Moving Networks

Although the institutional framework of the leading art and design school of its time disintegrated with the closure of the Bauhaus in April 1933, it continued to exist as a virtual structure of various networks of its members, which were to be examined empirically and whose formation often went back far into the history of the school. From this perspective, the history of the Bauhaus during the politically explosive period of the 1930s and 1940s can be continued in a methodologically sound manner. This is done through the cooperative approach of art history and communication studies, which examine six networks as examples. On the one hand, systematic questions, such as the formation of rules in these network formations, are of fundamental importance. On the other hand, the historical perspective also makes it possible to reconstruct the changed conditions of artistic productivity. These insights, with their topologies and dynamics, are to be synthesized and re-integrated into the historiography of the art school as a new plurality.