Article Examines Bauhaus and Black Mountain College Legacies Through Dissolution and Community

A scholarly article published in ARTMargins on October 15, 2025, analyzes how the legacies of Bauhaus and Black Mountain College should be interpreted through their endings rather than their institutional persistence. Authored by Gloria Sutton, the piece employs the concept of 'transitoriness' from Paul and Percival Goodman's 1947 work 'Communitas' to frame this perspective. It traces the movement of individuals and concepts from Germany to North Carolina and eventually to Gate Hill Coop in Stony Point, New York. The article highlights the often-unseen emotional work, especially performed by women, necessary to maintain group existence following institutional breakdowns. M.C. Richards (1916–1999) is identified as a crucial figure whose interpretations of language, thought, and teaching methods allowed avant-garde artistic approaches to flourish in cooperative environments. Rather than characterizing Gate Hill Coop as an unsuccessful idealistic project, the article presents it as a location for moral, cross-disciplinary exploration based on nurturing and flexibility. This approach questions art historical emphasis on individual creative authority and organizational status, suggesting instead a more adaptable historical method that focuses on instability, ongoing development, and shared reallocation of resources. The article appears in ARTMargins Volume 14, Issue 3, pages 14-30, with digital access restricted through MIT Press.