A Recent Piece of Bauhaus History: Modernist Archive Receives Significant Donation
Art pieces, drawings, and documentary materials from the »Bauhaus Psychology – Workshop with Robert Wilson« project will be added to the Modernist Archive’s collection at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Artist Jenny Brockmann and gallery owner Dorothée Nilsson officially handed over the archival materials on Wednesday, 8 July 2026. The total value of the donation is an estimated 19,000 euros.
The archival materials arrived at the Modernist Archive (AdM) at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in the spring of 2026, and their handover is now official. The donation includes art pieces as well as extensive documentation from the »Bauhaus Psychology – Workshop with Robert Wilson«, which was created in 2023 by the Bauhaus.Medien.Bühnen Labor at the Faculty of Media as part of the Kunstfest Weimar to mark the 100th anniversary of the first major Bauhaus Exhibition. The project was initiated by Prof. Henning Schmidgen from the Professorship of » Medientheorie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte«.
Gertrud Grunow, a Bauhaus master who has largely been forgotten, was the focal point of the workshop, along with her teachings on perception, movement, and balance. Together with Robert Wilson, internationally renowned director and artist, Ute Ackermann, art historian and curator at the Bauhaus Museum Weimar, and art historian and curator of Galeria Studio in Warsaw Paulina Olszewska, students in the workshop explored the multifaceted ways in which »Bauhaus Psychology« has been received. The reception ranges from Grunow’s collaboration with Hamburg psychologist Heinz Werner to the connections between Wilson and developmental researcher and psychoanalyst Daniel Stern. The discussions centred around the question of what role the body, space, movement, and perception play today and how Grunow’s theory of balance can be developed in architecture, art, dance, theatre, and film. The event was met with great interest in the summer of 2023, drawing large crowds to the Oberlichtsaal at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
The donation includes a drawing signed by Robert Wilson during the workshop, drawings by artist Jenny Brockmann depicting the spatial architecture she designed specifically for the Oberlichtsaal, as well as »discourse objects« specifically created for the event. The collection is rounded out by extensive documentation that makes the project and its development permanently accessible for research and teaching.