Page 83 - Museums, Media and Cultural Theory In Cultural and Media Studies

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(Buchloh 1988: 108). In this and Lissitzky’s own exhibits, the iconic photograph
works as an effective propaganda tool, albeit in different ways. Yet more formal,
abstract approaches can also lend themselves to political uses, as the work of
Ludwig Mies van de Rohe and Lilly Reich demonstrates. Mies and Reich pro-
duced impressive and seductive exhibitions that made great use of expensive
and sumptuous materials, lush colour, dramatic scale, solid forms and curved
surfaces. In 1934 they both worked on the Nazi Party’s German People/German
Work exhibition. At the time, commentators pointed to the connections
between the scale and richness of their designs and the developing monumental
and classical aesthetic of Fascism (Staniszewski 1998: 39). The National Socialist
and Fascist states used monumental classicism to assert the power of technol-
ogy, the state and industry, even while the overt political message was about the
power of the ‘German people’.
The form and materials of an exhibition have a politics and a content of their
own, which are distinct from and may even contradict, the overt content of the
exhibition, and which are addressed to the body of the spectator (Highmore
2003). The American designer Philip Johnson, who supported Fascism early in
his career, was influenced by the designs of Mies and Reich. His 1934 Machine
Art exhibition at MOMA looked seamless, using rich textures and materials
and hidden lighting to aestheticise the shiny machine parts and machine-made
objects on display (Staniszewski 1998: 153). However Johnson’s show did not
have the monumentalism of the German People/German Work exhibition. In
Machine Art, visitors seem to have experienced not so much the awe-inspiring
power of industry as their own power as North American consumers – the
objects, all products of US industry, were displayed in a manner reminiscent of
store displays. Reportedly visitors behaved as if they were shopping (Staniszewski
1998: 159). Machine Art could be seen to address an active visitor, but a visitor
who is conceived as an actively discriminating consumer. Four years later, Bay-
er’s Bauhaus 1919–1928, at the same museum, placed more emphasis on inviting
the viewer to reflect on their own role in the interpretive process. Yet Bayer also
conceived of his work in relation to consumption, as an art of persuasion
similar to advertising (Phillips 1988: 273). Indeed, Bayer was one of a number of
European émigrés who oversaw the political transformation of the aesthetic
techniques of modernism. Lissitzky’s initial Soviet aesthetic, committed to the
education and ‘realization’ of the people, was adapted to suit the demands of
Fascism (the subjugation of people to the State and to technology) and then the
demands of accelerated capitalism (the people as consumers) (Buchloh 1988;
Phillips 1988: 273).
Frederick Kiesler was another émigré exhibition designer who was instru-
mental in shaping the techniques of the avant-garde for the purposes of the
consumer society. Kiesler worked as a window designer for Saks Fifth Avenue