Collecting Bauhaus

The international conference Collecting Bauhaus will be the final event of the centenary. Curators, collectors, art historians, teachers and representatives of museums are invited to come to Dessau and talk about the globally dispersed histories of objects and collections of the Bauhaus.   

The Bauhaus Archive Berlin, die Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and the Klassik Stiftung Weimar are the institutions with the three largest Bauhaus collections of the world. However, the Bauhaus is not just national but international heritage. Bauhaus objects and convolutes are dispersed all over the world. The closure of the Bauhaus by the National Socialists, the defamation of its works as “degenerated”, flight and emigration have led to the situation that Bauhaus objects are being collected all over the world.  

The conference Collecting Bauhaus shows that the new Bauhaus Museum Dessau is part of a worldwide network of museums with Bauhaus collections. They are often linked with both private fates in the turbulent 20th century and the mechanisms and dynamics of the international art market. The participants will talk about the multifaceted provenances of the collections and the varying exhibition and teaching strategies, and on this basis, discuss issues of a global Bauhaus historiography. And finally, it should be reflected on how the global interconnections can be made fruitful for a Bauhaus museum in the 21st century.