László Moholy-Nagy - Biography

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895 – 1946) was a pioneer of his time, exploring the complete transformation of light, reflection, and transparency through different media. In the 1930s and 1940s, László Moholy-Nagy developed an approach to color photography using Kodachrome film that, like his kinetic sculpture, "Light Space Modulator", incorporates both space and time. Moholy-Nagy was also a teacher at the Bauhaus, and his interest in incorporating technology into the arts comes out clearly in his photography. For example, the studies of abstract lights which were created using a long exposure of traffic lights.

These photographs exemplify Moholy-Nagy's commitment to pushing the medium's boundaries and stretching the viewer's visual lexicon. Moholy-Nagy considered the dye transfer method, the only method available for printing color at that time, as an interpretive method and longed for a process equivalent to the negative/positive relationship of black and white printing. Therefore, very few of Moholy-Nagy's Kodachromes were printed. Today the process known as Chromogenic printing, which is used most often when printing from film, provides the technology that Moholy desired.

The printing process uses 4"x 5" internegatives that were made from Moholy-Nagy's chromes. Chromogenic Prints were then made from the internegatives. There is no retouching, digital or analog.

The Steidel catalogue, "Color in Transparency: Photographic Experiments in Color, 1934-1946," is an excellent resource for situating the significance of Moholy-Nagy's color photography within his oeuvre. Selected recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include the Gemeentemuseum, the Bauhaus-Archiv Museum für Gestaltung, The Museum of Modern Art Kamakurra & Hayama, the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Malmö Konsthall, and the Sprengel Museum Hannover.