Bauhaus Lab 2019
Out of the Suitcase: A Dispersed Collection
12 June – 9 September 2019
What happens with an everyday object when it becomes part of a museum collection?
In 1936 Marcel Breuer, who had emigrated to London the year before, designs a table for the Isokon Furniture Company. The table was bequeathed to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Gilbert and Winifred ‘Mainie’ Cousland, authors of progressive children’s books and Breuer’s neighbours in the Lawn Road Flats. It is now part of the comprehensive collection of Bauhaus objects held by the V&A.
In the Bauhaus Centenary 2019, Bauhaus Lab studied selected objects from this collection and research the provenances and migration movements, exhibition careers and historiographies in which they have played a part. The research findings will be presented in an experimental exhibition in the Bauhaus building, and constitute a contribution to the conference “Collecting Bauhaus” taking place in December 2019.
The participants, young academics working in the fields of design and architecture in a creative, curatorial or research capacity, were selected by an international jury. The programme ended with a joint exhibition at the Bauhaus Dessau.
