Xanti (Alexander) Schawinsky Biography
In his lifetime, Swiss born "Xanti" (Alexander) Schawinsky (1904-79) was best known for his work in the theatre department at the German Bauhaus, where he worked under the famous architect Walter Gropius . Fleeing Germany before the beginning of the Second World War, he landed at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where in the 1930s he developed his theory of the 'Spectodrama', an early multimedia -form of the 'happening'. Beyond the avant-garde utopia of the Bauhaus and his proto-happening art, Schawinsky also worked as a painter and graphic designer for the Italian Studio Boggeri in Milano. Protracted legal disputes over the artist's estate meant that Schawinsky's work was until recently almost inaccessible !