Itten – Nothing works without color

Live Cinema

Klassik Stiftung / Bauhaus-Museum Weimar (6. April 2019)

Bauhaus 100 Eröffnungsfestival / Akademie der Künste Berlin (19. January 2019)

Kunstfest Weimar / Lichthaus (21. August 2018)

Galerie Kortil, Rijeka / Goethe-Institut Croatia (2019)

Trailer

70 minutes ~ Live cinema – Animation with music and speakers

Live drawing with music, speakers and objects about early Bauhaus teacher Johannes Itten

Synopsis

As one of the most vibrant figures, Swiss painter Johannes Itten significantly influenced the structure and direction of the early Bauhaus in Weimar. In 1923, he left the Bauhaus to join the Mazdaznan Temple Community. From 1926, Johannes Itten ran his own school in Berlin. In a film created live before the eyes and ears of the audience, director Katrin Rothe embarks on a search that delves into the life of the Bauhaus teacher. Simultaneously, it explores the study period of the artist in the East and West, where she encountered Itten's color theory in various ways.

Katrin Rothe flips through the sparkling biography of the artist Johannes Itten, moving both forward and backward, creating a musically fantastical sequence of images from the turbulent early days of the Bauhaus. From the drawing table and the artist's books and notes, wondrous colors, shapes, and figures emerge live and directly onto the canvas. Special encounters are composed: the barely 30-year-old teacher meets the artist as an old man reflecting on his time in Weimar; the abstract forms of geometry and architecture encounter a sea of rhythmically swaying colors, and the free and casual exercises of the Bauhaus students meet Itten's strict interest in life and salvation concepts from Asia.

They reveal a colorful Bauhaus, or as Itten himself wrote: "Nothing goes without color!"

Screencapture Screencapture

Cast & Credits

Concept, Direction & Live Projection: Katrin Rothe
Dramaturgy: Janek Müller
Speakers: Olaf Helbing and Stephanie Stremler
Live Drawing: Tonina Matamalas or Lydia Günther
Music: Thomas Mävers and Olaf Helbing
Artistic Assistance: Knut Rothe
Production: Kunstfest Weimar

Press

Press pictures here. (13.8mb)

Monopol: January 2019 (german)
"The director Katrin Rothe first encountered Itten's pedagogy shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, during her studies at the School of Applied Arts in Sonneberg, southern Thuringia. "I was supposed to become a toy designer," she reported, "and in our preliminary course, it was always emphasized: when drawing a circle, pay attention not only to the circle but also to the relaxed straight posture and breathing. The line should come from the center of the body. Sonneberg is not far from Weimar, and it seemed that Itten's teachings were still being actively continued there. After German reunification, she studied experimental film design, and she repeatedly encountered Itten's color theory, "three times in total, in different cities and social systems. This sparked my desire to animate color."

Thüringische Landeszeitung: "Kunstfest Weimar widmet sich einem Esoterik-Überflieger des Bauhauses" (german)
"The premiere at the Lichthaus-Kino was completely full, sold out long before August 21. Following the screening, there was an audience discussion with Katrin Rothe and Janek Müller, and the projection table could be admired."

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