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Thursday March 11, 20049:30-11 amR.S.V.P. info@icp.org

New Histories of Photography 6

Expanding Vision: Lszl Moholy-Nagys Experiments of the 1920s

New York, NY--- One of the great innovators of the European avant-garde, LszlMoholy-Nagy (1895-1946) is best known for his affiliation with the famous Bauhausschool in Germany, where he taught from 1923-28. Moholy-Nagy experimented widelywith photography during these years, and developed a theoretical approach known asthe 'New Vision,' a method of using the medium to expand his audiences knowledgeand perception. A selection of fifteen works from the comprehensive collection of theGeorge Eastman House, this exhibition will include examples from all aspects of theartists photographic output from the 1920s, including unique photograms and originalphotomontages, which have not been seen in New York in over twenty years. The exhibi-tion will also showcase the film, Lichtspiel schwarz-weissgrau(Lightplay black-white-gray) (1930), the culmination of the artists abstract experiments of the previous decade.

This is the sixth in the collaborative series New Histories of Photography, organized byICP and the George Eastman House.

Moholy-Nagy was a bold formal experimenter, and he firmly believed these various uses

of photography would engage the viewer in the experience of modernity. He transformedthe material of modern urban lifebuildings, bridges, city streets, and boats bypresenting it in new and jarring ways. Moholy-Nagy laid out the crux of the New Visionin his seminal text on photography, Painting, Photography, Film(1925/27): The camera

On view from

March 12 throughMay 30, 2004

Contact: Communications Department212.857.0045 info@icp.org

Lszl Moholy-NagyJealousy(Eifersucht), 1927PhotomontageGeorge Eastman House, Rochester, New York

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offered us amazing possibilities, which we are only just beginning to exploit. The visualimage has been expanded and even the modern lens is no longer tied to the narrowlimits of our eye; no manual means of representation is capable of arresting fragmentsof the world seen like this.

This philosophy also extended to Moholy-Nagy's alternative processes of photography:

photograms, film, and photomontages. He began collaborating with his wife, Lucia, onphotograms in 1922. These abstract images of objects exposed onto light-sensitivepaper were, in his eyes, a new creative means, and linked to the extension of visioninto the areas of x-rays and spectography. His interest in kinetic light effects foundthe ultimate expression in his Light-Space Modulator, a sculpture he developed from1922-1930, and the subject of the Lichtspielfilm.

Moholy-Nagys transformations of fragments of the world in his photomontages are hisconsummate melding of social issues and formal experimentation. He drew underlyingstructures for the compositions, onto which he pasted bits of magazines, photographs,and even his own negatives. Circus performers, political and military figures, sportingevents, and the liberated 'New Woman' of the Weimar Republic populate these mon-

tages, composed into social critiques and humorous parodies.

Taken together, Moholy-Nagys experiments of the 1920s demonstrate a fully developedavant-garde strategy to increase awareness of the dynamism of modern life through themedium of photography.

Expanding Visionis curated by Vanessa Rocco, and will be accompanied by a fullyillustrated brochure. This exhibition is presented in collaboration with the GeorgeEastman House, Rochester, New York, and is the sixth in the series New Histories ofPhotography. It is made possible by the generous support of The Horace W. GoldsmithFoundation.

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