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Moholy-Nagy: Future Present at the Guggenheim

Originally from Hungary, László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) was a Bauhaus teacher, the founder of the Institute of Design in Chicago, and a truly influential modernist artist. This summer, visitors to the Guggenheim Museum can experience his transformative artworks for themselves, as the museum presents the new exhibition Moholy-Nagy: Future Present.

moholy nagy guggenheim installation

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), Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

Moholy-Nagy’s multidisciplinary works brought art and technology together in an unprecedented way. His pioneering innovations included cameraless photography; researching with light, transparency, and movement; using industrial materials in drawing and painting; creating pieces that were at the forefront of abstraction; and working fluidly between the fine and applied arts. Moholy-Nagy was a utopian modernist who believed in the power of art and technology to influence social transformation, and his versatile work went on to pave the way for artists to create increasingly multidisciplinary work.

The exhibition, which is on view at the Guggenheim through September 7 before traveling to The Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will provide an unprecedented look at Moholy-Nagy’s varied career. Moholy-Nagy: Future Present includes over 300 pieces by the artist, some of which have never before been shown in the United States. The retrospective embraces Moholy-Nagy’s multidisciplinary methodology. Works on display include collages, paintings, ephemera, drawings, films, photograms, photographs, sculptures, and photomontages. The exhibition also includes Room of the Present, a contemporary refabrication of a room envisioned by Moholy-Nagy in 1930 that was never realized in his lifetime. The room illustrates Moholy-Nagy’s belief in the power of images and the various ways in which we view them—a subject that feels just as relevant to our own technologically preoccupied present.

room of the present moholy nagy

László Moholy-Nagy, 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 Buhne), 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 © 2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Guggenheim will also present a series of events centered on Moholy-Nagy and his work. On Fridays and Saturdays through August 27, the museum will present Films to Come: Moholy-Nagy and the Moving Image, a series that includes documentaries on the artist and the Bauhaus, abstract films, and works by contemporary filmmakers inspired by Moholy-Nagy. The series will conclude with a screening of the 1936 sci-fi film Things to Come, for which Moholy-Nagy created the special effects. On July 21, the museum will respond to Moholy-Nagy’s idea of the “opto-acoustic alphabet” with Moholy-Nagy: Optical Sound. The presentation, which will include a multimedia performance, turntable concert, and multi-channel presentation of 1970s Hungarian electronic music, highlights a fusion of modulated sound and light and seeks to epitomize Maholy-Nagy’s dream of the “groove script.”

moholy nagy guggenheim

László Moholy-Nagy, A 19, 1927, Oil and graphite on canvas, 80 x 95.5 cm, Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Ann Arbor, MI
© 2016 Hattula Moholy-Nagy/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Maholy-Nagy: Future Present is on view at the Guggenheim Museum through September 7. For more information, visit guggenheim.org.

About the Author

Alison Durkee is a New York-based arts journalist and critic with a background in theatre and dance. She currently serves as the Features Editor of London theatre website Everything Theatre and also covers news and politics for Mic.com.

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