Exhibition Review: László Moholy-Nagy

Exhibition Review: László Moholy-Nagy

The Future Present


By Sandra Tyler, Editor-in-Chief

SandraheadshotInitially it was Moholy-Nagy’s kinship with Calder that drew me to this  Future Present exhibition, both pioneers of  the kinetic sculpture movement – Calder perhaps best known for his mobiles. But Moholy-Nagy’s works do not resonate of that same playfulness, certainly not on the level of Calder’s at once technically innovative but delightful works, my all-time favorite, “Calder’s Circus.” Both artists sought to conjoin the more subjective of art and objective of technology. But Nagy’s work is not so much delightful as architectural.

Even in his earliest works of  graphite and oil, perfectly geometric shapes seem carefully constructed; in place of any creative impulse is an extraordinarily thoughtful precision:

László Moholy-Nagy, All (Construction A II) 1924 oil and graphite on canvas, 1115.8 x 136.cm Solomon R. Guggenhiem Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection 43.900 ©2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
László Moholy-Nagy,
All (Construction A II) 1924
oil and graphite on canvas,
1115.8 x 136.cm
Solomon R. Guggenhiem Museum, New York,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection 43.900
©2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Over the course of Moholy-Nagy’s career, he experimented across a wide spectrum– from oil, to photography, aluminum and even Plexiglas. He was also a prolific writer, and that narrative bent is most evident in his photomontages, collages from magazines ad newspapers. Personally, I found these to be the least interesting, dwarfed by his more unprecedented “cameras photographs.” This technique, which he dubbed photograms, allowed him to “sketch with light in the same way the painter works in a sovereign manner on the canvas with his own instruments of paintbrush or pigment,” resulting in some of his perhaps most evocative works, truly gorgeous evanescent plays of light and shadow:

Laszlo Moholy-Nage photogram, 1926 gelatin silver photogram, 23.8 x 17.8 cm Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ralph M. Parsons Fund ©2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Photo: © 2015 Museum Associates/LACMA
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
photogram, 1926
gelatin silver photogram, 23.8 x 17.8 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ralph M. Parsons Fund
©2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Photo: © 2015 Museum Associates/LACMA

His  Plexiglas works were perhaps my favorites, which could be a surprising break from that expected architectural precision, incorporating discarded odd-shaped melted pieces of Plexiglas. This juxtaposition of the imperfect with the precise invigorates:

László Moholy-Nagy, B-10 Space Modulator, 1942
László Moholy-Nagy B-10 Space Modulator, 1942 oil and incised lines on Plexiglas, in original frame Plexiglas: 42.9 x 29.2 cm; frame: 82.9 x 67.6 cm Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection 47.1063 @2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

 

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Papmac, 1943 oil and incised lines on Plexiglas, in original fram plexiglas: 58.4 x 70.5 cm; 91.1 x 101.9 cm private collection ©2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
László Moholy-Nagy
Papmac, 1943
oil and incised lines on Plexiglas, in original frame
Plexiglas: 58.4 x 70.5 cm; 91.1 x 101.9 cm
private collection
©2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Moholy-Nagy’s final works, his most sculptural ones, embrace fully that surprising juxtaposition, while staying true to the architectural nuance he was renowned for:

László Moholy-Nagy Installation view: Moholy-Nagy: Futre Present, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, May 27-September 7, 2016. Photo: David Heald ©Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
László Moholy-Nagy
Installation view: Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, May 27-September 7, 2016. Photo: David Heald ©Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Though little about Moholy-Nagy seemed intuitive, he was an artist of extraordinary cerebral construct, and this was perhaps best demonstrated by his “Room of the Present,” a replica of an actual space originally conceived by Moholy-Nagy but never realized in his lifetime. This interactive enterprise incorporated into one room all those mediums he would explore throughout his career: photography, films, slides, documents, and replicas of architecture, theater, and industrial design, including a 2006 replica of his kinetic “Light Prop for an Electric Stage”:

 

Moholy-Nagy: Future Present on view May 27, 2016 – September 07, 2016
László Moholy-Nagy, Room in the Present, constructed in 2009 from plans and other documentation dated 1930. Mixed media, 442 x 586.8 x 842.8 cm. Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. ©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

I got in to see this exhibition just before it closes, September 7. It will open next at the Art Institute of Chicago (October 2, 2016–January 3, 2017) and in California, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (February 12–June 18, 2017). But for those in the New York City vicinity, here’s a sneak peek at the Guggenheim’s next exhibition, of Agnes Martin:

Agnes Martin Untitled, 2004 acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 inches ( 152.4 x 152.4 cm) Collection of Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg ©2015 Agnest Martin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Agnes Martin
Untitled, 2004
acrylic on canvas
60 x 60 inches ( 152.4 x 152.4 cm) Collection of Mitzi and Warren Eisenberg
©2015 Agnest Martin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Exhibition opens October 6th at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10128. www.guggenheim.org.

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