Alexander Dorner's Exhibitions

256 Pages·2015·15.22 MB·English

Developing Experience: Alexander Dorner's Exhibitions, from Weimar Republic
Germany to the Cold War United States
by
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE
OF ECHNOLOLGY
Rebecca K. Uchill
JUL 0 12015
Master of Arts, Art History
Williams College, Williamstown MA, 2005
LIBRARIES
Bachelor of Arts, Individualized Studies
Gallatin School of Individualized Study,
New York University, New York, NY, 2001
Submitted to the Department of Architecture in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture: History and Theory of Art
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
June, 2015
0 2015 Rebecca K. Uchill. All rights reserved.
The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper
and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now
known or hereafter created.
Signature redacted
Signature of Author:
Department of ArchitecturewFebruary 26, 2015
Signature redacted
Certified by:
'-"CarolineA . Jones
-
Professor of the History of Art
Thesis Supervisor
Signature redacted
Accepted by:
Takehiko Nagakura
Associate Professor of Design and Computation
Chairman, Committee for Graduate Students
1
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* The Addenda section (p.237-428) has been omitted
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Dissertation Committee
Caroline A. Jones, PhD
Professor of the History of Art
Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Chair
Martha Buskirk
Professor of Art History and Criticism
Montserrat College of Art
Mark M. Jarzombek
Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture
Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Developing Experience: Alexander Dorner's Exhibitions, from Weimar Republic
Germany to the Cold War United States
by Rebecca K. Uchill
Submitted to the Department of Architecture on February 26, 2015
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Architecture: History and Theory of Art, at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Abstract:
Following the work of German-American curator Alexander Dorner (1893-1957) from
his early curatorial career in Niedersachsen to professorships in New England, this
dissertation explores the intersections of Euro-American modernism and developing
ideations of experience within aesthetic philosophy. Dorner's work was formulated in
deep engagement with (and often intentional contradiction to) the art theory being
incubated in contemporaneous art institutions, pedagogies, and practices. His written
texts and museum praxis responded to emerging notions of subjectivity, restoration, and
perception in the aesthetic theory of Alois Riegl and Erwin Panofsky, art restoration
mandates advocated by German museum leaders such as Max Sauerlandt and Kurt Karl
Eberlein, and the artistic productions of El Lissitzky and Herbert Bayer. Against shifting
expressions of democracy in Weimar Germany and the mid-century United States,
Dorner's polemical focus on museum experience was, in effect, an attempt to train
citizens for collective but heterogeneous social life.
Thesis Supervisor: Caroline A. Jones
Title: Professor of the History of Art
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A note on translations:
All translations are by the author unless otherwise noted. Simon Cowper offered editorial
assistance with the majority of the translations.
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Acknowledgements
I owe much gratitude to the tremendous community who supported me in this endeavor
over the last years. First and foremost I would like to thank my advisor, Caroline A.
Jones, for her mentorship, tutelage, and friendship that have enriched my work in
innumerable ways, along with my other dissertation committee members, Martha Buskirk
and Mark Jarzombek. As a team, my committee members worked with me closely
throughout the research and writing process and were incredibly generous with their time,
insights, and overall enthusiasm for my work. I would also like to acknowledge the
mentorship of Charles W. Haxthausen and Ines Katenhusen, who generously shared their
expertise with me from my preliminary research phases. I am grateful to Arindam Dutta
for his early comments on my prospectus and Kristel Smentek for supervising my Minor
Examination, which helped to produce a foundational bibliography for this work. I thank
Steven ten Thije, Jordan Troeller, and Kristie La for their feedback on selected chapters
during different stages of the writing process. Cornelia Reiher and Anja Pietsch both
offered input on translations. Simon Cowper reviewed the majority of the translations and
provided copyediting assistance. Michael Blanding is due particular thanks for reading
early drafts of each chapter, and for acting as both carrot and stick during the final
writing push.
I would like to recognize my brilliant and collegial fellow students at HTC, past and
present: Ana Maria Le6n, Igor Demchenko, Yavuz Sezar, Niko Vicario, Shiben Banerji,
Mohamad Chakaki, Jennifer Chuong, Azra Dawood, Christian Hedrick, Adam Johnson,
Sarah Katz, Ateya Khorakiwala, Michael Kubo, Ash Lettow, Catherine McMahon,
Nicola Pezolet, Laura Lee Schmidt, Nori Tsuneishi, Stephanie Tuerk, Deniz Turker, Alla
Vronskaya, Christianna Bonin, Irina Chernyakova, , Jesse Feiman, Chelsea Behle Fralick,
Antonio Furgiuele, Chris Ketcham, Albert L6pez, Kelly Presutti, Deepa Ramaswamy,
Todd Satter, Sebastian Schmidt, Alexander Wood, Azra Aksamija, Razan Francis, S.
Faisal Hassan, Janna Israel, Jordan Kauffman, Anneka Lenssen, John L6pez, Ben
Matteson, Karin Oen, Olga Touloumi, Mechtild Widrich, and Winnie Wong. Other
members of the MIT community who have been great friends and much-appreciated
supporters of my work include Bill Arning, Scott Berzofsky, Kate Brearley, Renee Caso,
Suelin Chen, Anne Deveau, Jane Farver, David Freilach, Paul Ha, Catherine D'Ignazio,
Tomashi Jackson, Leila Kinney, Ricky Leiserson, Mark Linga, David Mather, Barbra
Pine, Joio Ribas, Meg Rotzel, Hanna Rose Shell, Theodora Vardouli, Alise Upitis, and
Jim Wescoat. I would additionally like to acknowledge student colleagues outside of MIT
who also formed my graduate community in Boston and Cambridge, including Ruth
Erickson, Claire Grace, Mamie Hyatt, John Hulsey, Kevin Lotery, Tessa Paneth-Pollak,
Jennifer Quick, and Trevor Stark.
I owe great thanks to discussants and interview subjects who helped me hone my
approach, both to the research material and the dissertation process at large. These
include Peter Bissegger, Pat Carini, Curt Germundson, Maria Gough, Kai-Uwe Hemken,
Joe Ketner, Charlotte Klonk, Joan Ockman, Karin Orchard, Nasser Rabbat, Marc
Simpson, Isabel Schulz, and Greg Williams. I am indebted to scholars Monika Flacke and
Noam Elcott whose work on Domer was important to my own thinking about the topic. I
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