Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities and Radical Politics

A fresh perspective on Bauhaus history reveals its deep roots in occult spirituality, gender fluidity, and radical politics, challenging the conventional image of the movement as a purely functionalist and machine-age design school. Elizabeth Otto's work uncovers widespread experimentation with séances, spirit photography, and mysticism among Bauhaus figures like Gertrud Grunow, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and others, demonstrating that abstraction, expressionism, and spirituality were integral to its ethos. This approach contrasts with the typical retrospective focus on biographies of central figures, instead highlighting Bauhaus as a continuation of Germany's 19th-century Lebensreform movements, which sought to redesign self and society through aesthetics, lifestyle, and built environment.

Betts, P. (2020). Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities and Radical Politics. German History, 38(2), 345–346. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghaa027