2016 - News - Detail Page - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

For the first time in over 30 years, a major exhibition will be dedicated to furniture designer, Bauhaus member and Burg teacher Erich Dieckmann (1896-1944), which will be on show in Halle (Saale) and Berlin in spring 2022. The rediscovery of this influential designer, who, like Marcel Breuer, experimented with shapes and materials and developed type furniture programmes based on strictly geometric forms, is a joint idea of the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Art Library of the National Museums in Berlin with the Art Foundation of the State of Saxony-Anhalt and Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. Dieckmann had worked in both Berlin and Halle (Saale).

After studying architecture in Danzig and painting and drawing in Dresden, Erich Dieckmann came to the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1921 to complete an apprenticeship as a carpenter. After the Bauhaus moved on to Dessau in 1925, Dieckmann remained at the successor institution, the State Building College in Weimar, where he became head of the carpentry workshop in the same year. In 1931, he followed many former Bauhaus students such as Marguerite Friedlaender and Gerhard Marcks to the Burg Giebichenstein School of Arts and Crafts in Halle (Saale). He ran the carpentry workshop there from 1931 until he was dismissed by the National Socialists in 1933. After that, he struggled through his illness with clerical and consultant jobs until he died in November 1944 at the age of just 48.

The planned exhibition will not only present Dieckmann's life and work, but will also ask how inspiring his ideas are for today's designers. The project is being significantly supported by the state of Saxony-Anhalt. The exhibition will start on 12 February 2022 in the rooms of the Kunststiftung Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle (Saale) and the exhibition rooms of the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. From 8 April, it will be on display at the Kunstgewerbemuseum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin at the Kulturforum.

Culture Minister Rainer Robra, who handed over the funding decision today, said: "The 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus has shown us that the Bauhaus is still the measure of all things for many furniture designers today. The trend-setting design of Bauhaus member Erich Dieckmann in particular teaches us that the avant-garde movement in design had the courage, passion and energy to dare to try something new in difficult times. I am therefore particularly pleased that the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation with the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Art Library, the Saxony-Anhalt Art Foundation and Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle are jointly rediscovering and honouring Erich Dieckmann in an exhibition for a large audience."

For the President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, the Erich Dieckmann exhibition is proof of the good cooperation with Saxony-Anhalt: "Two years ago, we jointly organised a Bauhaus dinner in honour of this great designer, and now there will be an exhibition. The SPK is a living example of cultural federalism and our museums are always happy to host exhibitions from the federal states. I am therefore all the more delighted that Saxony-Anhalt is once again a guest in Berlin and that our museums are making a guest appearance in Halle."

The Museum of Decorative Arts of the National Museums in Berlin houses a selection of furniture designed by Erich Dieckmann from his last flat in Berlin, while the Art Library acquired extensive parts of Dieckmann's estate in 1970. These include more than 1,600 of his prints, designs and drawings, which have now been digitised, documented and made accessible online.

Sabine Thümmler, Director of the Museum of Decorative Arts, explains the exhibition concept: "We want to provide a detailed and vivid insight into the life and work of this great designer using archive material, design drawings and the furniture he produced. Throughout his life, Dieckmann did not hide his design concepts as a teacher and author. Allowing his designs to enter into a dialogue with contemporary positions will open up new perspectives on the design of the interwar period and provide new insights into contemporary questions of design."

Moritz Wullen, Director of the Art Library, adds: "Our collection of Erich Dieckmann's drawings is simply fantastic. Line by line, you can see how Dieckmann allowed things to take shape in his creative mind, constantly changing and perfecting them. With funding from the BKM, we have succeeded in making this treasure digitally accessible to the public as a first step. Now, thanks to funding from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the most beautiful drawings will finally be on display in the original."

In addition to historical documents and objects, artist Margit Jäschke and designer Stephan Schulz are working on a spatial concept for the 21st century entitled "Living like Dieckmann" at the Saxony-Anhalt Art Foundation in Halle (Saale). The aim is to explore the question of how to design and realise sustainable, beautiful and useful everyday objects that affect our immediate living environment in the 21st century.

Foundation Director Manon Bursian: "Erich Dieckmann characterised mass taste in his time. Behind this was not only style, but also attitude: he spoke of 'warmth of life and truth' and said: 'Let's also give our modern homes something human'. But what does that mean today, when everyone wants to live not only beautifully and warmly, but also properly, sustainably and healthily? Margit Jäschke and Stephan Schulz ask what determines our design today. Does the discourse always match the design?"

At the Burg Galerie im Volkspark in Halle (Saale), experimental works by art and design students from Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle (BURG) will be on display alongside selected works by Dieckmann. How can Dieckmann's work be categorised and interpreted today? Can the ideas be transferred into the future, further developed and new spaces of thought opened up? And what do utopias for the 21st century look like? Students of industrial design, communication design, art (teaching degree) and design studies at BURG will be analysing Erich Dieckmann's work. Historical objects, sketches and furniture from the archives of the art academy and the city of Halle (Saale) will serve as the basis for a contemporary approach; in several semester projects, the Burg students will develop works that deal with the oeuvre from today's perspective.

Burg Rector Dieter Hofmann on the concept: "For us as an art academy, several aspects of the collaboration are particularly exciting - on the one hand, the students' engagement with the institution's own design history and, on the other, the opportunity to take up questions about the design of the 1920s and 1930s around 100 years later and to expand and question them from an unusual contemporary perspective."

Press photos:
www.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/newsroom/presse/pressebilder/

Press contact Kunststiftung Sachsen-Anhalt:
Anja Falgowski
Björn Hermann
oeffentlichkeitsarbeit@kunststiftung-sachsen-anhalt.de

Press contact Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle:
Silke Janßen
Press Officer
T +49 (0)345 7751-526
janssen@burg-halle.de