Elmhurst Art Museum Announces "Whole World A Bauhaus"

In celebration of Bauhaus100, the centenary anniversary of Germany’s influential Bauhaus school of art and design (1919-1933), the Elmhurst Art Museum will host the only U.S. appearance of the international traveling exhibition, The Whole World a Bauhaus, February 23 – April 20, 2019. Complementing this broad, historic survey will be a range of contemporary art and design programming for all ages, including site-specific works staged by Chicago-based artists within the Museum’s Mies van der Rohe McCormick House.

Programming highlights (in chronological order)

All public programs listed are free with Museum admission or membership. Select programs require reservations.

McCormick House Installations: Assaf Evron & Claudia Weber
February 16 – April 14, 2019

With an experimental spirit and contemporary lens, Chicago-based artists Assaf Evron and Claudia Weber will transform the McCormick House. Israeli-born Evron will create an installation inspired by Mies’s handmade collages to connect features of architecture with ideas about immigration, including his own personal experiences. The windows will be treated images of Germany and the Middle East furthering a conversation about global citizenship, while also collapsing rational architecture with the natural world. The German-born Weber will actually reside in the other half of the McCormick House. For the duration of the exhibition, she will create changing installations, showcase the works of Olivia Block and Kate Park, interact with visitors, and host a variety of events. Weber’s projects will reflect on the structure’s history as a prototypical home and current function as a museum space. Her activities can be followed online at https://www.150southcottagehillave.net/ and via Instagram @150southcottagehillave.

Opening Lecture: Margret Kentgens-Craig
Saturday, February 16, 1:30 pm

Scholar Kentgens-Craig will expand on the legacy of the legendary school and its lasting effects in the United States. Kentgens-Craig is adjunct associate professor of architecture at the NCSU College of Design and former head of the department of archives and collections at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, in Germany. She is the author of several books of the Bauhaus including The Bauhaus and America: first contacts 1919-1936 and The Bauhaus in America: the modernist émigrés and their influence on American architecture, interiors, and design, 1920-1940.

Family Day Workshops
Saturdays, February 23 and April 6, 1-4 pm

Children and parents are invited to participate in hands-on STEAM activities inspired by the interdisciplinary ideals of the Bauhaus. Available to all ages. Free with museum admission.

McCormick House Tours: From the Bauhaus to Our House
Sundays, February 24, March 10, and March 17, 1:30 pm

Learn about the history and unique design of the McCormick House. This docent-led tour will introduce concepts in the historical exhibition The Whole World a Bauhaus and end in the two contemporary site-specific exhibitions in the McCormick House.

Virtual Bauhaus: An Interactive Exhibition
March 1 - 22, 2019

Visitors can experience an interactive, virtual tour into the essence of the Bauhaus: its ideas, products and masters! In the spirit of The Bauhaus’ central goal, to harness modern technology in order to improve the lives of everyday people, Virtual Bauhaus uses innovative Virtual Reality technology to bring Bauhaus to any space anywhere in the world. After putting on VR glasses, the

visitor tours the iconic Dessau Bauhaus School as a former student, interacting with and exploring its architecture, design and educational philosophies. Spoken eyewitness accounts and background information round out the experience.

Artists Talk: Assaf Evron and Claudia Weber
Saturday, March 2, 1:30 pm

Evron and Weber reflect on their artistic intent and interests in Mies’s legacy, the Bauhaus, and unique features of the McCormick House—the site of their site-specific installations.

Teen Design Competition Workshop
Saturday, March 16, 1:30 pm

Just as Bauhaus students were encouraged to use the materials and technologies of their day, teens will be introduced to a variety of methods to fabricate their creative designs in advance of the Teen Design Competition, April 13. Design professionals will teach skills and provide advice on how to construct their projects. Teens interested in all media are encouraged to attend. Free, no registration required. Sponsored by the OPUS Foundation.

McCormick House Tours with Claudia Weber
Sundays, March 24 and April 14, 1:30 pm

Visitors are invited to tour the McCormick House with exhibiting artist Claudia Weber to learn about her site-specific projects including research about the 1952 prefab prototype, various changing installations including works by other artists, interactions with visitors, and more.

Discussion and Oral Histories of the McCormick House
Saturday, March 30, 1:30 pm

Mies van der Rohe’s McCormick House has been part of Elmhurst’s history since it was built in 1952. Participate in recording memories of this historically significant building, including conversations with former McCormick House residents. Co-organized with the Elmhurst History Museum.

Book Discussion: The Turner House
Tuesday, April 2, 6:30-8 pm

Shortlisted for the National Book Award for Fiction and later winning the VCU First Novelist Award, The Turner House by Angela Flournoy tells the story of a Detroit family with 13 children as it responds to the economic woes of the city, in both the 1940s, and then in 2008. Co-organized with the Elmhurst Public Library. Please register in advance by calling (630) 834-0202.

Lecture: “Bauhaus Translated: Transcultural Encounters with the Avant-garde school”
Sunday, April 7, 1:30 pm

Dr. Regina Bittner, Head of the Academy of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and responsible for the conception and teaching of the postgraduate programs for design, Bauhaus and architectural research, will give a talk on the global impact of the Bauhaus. Bittner has curated numerous exhibitions on the Bauhaus and the cultural history of modernism. Co-organized with Northwestern University and Elmhurst College.

Teen Design Competition
Saturday, April 13, 3:30 pm (reception)

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, the Museum has invited area teens to submit their own architecture and design proposals and this juried competition will be on view celebrating creative design of today’s young creatives. Sponsored by the OPUS Foundation.

Soirée 2019: Celebrating Bauhaus100
Saturday, April 27, 6 pm

Elmhurst Art Museum’s Soirée 2019 celebrates the centenary of the Bauhaus. This annual gala, presented by EAM’s Sustaining Fellows, will include cocktails, a multi-course dinner, entertainment, and live and silent auctions filled with artworks by established and emerging artists as well as a fabulous selection of vacations and experiences. Ticketed event; visit www.elmhurstartmuseum.org for more info.

About The Whole World a Bauhaus

Touring the world, the exhibition The Whole World a Bauhaus celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus, which revolutionized the parameters of art, craft, and technology. Elmhurst will be the only stop in the United States following appearances at museums in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. The eight chapters of the show focus on different aspects of the work and life at the Bauhaus during its operation. Photographs and documents combine with art and design pieces by Bauhaus masters and students—such as Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Josef and Anni Albers, László Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer and more. The eight themes - Art, Crafts, and Technology; Floating; Community; Encounters; The Total Work of Art; New Man; Radical Pedagogy; and Experiment - highlight the work students did in their revolutionary workshops with industrial materials and processes, the school’s major impact on the international avant-garde, and how the students and instructors sought to rethink their world.

About the Bauhaus and its relation to Elmhurst Art Museum

Under pressure from the National Socialists, the Bauhaus closed in 1933. After that, many of the school’s influential figures left Germany and spread the Bauhaus’s lessons internationally, including Mies van der Rohe and others who emigrated to the United States. Mies went on to create glass and steel structures that are now a hallmark of Chicago’s skyline. He influenced generations of students and is now considered one of the 20th Century’s greatest architects.

“Overseeing one of only three houses in the U.S. built by Mies van der Rohe, the final director of the legendary school, the Museum is uniquely positioned with international partners to reveal the global impact of the Bauhaus,” said John McKinnon, Elmhurst Art Museum executive director. “We’re proud to present exhibitions and programs about the lasting legacy Mies left in Germany before he completely transformed modern architecture from a home base of Chicago.”

Both The Whole World a Bauhaus and Assaf Evron & Claudia Weber are part of the Year of German-American Friendship initiated by the German Federal Foreign Office and the Goethe-Institut, and supported by the Federation of German Industries (BDI). Virtual Bauhaus is developed by the Goethe-Institut Boston in cooperation with Cologne Game Lab (CGL) at TH Köln and a team of Bauhaus advisors.

About Elmhurst Art Museum

Elmhurst Art Museum is located at 150 South Cottage Hill Avenue in Elmhurst (IL), 25 minutes from downtown Chicago by car or public transportation (Metra). The Museum is both an international destination for Mies van der Rohe scholars and fans and a regional center where people from Chicago and the western suburbs learn to see and think differently through the study of the art, architecture and design of our time.

The Museum is one block from the Elmhurst Metra station and open Tuesday-Sunday from

11am -5pm. Admission is $12 ($10 for seniors) and free for students and children under 18. For more information, please call 630.834.0202 or visit elmhurstartmuseum.org.

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MEDIA CONTACTS:
Amanda Berrios/Beth Silverman
The Silverman Group, Inc.
Amanda@silvermangroupchicago.com
312-932-9950

Header photos (from left):

Kurt Schmidt, Construction for fireworks, from the Stage Workshop, 1923, lithograph / Reproduction 2017. Photo: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen

Anni Albers, Carpet for a children’s bedroom, 1923 Wolle, Wool, hand-spun and hand-knotted / Re-weaving by Christopher Farr 2014. Photo: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen

preparatory collage by assaf evron for mccormick house