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College Art Association, Taylor & Francis, Ltd. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Art Journal
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Dietrich Helms
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Fig. 2. Hans Poelzig, Warehouse in Vinnhorst, 1920-1921.
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Fig. 6. The Abstract Cabinet." Installed by El Lissitzky in Hannover Landes museum in 1927. Destroyed by the Nazis in 1936. Photograph shows reconstruction for the
exhibition.
Fig. 7. A wall of "The Abstract Cabinet." Left to right: Moholy Nagy, Moholy Nagy, El Lissitzky, Schlemmer.
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and thus create understanding for the reality concepts of its
period. Extensive labelling, texts, booklets, photographs, as
well as effective display of the collections in so-called Period
rooms-giving a sensory representation of art historical evolu-
tion and its inherent dynamism, served this purpose (fig. 7).
Dorner faced a particular problem in the installation of a
room for modern art. He invited Theo van Doesburg to solve
the problem, Doesburg added only one more work of art to
those already existing, namely stained glass windows. Dorner,
however, looked for a new milieu in which abstract compo-
sitions could function. El Lissitzky found the solution: The
walls of that room were sheathed with narrow tin strips set
at right angles to the wall plane (figs. 6 & 7). Since these strips
were painted black on one side, gray on the other, and white
on the edge, the wall changed its character with every move of
the spectator. The sequence of tones varied in different parts
of the room. This construction thus established a supraspatial
milieu for the frameless compositions. This visual mobility
was further increased by placing a sculpture by Archipenko in
front of a mirror. The mirror reflected the reversed side
of the metal strips, not the side seen by the spectator.
Thus the mirror effect extended the elusive wall construction in
such a way that that construction changed its identity in continu-
ing. All display cases and picture mounts were made movable
to reveal new compositions and diagrams. This room con-
tained many more sensory images than could have been ac-
commodated by a rigid room. Mobility exploded the room, as it
were, and the result was a spiritual intensification, proportion-
ate to the evolutionary content of the display cases, which
tried to demonstrate the growth of modern design in its
urgent transforming power.
This room, called "the Abstract Cabinet" and completed
in 1927, soon became known all over the world.
Fig. 8. El Lissitzky, Lithograph from the Kestner Folder, No. 1.
The Room of Our Time, which Dorner had planned in
collaboration with Moholy-Nagy, then teacher at the Bauhaus
(Dorner had strong ties to Gropius and the Bauhaus) was
never finished. The Nazi Government forbade the completion.
position as director at the Landes museum to fight for abstract With great courage Dorner succeeded in saving the Abstract
art and to make it victorious. From 1922 on he reorganized Cabinet until 1936, when it was finally destroyed by the Nazis.
step by step the galleries of the museum. His point of view The displayed works of art were confiscated in 1937 and partly
was that an art museum had to cover the whole stretch from destroyed, partly sold to foreign countries.
prehistoric art to the most modern movements, showing the Dr. Dorner emigrated to the United States. El Lissitzky had
inner coherence and the growth of man's faculties. He, there- already left Hannover. Schwitters fled to Norway and later
fore, bought the contemporary art of those days: Lissitzky, Archi- lived in England. Vordemberge-Gildewart went to Switzerland
penko, Moholy-Nagy, Vordemberge-Gildewart, Schlemmer, and from there to Amsterdam.
Baumeister, Kandinsky, Jawlensky, Klee, Feininger, Delaunay, After the barbarism of the Hitler times Hannover never
Picasso, Gleizes, Marcoussis and as the first museum director, again reached the intensity of the 1920's. Probably more
a painting by Piet Mondrian and a sculpture by Naum Gabo. people participate now in cultural events, but the decisive cul-
Due to Dorner's purchasing policy the Hannover Museum tural achievements-conglobated in that period-are lacking.
had before 1937 probably the largest collection of modern art. The exhibition "The 1920's in Hannover" should not only
In the Nazi campaign against "degenerate art" it lost 250 be a pleasant memory of a brilliant epoch, but should clear
works of art. But Dorner's activities went further. He re- our past and give impetus to the present, in particular to the
organized the wide-ranging museum collections in such planning
a of the new art museum in Hannover. It would be
manner that the works of art were liberated from their isola- unforgiveable not to make use of Dorner's fruitful piercing
tion, making them a positive force in the nexus of public life. advance towards a "living museum" and instead merely add
He wanted to show every work of art in its historical context one more sterile museum to the others.
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