Re-viewing The Way Beyond “Art”: Herbert Bayer, Alexander Dorner, and Practices of Viewership

Abstract

Architect, painter, and designer Herbert Bayer was a progenitor of modern exhibition design that emphasized the visual perception of its audiences; his associate and occasional collaborator, Alexander Dorner, also approached the conception of exhibitions by focusing on viewer experiences. Their similar emphasis on the centrality of subject-viewers and differing philosophies of perception and publics came together in the first United States touring retrospective of Bayer’s work, organized by Dorner. The story of that exhibition, The Way Beyond “Art,” is one episode within a larger, trans-continental conversation between two modern exhibition-makers. Bayer’s galleries oriented information for a visitor’s optical register, often at a massive, immersive scale. Dorner’s conveyed experiences of cultural perception, allowing exhibited objects to be overpowered by “atmospheres,” were meant to progress learning and action outside of exhibition spaces. In the book associated with the Way Beyond “Art” exhibition, Dorner advocated (now famously) for the museum to become a “powerhouse” for producing new energy, rather than exhibiting only existing artifacts and works. Their negotiations over Bayer’s art within Dorner’s “Way” ultimately were not only discussions about the roles of curator and artist in determining subject matter, but also reckonings over the degree of responsibility that an exhibition has to its public: whether the task of the exhibition is to situate and inform or to catalyze new cultural movement.