#blackmountaincollege

[vortexstreet]

Josef Albers

[ginzyblog]

Robert Creeley, Vancouver, late July, 1963.  Allen’d just returned to North America from 2 year Morocco - India - Japan trip for the Vancouver Poetry Conference, arranged for by Robert Creeley, including such luminaries as Charles Olson, Warren Tallman,  Bobbie Creeley (Hawkins), Denise Levertov, & Philip Whalen (photo: Allen Ginsberg, courtesy Stanford University Libraries / Getty Images) [courtesy Stanford University Libraries / Allen Ginsberg Estate] #bobbielouisehawkins #vancouver #vancouverpoetryconference #Allenginsberg #poetry #poetrycommunity #poets #instapoets #blackmountaincollege #charlesolson (at Vancouver, British Columbia) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0a7aRIhSri/?igshid=1d6wrg9ykbmcu

[bmcmuseum]

FBI Investigation of Black Mountain College, 1956

There are many different reasons that the BMC closed its doors, but one may stand out from the others: the FBI’s investigation in 1956. Unendowed, BMC was reliant upon tuition to stay afloat. This was all the more urgent in the late 1950s when attendance was already dropping. In 1956, nine out of the 23 students at BMC were veterans funded through the G.I. Bill. Hearing rumors about the unorthodox education received there, The Veterans Administration decided to take a closer look at BMC in April of 1956, approaching the FBI to investigate the legitimacy of the college.

From their investigation, FBI agents stated that BMC faculty are “conducting a very unusual type of school, for example, a student may do nothing all day and in the middle of the night may decide he[sic] wants to paint or write, which he does, and he may call upon his teachers at this time for guidance. They advised that everything is left to the individual.” The overall liberal atmosphere of the college garnered much public attention, and aroused suspicion that the college was fostering communist sympathies. 

In the age of McCarthyism, Blacklisting and The Red Scare, Black Mountain College faced a formidable battle against perception and government red tape. Despite the FBI finding insufficient evidence to persecute the college, the damage from lack of VA funding had been done. 

Ironically, the closure of the Bauhaus due to the political antagonism of the Nazi Party was led by fear of faculty’s liberal, communist leanings. Members of the Bauhaus such as the Albers and Walter Gropius came to BMC to revive its ideals. It would be similar censorship and paranoia, this time on behalf of the United States Government, that would contribute to BMC’s closing in 1957. 

The FBI file can be read in it’s entirety here: http://bit.ly/2zAeT5T

More information on the investigation can be found through our Research Resources here: http://bit.ly/2z0ChKj

[iveseenthat]

#FrancineDuPlessix & #JoelOppenheimer at #BlackMountainCollege from the post "The Women of Black Mountain College" via my #stonecolddeadblog #mondoblogo - link to the past in my bio.... (at Black Mountain College)

[davidhopwood]

#pamphlet #robertrauschenburg #blackmountaincollege

[vortexstreet]

Susan Weil and Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled, 1951, Monoprint on cyan-blueprint paper, 72 x 48 inches. 

[vortexstreet]

Susan Weil and Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled [feet and foliage] 1950, Monoprint- exposed cyan-blueprint paper, 58 x 41 inches. Museum of Modern Art, New York

[bmcmuseum]

Robert Rauschenberg is shown here with his future wife and fellow artist Susan Weil at BMC in the summer of 1948, photographed by Hazel Larsen Archer. After this summer, they created their first collaborative “blueprint paintings.” These prints, created by using light to expose an object onto paper, exemplified the spirit of experimentation and collaboration at the heart of Black Mountain College. The couple have created a painting without brushstrokes, but which shows the "hand” of the artist in an undeniable way. They are reliant upon the unpredictable reaction of the blueprint paper to light. Both in the conceptualization and realization of this print, Weil and Rauschenberg are intertwined. 

While their marriage ended in 1953, Weil and Rauschenberg continued to support and inspire each other until Rauschenberg’s death in 2008. Weil still creates and exhibits her art internationally and is one of the key influencers of the Abstract Expressionist movement. 

Hazel Larsen Archer, “Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Weil,” c. 1948. 

Robert Rauschenberg, Susan Weil. “Untitled [Double Rauschenberg],” c. 1950. Exposed blueprint paper. Cy Twombly Foundation.