Event 1. Tour: Moholy-Nagy: Future Present at LACMA

Moholy enrolled as a law student ay the University of Budapest in 1913. However, he said that he’s always a painter. Now, he’s known for his various career paths as a pioneering painter, photographer, sculptor, filmmaker as well as graphic, exhibition, and stage designer. Yesterday, my friend went to the first comprehensive exhibition of his work at LACMA and joined a tour listening to his 51 years life story.

According to our tour guide Mariana, Moholy’s goal throughout his life was to integrate art, technology, and education for the betterment of humanity. Throughout the tour, I saw a clear transition from expression to abstract and finally to the integration of art and technology.


For example, the painting on the left was his first artwork created in 1918. Compared to his later work, his first work is more of expression and figurative. A more clear example is the two works below created on the same piece of canvas. The left now shows a geometric abstraction called Architecture 1, while the right one is a basic form of his earlier painting showing Dada-inflected urban landscapes. The contrast is obvious.





In addition to his transition to abstraction, Moholy is also good at combining technology into his artwork. Below are two of his works that are painted on aluminum.

In his later years with the development of photography technology, Moholy starts taking color pictures with cameras. The exhibition shows some of his photography works as slides since “he never wanted his photos to be printed but exhibiting as slides because projectors can show the lights”, explained by Mariana, “Moholy had the belief that artists should make use of contemporary means of production to disseminate their ideas”.

I highly recommend this exhibition to my fellow classmates not only because it relates to our class subject so well, but also because of Moholy’s amazing artworks. He integrated art and technology well to express his ideas and opinions through different methods including painting, photogram, and photographs. As the exhibition’s name suggests, it’s a Future Present, and since his future is our present, we can find his artwork so consistent with modern taste.





Sources: 

“Tour: Moholy-Nagy: Future Present (50 minutes)”. LACMA. http://www.lacma.org/event/moholy-nagy-future-present-18. Accessed 16 April 2017. 

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