Lecture 3: Modernism & The

Bauhaus

“Photography possesses every privilege, every excellence. It is the art of our time and has a duty to make artificial, fabricated things...since it is even less the case than elsewhere that depicting reality says anything worthwhile about reality.”

(Bertolt Brecht)

FuturismFrom 1909

Left:

Edwaerd Muybridge

‘Woman Walking Downstairs’,

1880

Left:

E.J. Marey

‘Chronograph of running

broad jump’, 1883-5

Above:Marcel DuchampNude descending the staircase’, 1912

Above:

Umberto Boccioni 

‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’.,1913

VorticismFrom 1913

Above:Percy Wyndham Lewis‘Workshop’, 1913

Above:Alvin Coburn‘Vortograph, 1917

ConstructivismFrom 1916

Above:

Vladamir Tatlin

‘Corner Reliefs’, 1915

Below:El Lissitzky, ‘The Constructor’, 1924

Left:

Moholy Nagy,

‘Leda and the Swan’, 1926

Above:Marcel Duchamp‘Fountain’ 1917

Above:Paul Outerbridge‘Ide Collar’ 1922

DadaFrom 1916

Surrealism • Ostranie: Image made

strange

• There’s a difference between the ‘everyday’ world and the expected convention of photographic representation.

Left:Giorgio de Chirico, ‘The Disquieting Muses’, 1916

Above:Herbert Bayer‘Lonely Metropolitan’, 1932

Above:Man Ray‘Violin d’Ingres’, 1924

Above:Salvador Dali‘Un chien andalou’, 1929

The Bauhaus (meaning “Architecture-House” in German), was a school of Modern Art established by architect Walter Gropius in 1919. It tried to address fundamental concerns about craftsmanship and mass production.

The Bauhaus

Gropius was interested in a school where the fine arts (painting, sculpture, etc.) was practiced side by side the applied arts (graphic design, product design, architecture, etc.). It attempted to challenge the snobbery of the art world.

Photography, being a relatively new medium, was embraced by many established artists such as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray. They starting experimenting with it as a new process.

Walter Gropius

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism. He was a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

Moholy-Nagy was interested in how he could use photography to explore the same elements within his paintings, choosing to produce abstract images focusing on space, movement, time and structure. He worked predominately by exposing object and images onto photographic paper, coining the phrase ‘photogram.’

"It is not the person ignorant of writing but the one ignorant of photography who will be the illiterate of the future."

Kepes Gyorgy

Other artists who created photogramsFloris Neusuus Megyik Janos

Marcelyn Gow Gottfried Jager Man Ray Christian Schad

1)The architect, Walter Gropius, established the Bauhaus in 1919.

What were the main reasons for establishing this school/centre?

2) In your own words, explain some of the techniques used by Lazslo Maholy-Nagy and Man Ray to create their images.

How would you describe their work?

Revision Questions

Visual Research Assignment

1) Present four pages in your photo diary of images by different artists who created photograms. Remember to write down the name of the artist and title of work (if available). Beneath each photograph, write down 5 words that you associate with the image.

2) Write a 150-words about the Bauhaus and its aims

Visual Research Assignment

1) Present four pages in your photo diary of images by different artists who created photograms. Remember to write down the name of the artist and title of work (if available). Beneath each photograph, write down 5 words that you associate with the image.

2) Write a 150-words about the Bauhaus and its aims