Black Mountain College, New York City
Xanti Schawinsky teaching at Black Mountain College, photo: unknown, around 1937
In 1936, Xanti Schawinsky was appointed by Josef Albers to teach at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, USA. Here, until 1938, he conveyed his approach to the stage as a place and medium for experimental learning, building on his Bauhaus stage experiences.
At the core of his "Stage Studies" course was an open, participatory, and transdisciplinary approach, which was revolutionary at the time. The performances he developed with the students, combining art and science as well as music, dance, drama, painting, set design, and lighting, are considered early precursors of process-oriented performance art. Even though Schawinsky only taught at Black Mountain College for two years, he significantly shaped its open, democratic, and experimental atmosphere.
In 1968-69, Schawinsky compiled his stage theory, which he described as "Spectodrama," and the documentation of his "Stage Studies" into a script he called "Play, Life, Illusion."
The 1938 program flyer for Xanti Schawinsky's 'danse macabre' at Black Mountain College. The flyer includes performance details, cast, and contributors.
Xanti Schawinsky and Marcel Duchamp playing chess in Schawinsky's atelier. Schawinsky on the left, resting his head on his hand, while Duchamp is on the right, making a move. Photo by Ormond Gigli, 1961
In 1938, Schawinsky moved to New York. That same year, many of his older and newer works were displayed in the "Bauhaus 1919–1928" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Together with Breuer and Gropius, he designed the Pennsylvania Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair and also took on the design of the North Carolina Pavilion.
In addition to working as a freelance graphic designer and artist, Schawinsky, who became an American citizen in 1944, taught at City College of New York from 1943 to 1946 and at New York University from 1950 to 1954.