadow play, structures. The Cafeteria after lunch is a photograph that was made in 1932 inside the Bauhaus building in Dessau. Its size is 80 x 111 mm, gelatin silver print on paper. There is a man and a woman in the centre of the image. They are sitting at a long table. Other people are sitting at the tables as well who are further from the camera and look smaller in scale. The woman is facing the camera, with her head lying on her arm, the man is with his back to the camera and rests on his elbow. They look relaxed, probably on a break from work or classes. At first sight it has the impression of an amateur photograph. What is special about this photograph? Why is it in the Tate Modern in a room next to Bridget Riley’s?
There is tremendous amount of information written on the subject.
The Bauhaus was created by Walter Gropius in 1919. In his manifesto he wrote down its aims such as: “The Bauhaus strives to bring together all creative effort into one whole, to reunify all the disciplines of practical art-sculpture, painting, handicrafts, and the crafts-as inseparable components of a new architecture”. One of its principles was “Avoidance of all rigidity; priority of creativity; freedom of individuality, but strict study discipline”. The Bauhaus also aimed at placing emphasis on workshop activities. Rather than working as teachers and students, members of the institution were developing together in a master, journeyman and apprentice relationship. Roland Barthes writes critical thoughts about the teacher-student roles in his essay “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers”. Some of the Bauhaus masters were Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee.
Although photography was not part of the Bauhaus curriculum as an official subject until 1929, ten years after the school’s launch, it was used for documentation, experiments with the image, and taking life photographs. Painting, Photography, Film is an important book of the subject, written by Moholy-Nagy. It is a manifesto of photography’s possible directions, which “replaced the material handicraft of painting with the immaterial, optical, and technical procedures for the construction of images almost overnight”. Photography could “extend the limits of the depiction of nature”. It mentions that the medium was a century old at the time but until then man’s vision was not mature enough to be able to see its deeper creative directions. It considers photography as a rather effective representational tool to painting and highlights new directions of painting that were made available by the invention of photography (pure colour composition, absolute painting, static and kinetic optical composition). The camera processes light in a way similar to the eye. It can help us in understanding our vision, can challenge our thinking patterns and assumptions about our world. Photography can be a fruitful soil for our will to learn and explore. Moholy-Nagy writes: “We may see that we see the world with entirely different eyes”. He is looking for new relationships of the known and the unknown.
The book mentions five important approaches to photography that (even today) offer infinite creative possibilities for practice and discovery: reality-photo, photogram, photomontage, photo with etching/painting and typophoto.
- The reality photo can be the way for the “the old seen anew”. Bauhaus students photographed everyday objects from unusual angles and distances, for example people form the top of their head, the building’s balconies from underneath or body curves in close up. The unfamiliar feeling of these angles are often only realised when they are looked at on the photographs.
- The photogram is created with capturing light from different sources on light-sensitive paper. Camera-less photography offers new ways of “light-composition” and ideas to use alternative photographing processing. I had the chance to try and create photograms at a darkroom introductory session, which was a very engaging creative experience. Although it seems to be a quite costly practice today, I would like to continue experimenting. Light makes the colour-sensitive paper turn black, reducing the amount of light hitting the surface creates shades of black while complete darkness keeps the paper white: it requires an alternative way of thinking. Also, outcomes can be rather impressive. Moholy-Nagy was one of the first and most important practitioners of the medium along Man Ray.
- Photomontage is created with cutting, pasting, mounting. Originates in Futurism and Dadaism. Franz Roh writes: “Formerly a demolishment of form, a chaotic whirl of blown up total appearance, now shows systematic construction and an almost classic moderation and calm”.
- Photographs can also be mixed with graphic art. Drawing, painting or other methods can be used with photography.
- Moholy-Nagy writes about typophoto as a solution for certain social problems. It can serve as an international connection. “Typophoto is the visually most exact rendering of communication” and it is a crucial part of the foundations of the “new world” he envisions.
Looking at snapshots taken of the life at the Bauhaus one can see it had a lively, cheerful social atmosphere. These snapshots bear a significance, which I didn’t realize when I first looked at Iwao Yamawaki’s photograph taken of the Bauhaus canteen. I saw it as an average, amateur photograph with no importance. A woman is lying on a very simple table and seems to be engaged in conversation with a man sitting in front of her. After reading about the Bauhaus I can place the image in a different context. The tubular steel chairs they are sitting on were produced at the Bauhaus and had a radical, innovative design at the time; they are statements. The furniture, the building can be seen as symbols (whether they were meant to be symbols or not). They represent the aims and principles of the Bauhaus, its manifesto, its radical ideas, the kind of world it conceptualizes. The people can mean the living matter, human, the user, the purpose of the surroundings. The Bauhaus creation and the people are in interaction with each other.
Andreas Haus in his essay Photography at the Bauhaus highlights the importance of the these lively snapshots: “The Constructivist human being/architecture system of motifs, the oblique views, moving pictures with the effect of interaction models, details, lack of focus, over-and underexposure, everything “surprising” and “never seen anything like it,” “photographic wit as well, everything that has anything to do with the theorems of structure, texture, surface and heaps,” which were among the Bauhaus students’ obligations in the preliminary course and which Moholy had wittily transferred to the light and shade phenomena of photography - all this was now used in a liberated amateur fashion, in order to place the world of personal experience into a relationship with the claims of the Bauhaus environment.” The grand, high-flown ideas of “professionals” are applied in the hands of the amateur in everyday settings with a free experimentation. The different angles and perspectives Moholy-Nagy preaches about, which allow us see unknown knowledge and dimensions, might develop more freely in human, balanced life conditions.
Contents of a photograph can be seen in multiple ways depending on the context. I wonder what people thought at the time of the Dessau building or the design of the chairs. What did local people think? The surrounding houses were completely different. The Nazis banned the Bauhaus, held their first burning rituals with its books and planned to demolish the building. What did people think from other parts of the world? How do we see it today? It is also an important period of photography to travel back to in terms of comparing the analogue photographic process to digital. Although digital processing is used mainly and is more available nowadays, analogue is considered a different medium with valuable potentials. How did those ideas get executed since then? How relevant are they and how can we apply those ideas in today’s digital medium? What are the possible new directions, unknown knowledge, false assumptions that the current state of technology could help reveal?
Bibliography:
Books:
Bauhaus Photography (1985) London: MIT;
Fiedler, J., Bauhaus Archiv. (1990) Photography at the Bauhaus. London: Nishen;
Fiedler, J. (2001) Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. London: Phaidon;
Kentgens-Craig, M. (1998) The Dessau Bauhaus building, 1926-1999. Basel: Birkhauser;
Moholy-Nagy, L. (1969) Painting, Photography, Film. London: Humphries;
Roh, F. (1929) Photo Eye: 76 photos of the period. Stuttgart: Akademischer verlag dr. Fritz Wedekind & Co.;
Wingler, H. M. (1969) The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago. London: MIT;
Film:
Whitford, F. (1994) The face of the 20th century: Bauhaus. Arthaus Music;
Images:
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ldkuxdCNbL1qas9gro1_500.jpg 24/11/2011 13:33
