Until the 25^th of September, the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art will present László Moholy-Nagy’s work in the exhibition The Art of Light, composed by 130 paintings, black and white photographs, color photographs and graphical sketches made after 1922, when he devoted himself to teaching and formulating art theory by joining The Bauhaus School.

The exhibition is organized by the Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Circle of Fine Arts from Madrid, Martin-Groups-Bau from Berlín, Germeentemuseum Dem Haag and The Factory, in order to highlight his rich and varied work, specially the theoretical contribution to the modern art in his works focused in light.

Lázlo Moholy-Nagy was born in Bácsborsod, Hungary in 1895. Despite the fact of having studied Law, he opted for art, being considered one of the best photographers of the beginning of the 20th century. He was also a painter and an art theorist. He left a legacy of interesting intellectual work on contemporary art.

He was studying Law when the First World War begun, but the conflict led him to join the army. Later, he dropped out from the University to devote himself to painting with chalk and Indian ink. During the 1920’s, he moved to Berlin and devoted himself totally to experiment with photography and stills, getting impressive results. His stills of 1922 are considered nowadays works of art of incalculable value.

The following year he started leading metal workshops in The Bauhaus School. He also began to investigate the metal effects and stability; besides he introduced photography as a field of study at the Bauhaus.

His first theoretical work appeared in 1925 under the title Painting, Photography, Film, which became the 8th book of the series Bauhaus Books. Moholy-Nagy reflects his investigations about the use of light in photography in his book and he establishes a parallel between light and painting as instruments that can be defined by the color range in an art piece.

His passion for the phenomenon of light in the artistic creation led him to develop structures with movement and cavities through which light is filtrated, in order to see how they drew light and shadow silhouettes as the structures move.
This work involved him in kinetic sculpture, where movement, light and structure form an object that casts a variety of shapes as it moves.

László Moholy-Nagy immigrated to Chicago in 1937 expecting to reach the same success he had reached at the Bauhaus, but he failed and he could only found an art school that did not have a significant impact. He died from Leukemia in 1946 in Chicago.

For more information: http://www.ludwigmuseum.hu/site.php?inc=kiallitas&kiallitasId=768&menuId=44

Nancy Guzman

Seeing and knowing Moholy-Nagy works is a privilege that only a few people can have; so if you are staying at apartments in Budapest you can visit the Ludwig Museum and contemplate the work that this artist made at the beginning of the 20th century.

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Translated by: Hans
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