Bauhaus Night at The Cooper Union

What was the Bauhaus, and why does it matter? Get up close and personal with the big, bad Bauhaus during an evening of short talks. Uncover the ideas, the people, and the stuff that blew up the Bauhaus into an outsized legend that will not die. Ellen Lupton shows how Herbert Bayer and László Moholy-Nagy used graphic design to invent an enduring myth that still grips our minds and souls. Elizabeth Otto reveals queer identity, gender fluidity, and occult leanings at a school better known for tubular chairs than alternative living. Greg D'Onofrio discusses the magical art of collecting modernist ephemera, showing how a designer's eye and a historian's heart can yield delightful discoveries.

GRAPHIC BAUHAUS

Ellen Lupton is Senior Curator of Contemporary Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Her current exhibition “Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master” is on view through April 5. She is the founding director of the Graphic Design MFA Program at MICA in Baltimore. Recent books include “Design Is Storytelling“ and “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision“. Ellen is an AIGA Gold Medalist, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a Cooper Union alum (A’85).

HAUNTED BAUHAUS

Elizabeth Otto is an art historian and the author of Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics and Tempo, Tempo! The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt, and the coauthor of Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective. She has co-edited five books including “Bauhaus Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, and Body Culture in Modernism's Legendary Art School“. Otto is a professor at the University at Buffalo (SUNY).

COLLECTING BAUHAUS

Greg D’Onofrio is a designer, writer, educator, and co-founder of Display, Graphic Design Collection. Greg has curated, lectured, and written about topics ranging from Bruno Munari and Lester Beall to Elaine Lustig Cohen and Morton and Millie Goldsholl. Greg teaches Graphic Design History at the School of Visual Arts and Cooper Union in New York City. He is co-author of “The Moderns: Midcentury American Graphic Design“ and “Italian Types: Graphic Designers from Italy in America“.