Beyond Weaving: Transdisciplinarity and the Bauhaus Weaving Workshop

Abstract

For the Bauhaus, the much written about short-lived German art school, the year 2019 marked the centenary of its founding. The anniversary provided scholars with a special opportunity to consider the school, its teachings and affiliated artists, anew. The Bauhaus’s experimental approach to pedagogy and practice, paired with a call for unity among the arts as well as collective and collaborative effort among artists, proved formative for Anni Albers (who enrolled at the Bauhaus in 1922) and her weaving workshop cohort. Their work, theoretical writings and weavings, well expressed and demonstrated the striking interdisciplinarity of the school, as well as the transdisciplinarity of weaving. Artists involved with the Bauhaus weaving workshop, through study and/or teaching, developed a practice that embraced architecture, sculpture, and painting in unity. Their efforts helped to spur future generations of artists, such as Lenore Tawney, to move beyond disciplinary bounds and create work that demonstrates the flexibility and endless adaptability of weaving as well as the disciplinary construct. With their work, Albers and Tawney, liminal figures in the art historical discourse, pressed weaving beyond disciplinary boundaries, highlighting the transparent structures that seem to separate painting, drawing, sculpture, and architecture. Their transdisciplinary oeuvres productively challenge scholarly designations and classifications.