MoholyNagy Final

8/2/2019 MoholyNagy Final

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WRITTEN & DESIGNED BY: DYAN CANN



During the 1920s, Hungarian artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was

an instructor at the famous Bauhaus school, located in Germany, teaching

foundations with a focus on using different mediums such as photography. W

there, he experimented with a photographic process where one places an ob

usually an object that is flat, on top of light sensitive material while exposin

to light. This process is referred to as a photogram. This form of photograp

was considered a misuse of the medium because it was “cameraless,” create

without a camera.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy thought of his photograms as light paintings

He was interested in the mysterious light effects that he could achieve with process. He particularly liked the shadows produced. He eventually thought

better name for the photogram would be “shadowgraph”.

Although photograms were not the first “cameraless” kind of

photography to come into existence, they were still resonated as shocking

and innovative. In his photograms, Moholy-Nagy tried to unify art and



technology into an industrial design, drifting away from the 19th century

pictorialist conventions. He separated objects from their natural settings by

using distorting viewpoints, radical cropping, strong figure-ground relations

and compositions oriented on the diagonal, creating a more surreal type of

photography mixed with the elements of industry. The photogram is among

some of the earliest abstract photography created to this day. Moholy-Nagy

would later go on to become a director at the Illinois Institute of Technolog

(IIT) based in Chicago. This school was coined as the “New Bauhaus” beca

the school would carry out the same philosophy as the original Bauhaus sch

An example of Moholy-Nagy’s work is Photogram No. 1- The Miwhich consists of the shadow effects of a circular object and an angular obj

To create gradations of light values rather than simple silhouettes, Moholy-

Nagy used lenses, mirrors and other translucent objects. The shadowy effec

in this photogram creates a 3-D illusion and capitalizes on the concept of

movement or energy caught in space.



THE MIRROR



DOUBLE PORTRAIT



A decade before Moholy-Nagy’s photograms, a French artist by

the name of Marcel Duchamp was leaving his mark on the art world with

his ready-mades. Duchamp had already started with his experimentation of

testing the boundaries of what classifies art as art while in Paris before com

to New York in 1915. There, in New York, Marcel Duchamp designated his

experimentations as “ready-mades.” The ready-mades Duchamp produced

were a protest to the philosophy of what art was considered at the time. Lik

Moholy-Nagy’s art, they were abstractions, wherein he insisted that art can

ideas instead of worldly things.

The readymade phenomenon began actually as an “assisted readymade” with Duchamp’s “Bicycle Wheel” created in 1913 where a bicycle wh

was placed on top of a stool. The difference between an “assisted ready-ma

and a “pure ready-made” is that a “pure ready-made” is a single object. An

“assisted ready-made” is sometimes referred to as a “rectified readymade”.

“Bicycle Wheel” had a lot of different aspects within the objects that he like



such as the spinning of the bicycle wheel. He found humor within the use o

unicycle because it played with the idea of immobility, the direct opposite o

wheel’s function.

Duchamp’s single most famous ready-made was his “Fountain” br

to the public eye in 1917. Duchamp’s “Fountain” piece was generated simpl

taking a porcelain urinal manufactured by J.L Mott Iron Works and turning

upside down. The artist then added a special touch to the piece by signing i

Mutt” before submitting it to the Society of Independent Artist, an open ex

to those who submitted pieces. After submitting his “Fountain” by “R. Mutt

readymade, the society of which he was the director turned away the art piedenied it entry into the exhibition. Marcel Duchamp chose to resign as dire

from the Society of Independent Artist after this incident. In essence Duch

took an ordinary article in life, placed it so that its usefulness as that object

disappeared and then created a new thought for that object.

Along with Duchamp’s other ready-made ventures, he produced a



“installed ready-mades”. The idea of an “installed ready-made” was that th

focus was more on the environment surrounding the object versus the initia

object. An example of an “installed ready-made” is Duchamp’s “Trebuchet

composed in 1918. “Trebuchet” was located in Duchamp’s studio as a coat

hanger that was nailed to the floor. Humor can be found in this creation as

well due to its reference to chess, a game the artist was very fond of and wo

eventually pursue in replacement of art. Marcel Duchamp also consciously

chose to ¬¬limit the amount of ready-mades that he chose to output. Dying

the age of eighty-one, he had only produced twenty-one of his ready-mades

which were created between 1915 and 1923.



BICYCLE WHEELFOUNTAIN



Besides the fact that Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Duchamp

were similar in the fact that both were challenging the parameters of art

with their abstractions, they both depended on preexisting objects in order t

create something entirely new to the art world. To make each image unique

Moholy-Nagy used common objects such as baby rattles or dog muzzles to

create unusual shapes to emphasize his light effects. Duchamp’s readymade

uses objects that are not normally considered art. However, this type of art

must have an artist’s input, or at least have an idea about it of why an artist

designating the object as art.

Another similar factor is that the art created by these particular afalls into the manipulation category. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy chose to manipul

the way a photograph was produced with the use of light and objects in a

different way than the norm. For example, in his Oval Study/Photogram 19

he had complete control over the arrangement of the objects in the photogr

and the manipulation of the light. There appears to be an egg-shaped objec



alongside some long thin lines, which look like guitar strings. The egg objec

seems to be the most striking of the objects, not because of it shape only, bu

because of how it is stationary and exposed to the most light. Moholy-Nagy

creates a very eerie feeling with his shadows and silhouettes. The lighting al

gives the photogram a 3-dimensional feel to the objects, drawing them out o

the photogram. Marcel Duchamp manipulated the way art was per¬ceived

in both a physical and philosophical manner. Duchamp, in essence, took an

ordinary article in life, placed it so that its usefulness as that object disappea

and then created a new thought for that object.

Each of these artists was majorly influential in and out of theirselected fields. Duchamp was the first artist to form the idea of “found art”

The philosophy of found art is the same as ready-mades; using non-art to fo

art. Another form of art influenced by Duchamp’s ready-mades is “trash ar

or “junk art”. Trash art is created with items that have been disposed of and

in certain cases come straight from the trashcan. These two offsprings have



been highly debated along with the ready-mades for some find them “difficu

Moholy-Nagy’s photogram opened the door to the idea of what photograph

was and could be. The artists both posed a question and answered it throug

their passion.

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