Bauhaus Designer Erich Dieckmann Honored with Major Exhibition in Halle and Berlin
News from 01/26/2022
A retrospective tracing the impact of the influential designer up to the present is being arranged by the Kunstgewerbemuseum and Kunstbibliothek of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in collaboration with the Art Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt and Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle.
On Friday, February 11, 2022, a large exhibition will open in Halle (Saale) in honor of the furniture designer, Bauhaus disciple and Burg Giebichenstein instructor Erich Dieckmann (1896–1944). Starting in May, the public is invited to view the exhibition at Berlin’s Kulturforum. This marks the first time that a major event has been devoted to Dieckmann in over thirty years. The rediscovery of this influential designer, who, like Marcel Breuer, experimented with shapes and materials and developed standardized modular furniture based on strictly geometrical shapes, was an idea jointly developed by the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts), the Kunstbibliothek (Art Library) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin), the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), the Art Foundation of Saxony-Anhalt, and Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. Dieckmann as active in both Berlin and Halle (Saale).
In 1970, the Kunstbibliothek of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin acquired extensive portions of Dieckmann’s estate. This property includes more than 1,600 of his sketches, drawings and graphics, which have now been digitized, documented and made available online.
In tandem with the exhibition, Mitteldeutscher Verlag is publishing a catalog. It has been designed by Erik Spiekermann and includes articles by Sabine Thümmler, Manon Bursian, Aya Soika, Katja Schneider-Stief, Laura Gieser, Ingolf Kern, Konrad Lohöfener and Benjamin Sander, among others.
Reiner Haseloff, Minister President of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, and SPK President Hermann Parzinger will speak at the press conference to be held on February 10, 2022.