Thu 18.07.2024
18:00-20:00 Time
An Exercise in Defending Democracy

Life under Nazi dictatorship as a textile designer – A podium discussion marking the 80th anniversary of Otti Berger’s death

An evening (in German) as part of the event series on the Bauhaus and diversity.

In 1936 the Reichs Chamber of Fine Arts issued an employment ban against the Bauhaus-trained textile designer Otti Berger on account of her being Jewish and a foreigner. Otti Berger had just set up her own studio and started collaborating with textile manufacturers and renowned modernist architects. We take Berger’s example to examine what opportunities were available to artists prohibited from working during National Socialism. How did the Nazi legislation impact their lives? How did these state-legitimised exclusionary mechanisms function? And how did museum curators manage to reconstruct Otti Berger’s widely scattered works?

Speakers: Dr Annemarie Jaeggi (director of the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung), Dr Corinna Alexandra Rader (provenance researcher, Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung), Nina Kubowitsch (provenance researcher, Stiftung Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin)

Moderator: Dr Esther Cleven (curator, Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung)

Event language: German

Free of charge. Limited capacity of seats. Please register here.