Leap Before you Look Black Mountain College 1933-1957 by Helen Molesworth

Leap Before you Look Black Mountain College 1933-1957 by Helen Molesworth is an immense,  and important catalogue realized by the Institute of Contemporary Art of Boston with Yale University Press: four years in total for assembling the art exhibit wanted by ICA/Boston about Black Mountain College, this choice was made because of the big impact that the artists grown up artistically at Black Mountain are still playing in the art of creatives arrived after them; a visionary place Black Mountain, located in North Carolina: a college wanted by John Rice and founded in 1933 with other intellectuals, in an historical particular moment and alive till 1957. Although the short experience of this college, this institution made the difference under many aspects.

Josef and Anni Albers from Germany  were searching for a good place where to staying considering the critical historical moment and the absurd policy against Jewish started by Hitler, so when Albers told to Rice the situation he was living in, Rice invited him and Anni to the USA. The two didn't speak a word of english but they learned pretty quickly meeting another world. Josef Albers became the first art teacher of the school.
They were, considering also their big artistic reputation, a centrality of this college, which had special and absolutely wonderful guidelines.

Students didn't have in fact, any kind of obligation with the school: they could follow lessons but they could also decide of being differently creatives; exams were planned by students and when they were ready, without any kind of obligation; it was the most flexible place of this world.

Devoted to liberal arts, this college was perfect for a person with a creative spirits  and some internal turmoils.

Guided by good teachers, Black Mountain was an excellence also in all the rest of liberal arts, like poetry, dance, music, sculpture, and more; everything that you could classify as creative, you can be sure that was experienced in Black Mountain and lived with great intensity.

Not only: there wasn't any kind of formal separation between students and teachers; they all lived relaxed in that beautiful corner of the world. You will discover about summer sessions, the trips made by the Albers in Mexico where in particular Anni developed the best in terms of creativity. Essays are written by ex students and creative of Black Mountain, treating the most diversified thematic. Active students that ones. If you see the first pictures of this catalogue, you capture the essence of the college when you see young people working in a farm; this one was Black Mountain: a place where study was unified with work. Not just farm, but everything creative like constructions, cooking.
Many important people became big names: one for everyone John Cage.

It's a beautiful and creative catalogue, this one. Immense, wonderful if you love art, you can't lose the chance of buying it.

Highly recommended.

I thank Yale University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori