Moholy-NagY - Guggenheim Museum

Transcription

Major Retrospective of László Moholy-Nagy Opens at the
Guggenheim Museum in New York on May 27, 2016
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present is organized by and will be presented at the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art
Exhibition:
Venue:
Location:
Dates:
Media Preview:
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York
Full rotunda
May 27–September 7, 2016
Thursday, May 26, 2016, 10 am–1 pm
(NEW YORK, NY, May 26, 2015)— From May 27 to September 7, 2016, the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum will present the first comprehensive retrospective in the United States in nearly fifty years of
the work of pioneering artist and educator László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946). Organized by the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, Moholy-Nagy: Future Present examines the full career of the utopian modernist who
believed in the potential of art as a vehicle for social transformation, working hand in hand with
technology. Despite Moholy-Nagy’s prominence and the visibility of his work during his lifetime, few
exhibitions have conveyed the experimental nature of his work, his enthusiasm for industrial materials,
and his radical innovations with movement and light. This long overdue presentation, which
encompasses his multidisciplinary methodology, brings together more than 300 works drawn from
public and private collections across Europe and the United States, some of which have never before
been shown publicly in this country. After its debut presentation in New York, the exhibition will travel
to the Art Institute of Chicago (October 2, 2016–January 3, 2017) and the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art (February 12–June 18, 2017).
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present is co-organized by Carol S. Eliel, Curator of Modern Art, Los Angeles
County Museum of Art; Karole P. B. Vail, Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; and Matthew S.
Witkovsky, Richard and Ellen Sandor Chair and Curator, Department of Photography, Art Institute of
Chicago. The Guggenheim presentation is organized by Vail, with the assistance of Ylinka Barotto,
Curatorial Assistant, and Danielle Toubrinet, Exhibition Assistant.
The New York presentation of Moholy-Nagy: Future Present is made possible by Lavazza. Funding is
generously provided by David Berg Foundation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, The
Hilla von Rebay Foundation, William Talbott Hillman Foundation, Robert Lehman Foundation, and
Sotheby’s. The Leadership Committee for the exhibition, chaired by Peter and Dede Lawson-Johnston,
is gratefully acknowledged for its support, with special thanks to Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, Rachel
and Jean-Pierre Lehmann, Rowland Weinstein, Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte,
and Achim Moeller. Additional funding is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present provides an opportunity to examine the full career of this influential
Bauhaus teacher, founder of Chicago’s Institute of Design, and versatile artist who paved the way for
increasingly interdisciplinary and multimedia work and practice. Among his radical innovations were his
experiments with cameraless photographs (which he dubbed “photograms”); use of industrial materials
in painting and sculpture that was unconventional for his time; researching with light, transparency, and
movement; his work at the forefront of abstraction; and his ability to move fluidly between the fine and
applied arts. The exhibition is presented chronologically up the Guggenheim’s rotunda and features
collages, drawings, ephemera, films, paintings, photograms, photographs, photomontages, and
sculptures. The exception to the sequential order is Room of the Present (Raum der Gegenwart) in the
High Gallery, a contemporary fabrication of a space originally conceived by Moholy-Nagy in 1930 but
never realized in his lifetime. Constructed by designers Kai-Uwe Hemken and Jakob Gebert, the largescale work contains photographic reproductions, films, slides, documents, and replicas of architecture,
theater, and industrial design, including a 2006 replica of his kinetic Light Prop for an Electric Stage
(Lichtrequisit einer elektrischen Bühne, 1930). Room of the Present illustrates the artist’s belief in the
power of images and his approach to the various means with which to view them—a highly relevant
paradigm in today’s constantly shifting and evolving technological world. Room of the Present will be on
display at all three exhibition venues and for the first time in the United States. The Guggenheim
installation is designed by Kelly Cullinan, Senior Exhibition Designer, and is inspired by Moholy-Nagy’s
texts on space and his concept of a “spatial kaleidoscope” as applied to the experience of walking up the
ramps.
Born in 1895 in Austria-Hungary (now southern Hungary), Moholy-Nagy moved to Vienna briefly and
then to Berlin in 1920, where he encountered Dada artists, whose distinctive visual attributes of the
urban industrial landscape had already entered his work. He was also influenced by the Constructivists,
and exhibited work on several occasions at Berlin’s Der Sturm gallery. During this time, Moholy-Nagy
experimented with metal constructions, photograms, and enamel paintings. At the same moment, in his
ongoing quest to depict light and transparency, he painted abstract canvases composed of floating
geometric shapes. While teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar and then Dessau, he and Walter Gropius
pioneered the Bauhaus Books series, which advanced Moholy-Nagy’s belief that arts education and
administration went hand in hand with the practice of art making. Around this period, the artist became
temporarily disenchanted with the limitations of traditional painting. Photography took on greater
importance for him, and he described the photogram as “a bridge leading to new visual creation for
which canvas, paint-brush and pigment cannot serve.” He fashioned photomontages by combining
photographs (usually found) and newspaper images into absurd, satirical, or fantastical narratives. When
he moved back to Berlin in 1928, he enjoyed success as a commercial artist, exhibition and stage
designer, and typographer, examples of which will be on display in Moholy-Nagy: Future Present. Adolf
Hitler’s rise to power made life increasingly difficult for the avant-garde in Germany; thus, in 1934
Moholy-Nagy moved with his family to the Netherlands and then to London. Once he moved to
Chicago in 1937, he never returned to Europe.
Moholy-Nagy immigrated to Chicago to become founding director of the New Bauhaus, known today
as the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also made some of his most original
and experimental work during this time, pursuing his longtime fascination with light, shadow,
transparency, and motion. He continued to make photograms, created his Space Modulators (hybrids of
painting and sculpture made from Plexiglas), and pioneered 35 mm color slide photography, shown as
projections in the exhibition. He gave his full attention to American exhibition venues before his
untimely death of leukemia in 1946, showing nearly three dozen times across the United States—
including in four solo shows.
Moholy-Nagy was a central figure in the history of the Guggenheim Museum. His work was included in
the museum’s founding collection, and he held a special place at the Museum of Non-Objective
Painting, the forerunner of the Guggenheim Museum. He was among the first artists director Hilla
Rebay exhibited and collected in depth, and the museum presented a memorial exhibition shortly after
his death. Moholy-Nagy: Future Present highlights the artist’s interdisciplinary and investigative
approach, migrating from the school to the museum or gallery space, consistently pushing toward the
Gesamtwerk, the total work, which he sought to achieve throughout his lifetime.
Exhibition Catalogue
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present is accompanied by an extensively researched catalogue examining the
work of the pioneering artist. Featuring more than 300 works illustrated in color, it is the most
comprehensive English-language book on Moholy-Nagy in over thirty years and offers an integrated
presentation of his works across mediums, including painting, sculpture, photography, graphic design,
and film. The exhibition curators and other scholars provide new insights into Moholy-Nagy's methods
and his influence. Essays examine the confluence of writing, arts administration, and art making in the
artist’s practice; his use of materials, incorporating intensive conservation research and analysis; and his
impact on redefining the role of the artist in society. Particular emphasis is given to his American years
and his leadership of the Institute of Design in Chicago. The catalogue will be available for purchase at
guggenheim.org/store (hardcover: $65, softcover: $45).
Education and Public Programs
A range of programs featuring film, music, and explorations into László Moholy-Nagy’s resonance
today is offered in conjunction with Moholy-Nagy: Future Present. Highlights are listed below, with full
information and tickets available at guggenheim.org/calendar.
Film
Films to Come: Moholy-Nagy and the Moving Image
Fridays–Saturdays, June 3–August 26, 11 am
This film program includes documentaries about László Moholy-Nagy, Bauhaus films, selections of
abstract cinema, and works by contemporary filmmakers inspired by the artist.
Panel
Moholy-Nagy: Art for a New Century
Wednesday, June 22, 6:30 pm
Bringing together scholars, curators, and artists, this program explores how László Moholy-Nagy’s
experimental and multifaceted practice resonates today more than ever. Presentations by Oliver Botar
(University of Manitoba), Carol S. Eliel (Los Angeles County Museum of Art co-organizing curator),
and artist Barbara Kasten are followed by a panel discussion. Moderated by Karole P. B. Vail,
Guggenheim co-organizing curator. $15, $10 members, free for students with RSVP.
For Middle Schoolers
Game Design Workshop
Wednesday, June 29, 1–5 pm
Grades 5–8. Just as László Moholy-Nagy was challenged to create dynamic compositions through
various materials and new technologies, participants will design games through hands-on activities and
by using Gamestar Mechanic, a video game creation tool. Students will also learn how to submit their
games as part of the 2016 National STEM Video Game Challenge. Free with RSVP. Created in
collaboration with the 2016 STEM Challenge, The Institute of Museum and Library Services, The Joan
Ganz Cooney Center, and E-Line Media.
Performance
Moholy-Nagy: Optical Sound
Thursday, July 21, 7 pm
In response to what László Moholy-Nagy referred to as an “opto-acoustic alphabet,” this program
highlights the fusion of modulated sound and light. A large-scale multichannel presentation of
innovative Hungarian electronic music from the 1970s is followed by a performance by a contemporary
practitioner of intermedia work that exemplifies Moholy-Nagy’s dream of a “groove script.” $30, $20
members, $15 students.
Tours
Curator’s Eye
Friday, June 3, 12 pm
Karole P. B. Vail, Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Conservator’s Eye
Friday, July 29, 12 pm
Julie Barten, Senior Conservator, Collections and Exhibitions, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and
contributor to the exhibition catalogue
About the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the
understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through
exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The Guggenheim network that
began in the 1970s when the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, was joined by the Peggy
Guggenheim Collection, Venice, has since expanded to include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
(opened 1997) and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (currently in development). The Guggenheim
Foundation continues to forge international collaborations that celebrate contemporary art,
architecture, and design within and beyond the walls of the museum, including the Guggenheim UBS
MAP Global Art Initiative and The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Chinese Art Initiative. More
information about the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation can be found at guggenheim.org.
VISITOR INFORMATION
Admission: Adults $25, students/seniors (65+) $18, members and children under 12 free. The
Guggenheim’s free app, available with admission or by download to personal devices, offers an
enhanced visitor experience. The app features content on special exhibitions as well as access to more
than 1,500 works in the Guggenheim’s permanent collection. Additionally, information about the
museum’s landmark building is available in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Verbal
Description guides for select exhibitions are also included for visitors who are blind or have low vision.
The Guggenheim app is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Museum Hours: Sun–Wed, 10 am–5:45 pm; Fri, 10 am–5:45 pm; Sat, 10 am–7:45 pm; closed Thurs. On
Saturdays, beginning at 5:45 pm, the museum hosts Pay What You Wish. For general information, call
212 423 3500 or visit the museum online at: guggenheim.org
guggenheim.org/social
#MoholyNagy
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May 26, 2016 (Updated from April 15, 2016)
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Sarah Eaton, Director of Media and Public Relations
Kris Parker, Senior Publicist
212 423 3840
[email protected]
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present Exhibition-related Public
Programs at the Guggenheim Museum
In conjunction with the exhibition Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, the Guggenheim presents the
following public programs, including a robust film program highlighting the Bauhaus and abstract
cinema, a performative exploration of László Moholy-Nagy’s concept of an “opto-acoustic alphabet,”
panel discussions, and more.
FILMS
Films to Come: Moholy-Nagy and the Moving Image
Fridays–Saturdays, June 3–August 26, 11 am–5:45 pm
This film program includes documentaries about László Moholy-Nagy and the Bauhaus, selections of
abstract cinema, works by contemporary filmmakers inspired by the artist, and William Cameron
Menzies’s 1936 classic Things to Come, for which Moholy-Nagy was commissioned to make special
effects.
11 am: Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy: Permanent Experiment, Jens Schmohl, 1998; 60 min
12 pm: The Bauhaus
Bauhaus in America, Judith Pearlman, 1995; 85 min
The Triadic Ballet: A Film in Three Parts Base on the Dances by Oskar Schlemmer, Bavaria Film GmbH,
1970; 31 min
2 pm: Abstract Film and The Dynamic of the Metropolis
Diagonal Symphony, Viking Eggeling, 1924; 7 min
Film Study, Hans Richter, 1926; 4 min
Dynamic of the Big City, Berlin University of the Arts, 2005-06; 7 min
Dynamic of the Metropolis, Schroeter and Berger, 2006; 20 min
2:40 pm: Things to Come
Things to Come, Graham Ellard and Stephen Johnstone, 2011; 6 min
Things to Come 1936–2012, Jan Tichy, 2012; 5 1/2 min
H. G. Wells’ Things to Come, William Cameron Menzies, 1936; 97 min
Free with museum admission. For more information, visit guggenheim.org/filmscreenings (lineup and
schedule subject to change).
PANEL
Moholy-Nagy: Art for a New Century
Wednesday, June 22, 6:30 pm
Oliver Botar (University of Manitoba), Carol S. Eliel (Los Angeles County Museum of Art coorganizing curator), and artist Barbara Kasten discuss how László Moholy-Nagy’s experimental and
multifaceted practice resonates today more than ever. Organized by Karole P. B. Vail, Guggenheim
exhibition curator. Exhibition viewing and a reception follows.
$15, $10 members, free for students with RSVP. For more information, visit guggenheim.org/moholyprograms.
PERFORMANCE
Moholy-Nagy: Optical Sound
Thursday, July 21, 7 pm
In response to what László Moholy-Nagy referred to as an “opto-acoustic alphabet,” this program
highlights the fusion of modulated sound and light. To start the evening, program curators R. Luke
DuBois and Zach Layton contextualize the event with a presentation in the museum's Peter B. Lewis
Theater, followed by a multimedia performance and turntable concert. The evening culminates on the
museum’s rotunda floor with a large-scale multichannel presentation of innovative Hungarian electronic
music from the 1970s. Moholy-Nagy: Optical Sound aims to provide an experience for visitors that
exemplifies Moholy-Nagy’s dream of a “groove script.”
$30, $20 members, $15 students. Includes an exhibition viewing with cash bar. For more information,
visit guggenheim.org/moholy-programs.
This public program is co-presented with the Balassi Institute Hungarian Cultural Center New York.
TOURS
Fridays, June 3 and July 29, 12 pm
Gallery tours of Moholy-Nagy: Future Present are led by a Guggenheim conservator and curator.
June 3: Curator’s Eye*
Karole P. B. Vail, Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
July 29: Conservator’s Eye
Julie Barten, Senior Conservator, Collections and Exhibitions, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Free with museum admission. For more information, visit guggenheim.org/moholy-programs. *Tour
interpreted in American Sign Language (ASL).
guggenheim.org/social
#MoholyNagy
For publicity images, visit guggenheim.org/pressimages.
User ID: photoservice
Password: presspass
#1444
June 2, 2016
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Molly Stewart, Publicist
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
212 423 3840
[email protected]
PRESS IMAGES
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present
May 27–September 7, 2016
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Online Photo Service for Press Images
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László Moholy-Nagy
Dual Form with Chromium Rods, 1946
Plexiglas and chrome-plated brass, 92.7 × 121.6 × 55.9 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Founding Collection 48.1149
© 2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights
Society (ARS), New York
Installation view: Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York, May 27–September 7, 2016.
Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
1 | Moholy-Nagy: Future Present
Nickel Sculpture with Spiral, 1921
Nickel-plated iron, welded, 35.9 x 17.5 x 23.8 cm
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of Mrs. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy
1956
Room of the Present (Raum der Gegenwart), constructed in 2009 from
plans and other documentation dated 1930. Mixed media, 442 x 586.8 x
842.8 cm. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
Society (ARS), New York.
Room of the Present (Raum der Gegenwart), constructed in 2009 from
plans and other documentation dated 1930. Mixed media, 442 x 586.8 x
842.8 cm. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.
Foreground: Light Prop for an Electric Stage (Lichtrequisit einer elektrischen
Bühne), 1930. Exhibition replica, constructed in 2006, through the courtesy
of Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Metal, plastics, glass,
paint, and wood, with electric motor, 151 x 70 x 70 cm. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Hildegard von Gontard Bequest Fund
Society (ARS), New York.
A II (Construction A II), 1924
Oil and graphite on canvas, 115.8 × 136.5 cm
László Moholy‑Nagy
A 19, 1927
Oil and graphite on canvas, 80 × 95.5 cm
Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Ann Arbor, MI
Photogram, 1926
Gelatin silver photogram , 23.8 x 17.8 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ralph M. Parsons Fund
Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA
Construction AL6 (Konstruktion AL6), 1933–34
Oil and incised lines on aluminum, 60 × 50 cm
IVAM, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Generalitat
CH BEATA I, 1939
Oil and graphite on canvas, 118.9 x 119.8 cm
Dual Form with Chromium Rods, 1946
Plexiglas and chrome-plated brass, 92.7 × 121.6 × 55.9 cm
Photo: Kristopher McKay © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New
York
Cover and design for Vision in Motion (Paul Theobald, 1947)
Bound volume, 28.6 × 22.9 cm.
The Hilla von Rebay Foundation Archives
Space Modulator, 1939–45
Oil and incised lines on Plexiglas, in original frame
Plexiglas: 63.2 × 66.7 cm; frame: 88.6 × 93 cm
Photogram, 1941
Gelatin silver photogram, 28 x 36 cm
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Sally Petrilli, 1985
B‑10 Space Modulator, 1942
Oil and incised lines on Plexiglas in original frame
Plexiglas: 42.9 × 29.2 cm; frame: 82.9 × 67.6 cm 42.9 x 29.2 x 6 cm
Papmac, 1943
Oil and incised lines on Plexiglas, in original frame
Plexiglas: 58.4 × 70.5 cm; frame: 91.1 × 101.9 cm
Private collection
MOHOLY-NAGY FUTURE PRESENT
László Moholy-Nagy (b. 1895, Borsód, Austria-Hungary; d. 1946, Chicago)
believed in the potential of art as a vehicle for social transformation, working
hand in hand with technology for the betterment of humanity. A restless
innovator, Moholy-Nagy experimented with a wide variety of mediums, moving
fluidly between the fine and applied arts in pursuit of his quest to illuminate the
interrelatedness of life, art, and technology. An artist, educator, and writer who
defied categorization, he expressed his theories in numerous influential writings
that continue to inspire artists and designers today. Walter Gropius invited him
to join the faculty at the Bauhaus school of art and design, where Moholy-Nagy
taught in Weimar and Dessau in the 1920s. In 1937, he was appointed to head
the New Bauhaus in Chicago; he later opened his own School of Design there
(subsequently renamed the Institute of Design), which today is part of the Illinois
Institute of Technology.
Among Moholy-Nagy’s radical innovations were his experiments with
cameraless photographs (which he dubbed “photograms”); his unconventional
use of industrial materials in painting and sculpture; experiments with light,
transparency, space, and motion across mediums; and his work at the forefront
of abstraction, as he strove to reshape the role of the artist in the modern
world. Moholy-Nagy: Future Present features paintings, sculptures, collages,
drawings, prints, films, photograms, photographs, photomontages, projections,
documentation, and examples of graphic, advertising, and stage design drawn
from public and private collections across Europe and the United States.
On display in the museum’s High Gallery is Room of the Present (Raum der
Gegenwart), a contemporary fabrication of an exhibition space conceived of
by Moholy-Nagy in 1930, but not realized in his lifetime. On view for the
first time in the United States, the large-scale work contains photographic
reproductions and design replicas as well as his kinetic Light Prop for an
Electric Stage (Lichtrequisit einer elektrischen Bühne, 1930; recreated 2006).
Room of the Present illustrates Moholy-Nagy’s belief in the power of images
and the significance of the various means with which to view and disseminate
them—a highly relevant paradigm in today’s constantly shifting and evolving
technological world.
Moholy-Nagy is a central figure in the history of the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum. In 1929, Solomon R. Guggenheim and his advisor, German-born
artist Hilla Rebay, began collecting his paintings, works on paper, and sculpture
in depth for the Guggenheim’s growing collection of nonobjective art. His work
held a special place at the Museum of Non-Objective Painting—the forerunner
of the Guggenheim Museum—where a memorial exhibition was presented
shortly after his untimely death in 1946.
Moholy-Nagy: Future Present is co-organized by Carol S. Eliel, Karole P. B. Vail, and
Matthew S. Witkovsky. The Guggenheim presentation is organized by Karole P. B. Vail.
300
#MOHOLYNAGY
Room of the Present (Raum der Gegenwart)
Based on the few existing plans, drawings, and related correspondence
Moholy-Nagy left behind, Room of the Present—unrealized in the artist’s
lifetime—was constructed in 2009 by designers Kai-Uwe Hemken and
Jakob Gebert for presentation in several European museums.
Installation views of Room 2 (Salle 2) of the German
section of the annual salon of the Société des artistes
décorateurs (Society of Decorative Artists), Paris,
May 14–July 13, 1930. Courtesy Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin.
Room 2 served as the model for Room of the Present.
Room of the Present exemplifies Moholy-Nagy’s desire to achieve the
Gesamtwerk, or the total work, unifying art, technology, science, and
film with life itself. Alexander Dorner, the ambitious young director of
the Provincial Museum in Hannover, Germany, was inspired by MoholyNagy’s contribution to the annual salon of the Société des artistes
décorateurs (Society of Decorative Artists) in Paris in 1930. For the
German section of the salon, Moholy-Nagy designed Room 2 (Salle 2),
which served as the model for Room of the Present, along with other
exhibition designs. Dorner was keen on devising a new concept for the
modern museum by rearranging art collections into “atmosphere rooms”
in an effort to break from traditional installation practices and challenge
the viewer with an appreciation for contemporary art. Intrigued by
Moholy-Nagy’s use of photography, film, and light effects, Dorner
invited him to design a comparable room for his museum.
Room of the Present would have included the most recent cultural
developments in photography reproductions, films, slides, documents,
and replicas of architecture, theater, and industrial design. Only one
original object would have been included, Moholy-Nagy’s motor-driven
light display apparatus Light Prop for an Electric Stage (Lichtrequisit
einer elektrischen Bühne, 1930; recreated 2006), as the vehicle for the
projection of fluctuating luminous effects. Also on view would have been
films by Viking Eggeling, Sergei Eisenstein, and Dziga Vertov.
Though Room of the Present was never realized due to logistical and
financial difficulties and the increasingly unstable political climate in
Germany, it represented, in concept, Dorner and Moholy-Nagy’s thinking
about the power of images and of the broad dissemination of knowledge
and information. Intended as a hybrid between a museum gallery and a
work of art, it would have served as what Moholy-Nagy described as an
“arena of mass communication that would transform modern life.” Here,
Room of the Present includes photographic panorama boards and loops,
slide and film projection screens, movable panels with examples of
typography, design objects, an educational text, and a replica of Light
Prop for an Electric Stage placed inside a box in the center of the gallery,
as originally envisaged by the artist.
301
“For a new ordering of a new
world the need arose again to
take possession of the simplest
elements of expression, color,
form, matter, space.”
—László Moholy-Nagy,
“On the Problem of New Content
and New Form” (1922)
Born into a Jewish family in rural Hungary, Moholy-Nagy
began to publish poetry and short stories at a young age.
In 1915, he left the University of Budapest, where he had
enrolled as a law student, to serve as an artillery officer
in the Austro-Hungarian army. While enlisted, he made
numerous drawings and sketches. After convalescing
from a hand wound he suffered on the Russian front, he
continued to publish poems, stories, and reviews for the
Hungarian literary journal Jelenkor (Present age). After his
discharge from the army in 1918, he attended classes at
a free art school in Budapest, where he studied the works
of old masters, particularly Rembrandt, as well as those
of Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and practitioners of
Cubism and Futurism. He frequented the city’s lively café
scene and came into close contact with Magyar Aktivizmus
(Hungarian Activism), the influential avant-garde artistic
and antimilitary movement headed by the artist and writer
Lajos Kassák, who also founded the short-lived association
MA (Today) and the eponymous magazine.
In autumn 1919, Moholy-Nagy moved to Vienna for a brief
period before settling in Berlin in early spring 1920, where
he became the correspondent for MA. There he met his
future wife, Lucia Schulz, a socially and politically engaged
photographer and editor. He also met Dada artists—whose
works had already influenced his own—and encountered
Constructivism, which had a formative impact on his
developing style and aesthetics.
“New creative experiments are an
enduring necessity.”
“Production-Reproduction” (1922)
Moholy-Nagy began to move away from representational imagery as
he became influenced by the Constructivists, who believed art should
reinforce social reform through simple, minimal forms in order to reflect
the modern industrial world. He began to paint abstract geometric
canvases in which diagonals, curves, circles, half-moons, and bands
of color form architectural structures in space. The shapes seem to
overlap, creating the illusion of a kind of glass architecture, a nod
to the value of transparency and light proclaimed by German writers
and modern architects in the early part of the twentieth century.
and the publication of his woodcut designs in the gallery’s periodical.
This recognition also spurred the publication of several important
essays, including “Production-Reproduction” (1922), in which the
artist formulated his theories for a new understanding of a person’s
relationship to “creative activity” and documented novel recording
methods with respect to the phonograph, photography, and film.
In “Dynamic-Constructive Systems of Forces” (1922), coauthored
with Hungarian Alfred Kemény, he advocated “to replace the static
principle of classical art with the dynamic principle of universal life.”
A prolific writer, Moholy-Nagy began to collaborate with others on texts
and manifestos, including “Manifesto of Elemental Art” (1921), written
with Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann, and Iwan Puni. He participated in his
first exhibition at the avant-garde gallery Der Sturm in Berlin in February
1922 with the Hungarian artist László Péri. The presentation, which
included abstract paintings as well as assemblages and reliefs made of
industrial materials, was successful, earning him subsequent exhibitions
Moholy-Nagy also began to experiment with photograms, cameraless
photographs made by placing objects directly onto the surface of lightsensitive paper. Enthused by the creative and reproductive possibilities
of the photographic medium, he would also go on to make photographs
with a camera as well as photomontages, composite images intended
to create new forms and meanings.
“Not against technical progress, but with it.”
The New Vision: From Material
to Architecture (1930)
In 1923, Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus school of art and
design, invited Moholy-Nagy to join the faculty. Until 1928, Moholy-Nagy
taught the school’s preliminary course, with Josef Albers, and directed
the metal workshop. Joining the ranks of established artists Vasily
Kandinsky and Paul Klee, Moholy-Nagy’s appointment emphasized
a change in the school’s direction, as stipulated by Gropius, who
advocated for the connection between art and technology. In 1924,
Moholy-Nagy’s third exhibition at Der Sturm in Berlin included his
industrially made enamel paintings, which caused a sensation among
his contemporaries.
Moholy-Nagy published, along with Gropius, the Bauhaus Books series,
a total of fourteen volumes that gave voice to leading artists of the
day. He collaborated with designer Herbert Bayer—who promoted
a streamlined, “universal” alphabet—on eye-catching typography for
Bauhaus stationery, programs, announcements, and various advertising
materials, combining text and photography in an effort to convey a clear
and direct message. He continued to paint variations on geometric and
architectural compositions of intersecting planes and floating shapes
and published lithographs, in which he sought a “genuine space system,
a dictionary for space relationships.” He also made photomontages in
a nod to the political and provocative imagery of Berlin Dada, collecting
materials from magazines and newspapers and reassembling them in
surprising combinations and narratives rich with humor, political satire,
and often mysterious meanings.
“As in painting so in photography we have
to learn to see, not the ‘picture,’ not the
narrow rendering of nature, but an ideal
instrument of visual expression.”
Vision in Motion (1947)
Moholy-Nagy believed his abstract paintings should not refer to anything
in the real world, but he thought photography and film could include
representational subject matter, and thus advocated for the necessity of
working in various mediums. Throughout the 1920s, photography took
on an increasingly important role for the artist as he embraced the idea
of a “new vision,” a means of expressive power through photographs
taken from unconventional perspectives and exaggerated viewpoints
that could foster a new understanding of art in a fast-changing culture.
Moholy-Nagy’s wide range of subject matter includes striking
architectural viewpoints and arresting studies in texture, shadow, and
light. These reveal formal compositional and organizational principles as
the artist sought “new experiences of space” in his photographic work,
just as he sought similar qualities in his paintings. In the latter, MoholyNagy experimented with various industrial materials, including the
plastics Trolit and Galalith, but from around 1928, he did much less
painting for several years, temporarily considering the medium to be too
restrictive, and instead focused on photography, design, and film.
In 1929–31, Moholy-Nagy participated in the exhibition Film und Foto
(Fifo) as both a curator and exhibited photographer. This landmark
presentation, which traveled across Europe and to Japan, emphasized
the relationship of photography and film to society. Fifo was emblematic
of Moholy-Nagy’s “new vision,” whereby unusual methods and
techniques were hailed as the new means of creating art in an
increasingly technological world. In 1930, he created his abstract film
Light Play: Black-White-Gray (Ein Lichtspiel schwarz-weiß-grau), which
showcased his Light Prop for an Electric Stage (Lichtrequisit einer
elektrischen Bühne, 1930, recreated 2006) as its subject, illustrating his
efforts to move from static painting to kinetic light displays in his desire
to link different mediums.
“An education for personal growth.”
Vision in Motion (1947)
In Berlin, where he had resettled in 1928 after having left the Bauhaus,
Moholy-Nagy turned to more commercial artistic pursuits, including
advertising design and typography, exhibition design for housing
developments, and stage design for the opera and theater, for which
he created light projections. In winter 1931, he met writer Sibyl Pietzsch,
who became his second wife and with whom he had two daughters.
In 1934, because of the Nazis’ rise to power, Moholy-Nagy left Berlin and
found exhibition and advertising work in Amsterdam. He collaborated
there with De Stijl artists and architects, experimented with color
photography, designed for the magazine International Textiles, had
a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, and lectured frequently.
In spring 1935, Moholy-Nagy moved with his family to London, where
he worked mainly as a graphic designer, creating posters for the London
Underground and advertising materials for Imperial Airways and Isokon
furniture. He continued to create short, documentary-like films, explore
the possibilities of color photography, and experiment with industrial
materials, including aluminum and a range of plastics, as he pursued his
research with light and transparency. In July 1937, he sailed to the United
States at the invitation of the Association of Arts and Industries, which
had been encouraged by former Bauhaus director Walter Gropius to
recruit him as the director of the New Bauhaus in Chicago. The school
was forced to close, for financial reasons, after only one year. In February
1939, with the monetary and moral support of Walter Paepcke, art
collector and founder of the packaging company Container Corporation
of America, Moholy-Nagy reopened the school as the School of Design
(subsequently renamed the Institute of Design), which today is part
of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Alongside his work as an
administrator and fund-raiser, Moholy-Nagy continued to pursue his
artistic practices, including photograms, color photography, and the
exploration of new materials, such as Formica. Moholy-Nagy was
especially intrigued by Plexiglas, whose unique transparent properties
would occupy him until the end of his life.
“If the unity of art can be established
with all the subject matters taught and
exercised, then a real reconstruction
of this world could be hoped for—more
balanced and less dangerous.”
“The Contribution of the Arts to
Social Reconstruction” (1943)
In his final years, Moholy-Nagy continued to create art in various
mediums and to exhibit widely while he simultaneously pursued design
work and shouldered the manifold duties demanded of him to run his
design school, which he called a “laboratory for a new education.”
He made some of his most original work during this time, remaining
faithful to his longtime fascination with the mysteries of light, shadow,
and transparency. He also explored the scientific advances of the
day, experimenting with 35 mm Kodachrome color film—still in its
infancy—and with plastics, as well as continuing his work
with photograms.
He produced an array of explicitly autobiographical or narrative
canvases—his Leuk and Nuclear paintings—that allude to the cancer
that would eventually take his life in 1946 and to the horrors of the
atomic bombings in Japan in 1945. Especially prominent in his late work
are Plexiglas hybrids of painting and sculpture, which he titled Space
Modulators, objects to be perceived as “vehicles for choreographed
luminosity” that cast special shadow effects.
Moholy-Nagy was always in pursuit of the “whole man,” seeking out new
materials and methods in the steadfast belief that what mattered most
were intellectual awareness and the necessity for the assimilation of
art, technology, and education. From Europe, he brought his reputation
and intellectual authority as well as his faith in humanity. Having arrived
in America at a critical time between two world wars and on the cusp
of significant artistic developments, he remained true to his vision as
he paved the way for an increasingly interdisciplinary and multimedia
age. The body of work on view in this exhibition exemplifies MoholyNagy’s commitment to the Gesamtwerk, or the total work, which he
sought throughout his life, advocating for “the specific need of our time
for a vision in motion.” These last three words became the title of his
influential culminating text, which was published posthumously in 1947.
Lavazza Supports the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation as Sponsor of László
Moholy-Nagy Retrospective
Lavazza is honored to support Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, the first comprehensive
retrospective dedicated to László Moholy-Nagy in the United States in nearly fifty years. The
exhibition offers a unique opportunity to assess the multifaceted and influential career of this
visionary artist, who was also a prominent Bauhaus educator, a prolific writer, and the founder of
Chicago’s Institute of Design. Lavazza applauds the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum for
presenting this compelling and inspiring exhibition that illuminates the work of one of the most
versatile members of the twentieth-century avant-garde.
The sponsorship of Moholy-Nagy: Future Present builds on Lavazza’s longtime commitment to
the arts, including support of two recent exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum: Italian
Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe (2014) and Alberto Burri: The Trauma of
Painting (2015). Lavazza was established as a family-owned coffee company in 1895, the year of
Moholy-Nagy’s birth, and the organization has since encouraged innovation and creativity in all
forms. Lavazza is rooted in experimentation—our founder, Luigi Lavazza, pioneered the art of
blending coffee from around the world to meet the diverse tastes of our customers, a process
still used today. Moholy-Nagy had the same pioneering spirit, as evinced by his work’s
incorporation of modern technology and scientific principles and by his unconventional
approach to kinetics, light, photography, and support materials. In collaborating with the
Guggenheim Museum to present this exhibition, we take pride in exploring Moholy-Nagy’s
dynamic journey, viewing it through the lens of a broader cultural history, and seeing how the
values of the artist and our company converge.
As Lavazza continues to establish itself in the United States, we remain committed to
supporting creative expression. Moholy-Nagy’s genius has made a significant and admirable
impact on communities across the globe and expanded our thinking about art and life. We are
grateful to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for deepening our understanding of the
artist and for introducing his work to new audiences.
For further information:
Liz Santillanes
[email protected]
617-549-6022
Bridget O’Hara Hale
[email protected]
347-575-5152
Lavazza Premium Coffees Corp. 120 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005
Tel. 212.725.8800 • Fax 212.725.9475 • 1-800-GOOD-CUP • www.lavazza.com
LAVAZZA & MOHOLY-NAGY: FUTURE PRESENT
“Lavazza is thrilled to have made possible the New York presentation of the Moholy-Nagy:
Future Present retrospective at the Guggenheim. As a new member of the Guggenheim Board
of Trustees, I am particularly enthusiastic about the third year of Lavazza’s partnership with the
leading cultural institution. In collaborating with the Guggenheim Museum to present this
exhibition, we take pride in exploring Moholy-Nagy’s dynamic journey, viewing it through the
lens of a broader cultural history, and seeing how the values of the artist and our company
converge, particularly within the themes of innovation, technology and an underscoring
pioneering spirit.”
- Francesca Lavazza
Member of the Board, Lavazza Group / Trustee, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
LAVAZZA’S COMMITMENT TO THE ARTS & CULTURE
“As one of the leading global brands, Lavazza has the opportunity to share its passion for the
arts and culture worldwide. Particularly, our involvement with the contemporary art world dates
back more than 20 years, working with some of the most renowned photographers in the world
for the annual Lavazza Calendar and other projects (including Steve McCurry, Annie Leibovitz,
and David Lachapelle). In recent years, our passion has expanded to partner with select leading
organizations such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Civic Museums of Venice,
MUDEC Milan, and the Photographer’s Gallery in London. We look forward to continue to
help drive the cultural conversation with our existing and new partnerships in the near future.”
- Francesca Lavazza
Member of the Board, Lavazza Group / Trustee, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Lavazza Premium Coffees Corp. 120 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005
Tel. 212.725.8800 • Fax 212.725.9475 • 1-800-GOOD-CUP • www.lavazza.com

Moholy-NagY - Guggenheim Museum

Transcription

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