Bauhaus Photography at Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung: The Curonian Spit

The Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung in Berlin presents '100 Years of Bauhaus IV: The Curonian Spit,' a comparative exhibition of photographs by Alfred Ehrhardt and Kazimieras Mizgiris, curated by Christiane Stahl, on view until December 22, 2019. Ehrhardt, a Bauhaus-trained structuralist, captured the Curonian Spit in 1934 as an escape from Nazi oppression, focusing on the crystalline formal language of nature. His 1938 book 'Die Kurische Nehrung' emphasized the vastness of the pristine landscape. In contrast, Mizgiris (b. 1950, Šilutė) approaches the dunes with a geologist's eye, depicting them as living bodies that morph into fossils, female silhouettes, and birds. Both artists used gelatin silver prints. Mizgiris also owns one of the world's largest collections of fossil amber. The exhibition highlights the tension between Ehrhardt's robust structuralism and Mizgiris's emphasis on transience and evolution.