Black Mountain College: art education, experimentation and community

• Clara Hernández Ullán

  Universidad Camilo José Cela, España

  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9744-9351

Black Mountain College was a college established in 1933 in a rural area of the Appalachian Mountains near Ashville, North Carolina. During its twenty-four years of existence, it emerged as an innovative and experimental educational institution that placed the arts at the center of education and put the creation of a community at the heart of the project. This article analyses the main elements that shaped the school’s educational philosophy and the processes through which they were put into practice.

1. Clara Hernández Ullán, Universidad Camilo José Cela, España

   Profesora ayudante doctor en la Facultad de Bellas Artes de la UCM, donde imparte docencia de Teorías del Arte Contemporáneo. Es doctora con mención internacional en Bellas Artes por la UCM (Cum Laude). Realizó estudios de máster en Historia del Arte Contemporáneo y Cultura Visual (UAM), de máster en Historia Contemporánea (UCM) y de licenciatura en Historia (USAL). Su investigación gira en torno a la historia de la educación artística, las artes y la educación popular y el rol social del artista en época contemporánea. Ha publicado sus trabajos de investigación en revistas indizadas y ha realizado estancias de investigación en New York University en Universität der Künste Berlin.

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DANILOWITZ, Brenda (2006). Teaching Design: A Short History of Josef Albers." En HOROWITZ, Frederick A. y DANILOWITZ, Brenda. Josef Albers: To Open Eyes. The Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Yale. London/New York. Phaidon, 2006.

DEWEY, John (1976). Experience and Education. New York. Macmillan/Collier Books.

–––––––––––– (2008) El arte como experiencia. Barcelona. Paidós.

DÍAZ, Eva (2015a). The Experimenters. Chance and Design at Black Mountain College. Chicago/London. University of Chicago Press.

––––––––– (2015b). Summer Session 1948. En MOLESWORTH, Helen y ERICKSON, Ruth (eds). Leap before You Look. Black Mountain College, 1933-1957. New Haven/London. Yale University Press/Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

DUBERMAN, Martin (2009). Black Mountain College. An Exploration in Community. Evanston, Illinois. Northwestern University Press.

EGGELHÖFER, Fabienne (2015) Processes Instead of Results. En BLUME, Eugen, FELIX, Matilda, KNAPSTEIN, Gabriele and NICHOLS, Catherine (eds). Black Mountain. An Interdisciplinary Experiment, 1933–1957. Berlin. Spector Books.

ELLERT, JoAnn C. (1972). The Bauhaus and Black Mountain College. The Journal of General Education. Vol. 24. Nº 3.

ERICKSON, Ruth (2015) A Progressive Education. En MOLESWORTH, Helen y ERICKSON, Ruth (eds). Leap before You Look. Black Mountain College, 1933-1957. New Haven/London. Yale University Press/Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

EZELL, Jason (2011). Martin Duberman’s Queer Historiography and Pedagogy. Black Mountain Sudies Journal. Vol. 11.

FISHER, Jonathan (2014). The Life and Work of an Institution of Progressive Higher Education: Towards a History of Black Mountain College, 1933- 1949. The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies. Vol. 6.

FONTAL DEL JUNCO, Manuel (ed.) (2014). Josef Albers. Medios mínimos, efecto máximo. Madrid. Fundación Juan March.

FÜSSL, Karl?Heinz (2006). Pestalozzi in Dewey’s Realm? Bauhaus Master Josef Albers among the German? Speaking Emigrés’ Colony at Black Mountain College (1933–1949). Paedagogica Historica. International Journal of the History of Education. Vol. 42, Nº1-2. pp. 77-92.

BLAUVELT, Andrew (ed.) (2015). Hippie Modernism. The Struggle for Utopia. Minneapolis. Walker Art Center.

GRANÉS, Carlos (2012). El puño invisible. Arte, revolución y un siglo de cambios culturales. Madrid. Taurus.

HARRIS, Mary Emma (2002). The Arts at Black Mountain College. Chicago. MIT Press.

–––––––––––––––––– (2015). Black Mountain: Was It a Real College or Did We Just Make It up Ourselves? The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies. Vol. 7

HOROWITZ, Frederick A. (2006). Albers the Teacher. En HOROWITZ, Frederick A. y DANILOWITZ, Brenda. Josef Albers: To Open Eyes. The Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Yale. London/New York. Phaidon.

KATZ, Vincent (ed) (2002). Black Mountain College: una aventura americana. Madrid. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

LEHMANN, Annete Jael (2015). Pedagogical Practices and Models of Creativity at Black Mountain College. En BLUME, Eugen, FELIX, Matilda, KNAPSTEIN, Gabriele and NICHOLS, Catherine (eds). Black Mountain. An Interdisciplinary Experiment, 1933–1957. Berlin. Spector Books.

LEHMANN, Annette Jael y WERNER, Anna (2016). Black Mountain and Beyond – Research Practices between Universities and Museums. Stedelijk Studies. Between the discursive and the Immersive. Curating research in the 21th Century Art Museum. Nº 4.

MOTHES, Kate (2014). Sense of Community. En Black Mountain Research. Collaborative platform by Freie Universität Berlin & Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum Für Gegenwart, Berlin. Disponible en https://black-mountain-research.com/2014/09/30/sense-of-community/

PERROW, Charles (2013). Drinking Deep at Black Mountain College. Southern Cultures. Vol. 19. Nº 4. pp. 76-94.

REESE, William J. (2001). The Origins of Progressive Education. History of Education Quarterly. Vol. 41. Nº 1.

RUIZ, Guillermo (2013). La teoría de la experiencia de John Dewey: significación histórica y vigencia en el debate teórico contemporáneo. Foro de Educación., Vol. 11, Nº15. pp. 113-124.

SILVER, David (2015). Building Autonomy, Creating Community: The Farm and the Work Program at Black Mountain College. En MOLESWORTH, Helen y ERICKSON, Ruth (eds). Leap before You Look. Black Mountain College, 1933-1957. New Haven/London. Yale University Press/Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.

WEBER, Nicholas F. y BOISSEL, Jessica (eds) (2010). Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky: Friends in Exile. A Decade of Correspondence, 1929-1940. Manchester/New York. Hudson Hills Press.

WILKINS, Micah Wilford. (2014) Social Justice at Bmc before the Civil Rights Age: Desegregation, Racial Inclusion, and Racial Equality at BMC. The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies. Vol. 6.

Otras fuentes:

ADAMIC, Louis (Abril, 1936). Education on a Mountain. The Story of Black Mountain College. Harper’s Magazine.

Mary Gregory, Mary “Molly” Gregory Remembers the Work Program. Memoir delivered on the occasion of the opening of a Black Mountain College exhibition, curated by Mary Emma Harris, at Bard College in 1987. Disponible en http://blackmountaincollegeproject.org/MEMOIRS/MEMOIRS.htm

Ruth O’Neill Burnett, The Work Program, in Student experience in experimental education in the early years (1933-43). Section 2: Teachers and Teaching: Outside the Classroom. Black Mountain College Project, curated by Robert Sunley. 1997. Disponible en: https://blackmountaincollegeproject.org/Features/SUNLEY/SUNLEYpartII/OutsidetheClassroomWORK.htm.

A Foreword. Programa de Black Mountain College de 1934-35. Disponible en:

https://blackmountaincollegeproject.org/PUBLICATIONS/CATALOGUES/1933%201934%20BMC%20A%20FOREWARD/1933%201934%20BMC%20A%20FOREWARD.htm

-35 Black Mountain College Catalog. Programa de 1934-1935. Disponible en UNC Ashville. Special Collections and University Archives: https://unca.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15733coll6/id/121/rec/2

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