Keith Krumwiede The Bauhaus Tweets Published in Log 22:The Absurd Summer 2011

Keith Krumwiede

The Bauhaus Tweets

On January 16, 1954, Asger Jorn, who founded the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus the previous December, wrote to Max Bill, former Bauhaus student and founding director of the Hochschule fr Gestaltung in Ulm, saying, among other things, that: Bauhaus is the name of an artistic inspiration. Bills response came quickly. On January 23 he wrote: Bauhaus is not the name of an artistic inspiration, but the meaning of a movement that represents a well-defined doctrine. To which Jorn replied on February 12: If Bauhaus is not the name of an artistic inspiration, it is the name of a doctrine without inspiration that is to say, dead. A long silence followed. One day in 1961, one of Bills assistants returned from the jobsite of the Imbau-Spannbeton AG headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany, with a photograph of the building. There were strange marks, like hieroglyphs, written on the windows. On September 1, 1961, a tweet from Bill to Jorn broke the silence. * * * mobiusbill @situationjorn what have you done to my building? the marks, the pornographic scratches! how dare you! http://is.gd/KxPddt 1:17 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web situationjorn @mobiusbill Why send me a picture like this? Its not as if I can unsee this atrocity! Youve ruined my day. This building is tragic. 2:01 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill situationjorn @mobiusbill Is this where we are headed? Is this the future of architecture? Lifeless, soul-crushing buildings? 2:01 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill

Max Bill, Imbau-Spannbeton AG Headquarters, Leverkusen, Germany, 1961. Photo 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ ProLitteris, Zurich.

mobiusbill @situationjorn lifeless? my building is a work of art, the product of a carefully crafted algorithm, a perfect expression of our time! 2:05 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn
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mobiusbill @situationjorn and you, or one of your lackeys, has defaced it. 2:06 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill Me? I can barely look at it! At least someone found a way to turn that monolith into a canvas with a few strokes of the brush. 2:25 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill1 situationjorn @mobiusbill Too bad its so easily erased. 2:26 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill mobiusbill @situationjorn my building is not some cheap department store painting for you, or any second-rate artist, to mark with childish graffiti. 2:27 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn mobiusbill @situationjorn it is a monument to the mathematical approach! it is a perfect expression of the methods and technologies of our age. 2:29 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn2 mobiusbill @situationjorn it could be no other way! 2:30 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill An expression of our age? Are you mad? 3:05 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill situationjorn @mobiusbill Math and numbers are not expressions of anything. They are tools for the domination and diminution of the people. 3:06 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill mobiusbill @situationjorn math is all that there is you fool. get your head out of your ass and join the modern world. computation is the future! 3:15 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill Jesus Christ. I am sick of your math and your formulas and your instrumentalization. 4:00 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill situationjorn @mobiusbill Art is inspiration and expression. It cannot be reduced to the product of an equation. 4:01 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill
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1. Asger Jorn, Detourned Painting, 1959.

2. Max Bill, The Mathematical Approach to Art, 1949.

3. Bill, Structure as Art? Art as Structure? 1974.

mobiusbill @situationjorn of course not, but in the end art = order. pure self-expression is for children and lunatics. clearly you are mad! 4:35 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn3 mobiusbill @situationjorn are you there? 9:00 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill My god you are exhausting. Go back to your minor buildings and mathematical art. Art order. Art = life. 10:06 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill4 situationjorn @mobiusbill The world wants to live, to be free of the tyranny of growth and profit and the subjugation of science by capital. 10:06 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill situationjorn @mobiusbill And we, @constant & @deborEd, are on the front lines in the battle for liberation. 10:07 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill mobiusbill @situationjorn so you are awake. 10:08 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill You, who should know better, have clearly chosen to stand against us and to stand against art, to stand against play. 10:10 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill situationjorn @mobiusbill To stand against life. I hope you end up impaled on one of your perfect forms. 10:11 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill mobiusbill @situationjorn screw you and your situationist pals and your play. you cant stand against progress. you should and you will be trampled. 10:15 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill Poor Bill, dont you know, humanity wants to play. Play or be played with or to be played for. 10:25 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill5 situationjorn @mobiusbill And keep in mind what Almqvist says: Paint, sing, write everything only, only dont be boring. 10:30 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill6
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4. Jorn, Luck and Chance, Dagger and Guitar, 1963.

5. Jorn, Aesthetics as play or game, 1963.

6. Jorn, Aesthetics as inspiration, enthusiasm or spontaneity, 1963.

mobiusbill @situationjorn boring? the term is meaningless to me. but of course, an entertainer like you would shudder at such an accusation. 10:35 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill Boredom is death because the outcome is known. I am a gambler, not an entertainer. 11:01 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill situationjorn @mobiusbill As Ill one day say, pure chance rules. Either one wins or one loses everything one has put in. It is all or nothing. 11:02 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill7 mobiusbill @situationjorn well, as Ill say one day, artists like you belong to the domain of jugglers, conjurers, the circus, and the fairground. 11:05 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn8 situationjorn @mobiusbill Exactly! To the world of free play and magic! The world of the street and of LIFE, in all its amoral incarnations! 11:07 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill9 mobiusbill @situationjorn youll never learn. if art is play, it is serene play in search of nonchangeable, elementary truths. 11:10 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn10 situationjorn @mobiusbill But to live is to change. We, and all our forms, are in a constant state of transformation. 11:12 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill11 mobiusbill @situationjorn thats always been said by so-called avant-gardists, everything changes, everything is life, everything is in motion. 11:15 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn12 mobiusbill @situationjorn but though the environment and the onlooker are subject to change, this does not go for the aesthetic object. 11:16 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn13 situationjorn @mobiusbill Ahhh, die gute form again. You Functionalist Rationalists still believe it is possible to attain ideal, definitive forms. 11:18 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill14
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7. Jorn, Aesthetics as amusement or diversion, 1963.

8. Bill, Art as Non-Changeable Fact, 1974.

9. Jorn, Intimate Banalities, 1941.

10. Bill, Art as Non-Changeable Fact.

11. Jorn, Architecture for Life, 1954.

12. Bill, Art as Non-Changeable Fact.

13. Bill, Art as Non-Changeable Fact.

14. Jorn, Architecture for Life.

15. Jorn, On the current value of the functionalist idea, 1956.

situationjorn @mobiusbill But you ignore the psychological function of the environment. 11:19 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill15 mobiusbill @situationjorn hardly, the mathematical approach to art is in reason, its dynamic content is able to launch us on astral flights . . . 11:22 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn16 situationjorn @mobiusbill Flights to where? Utopia? The facts are that people are saddened when they dont find some unexpected element in the known. 11:25 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill17 situationjorn @mobiusbill And for the sake of your objects you ignore this simple truth! 11:26 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill mobiusbill @situationjorn and you ignore this eternal truth: the purpose of art is to give aesthetic measure . . . how difficult it is to measure exactly! 11:35 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn18 mobiusbill @situationjorn and how important for society that this measuring functions correctly so our environment may be well and durably established. 11:37 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn19 mobiusbill @situationjorn btw, thats two perfect 140 character tweets! 11:38 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill What is it with you and perfection? You really need to loosen up. Youre a slave to numbers and formulas. To the market. 11:40 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill situationjorn @mobiusbill You insist on measuring art in terms of its efficient, rational, production. As if it were a toaster . . . 11:41 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill situationjorn @mobiusbill You sound like an accountant. 11:42 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill mobiusbill @situationjorn better an accountant than a clown! 11:45 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn
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16. Bill, The Mathematical Approach to Art, 1949.

17. Jorn, Architecture for Life.

18. Bill, Art as Non-Changeable Fact.

19. Bill, Art as Non-Changeable Fact.

20. Jorn, Letter to Enrico Baj, 1953.

situationjorn @mobiusbill Whatever, when will you realize that art must be a research into the imagination, fantasy, signs, symbols . . . 11:50 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill20 mobiusbill @situationjorn your imagination will lead you nowhere except to the walls of some collectors house . . . 11:51 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill . . . like those written across the face of your empty, worthless shell of a building. 11:51 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill21 mobiusbill @situationjorn . . . or the library of some scholar researching the dead ends of art after the important works and artists have been exhausted. 11:52 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill Better the wall of an avid appreciator of our struggle than sitting on a barren plaza in front of some corporate headquarters. 11:52 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill mobiusbill @situationjorn so it was you! 11:54 PM Sep 1st, 1961 via web in reply to situationjorn situationjorn @mobiusbill I admit nothing . . . 12:00 AM Sep 2nd, 1961 via web in reply to mobiusbill

21. Jorn, Value and Economy, 1962.

Keith Krumwiede is associate professor and assistant dean at the Yale School of Architecture and a partner in Standard, an architecture and design office founded in Los Angeles in 1994. 68