A collection of information about Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, please feel free to add to this, especially images
László Moholy-Nagy is considered to be the first major artist born before 1900 to be called an "electronic artist." Moholy-Nagy taught at the Bauhaus during the 1920s where he developed his fascination for the integration of art and technology, the poetics of the machine, stating, "my belief is that mathematically harmonious shapes, executed precisely, are filled with emotion quality, and that they represent the perfect balance between feeling and intellect."
From this he infused his works with a refined, dynamic energy, in which his aim was to reveal movement through layering and spatial effects. Moholy-Nagy was influenced by Russian Constructivisim and Dadaism, combining the highly controlled geometric forms with a playful, improvised quality. Many of the motifs in his early paintings were drawn from mechnical shapes, gears, levers, and typographical characters, such as in this painting "Large Emotion Wheel" (1921). His quest to find the emotive qualities of lines and abstract shapes is revealed in the title of this painting as well in the remark, "the drawings became a rhythically articulated network of lines, showing not so much objects as my excitement about them."
To achieve the illusion of space, in such works as "Composition Z VIII" (1924), objects are foregrounded, backgrounded, transparent, opaque, light to dark. His interest in 3-dimensionality was influenced by the cubists, breaking away from the conventions of traditional perspective. Moholy-Nagy stated, "Tearing apart the old visual conception, the cubist painters originated a new means of rendering, as well as a space articulation. The cubists hoped to develop a method to penetrate reality more thoroughly than had been possible with perspective-illusion."
Not only a depth of space, but movement, floating without sense of gravity, though anchored structurally through shape.With "Construction" (1932), Moholy-Nagy had achieved what he referred to as vision in motion, floating objects in space, no longer grounded, but achieving a new Ňharmony in a state of equilibrium."
"This kind of picture is most probably the passage between easel painting and light display." Eventually Moholy-Nagy saw the limitation inherent in pigment on canvas and worked towards the use of light as a means of achieving new imagery and qualities of abstraction. Moholy-Nagy began working with light-sensitive technique, the photogram, in the early twenties. Exposing light to light sensitive paper, objects placed on paper were not exposed, thus revealing a transluscent shape: thus literally "painting with light."
He used the photogram in a non-represential way to achieve a sense of space and floating that he strove for in the paintings, and to create even more complex layered effects.
Infinite shades of light and transparency, a 3-dimensional virtual world made up of the shadows of reality. Moholy-Nagy felt that the composition of light was the future of painting, a prophesy come true with the advent of digital imaging.
"I became interested in painting with light, not on the surface of canvas, but directly in space. The advancement towards space, light, vision in motion was fully realized with the Light Space Modulator" (1930). Moholy-Nagy worked on this throughout his years at the Bauhaus, finally completed after he left his teaching position in the late 1920s.
A mechanically driven rotating kaleidoscope projecting ever-changing patterns of light, shadow and color in a darkened space or theater, the sculpture is not the constuction per se but rather the play of light in the space. After finishing the sculpture, Moholy-Nagy created the film "Light Display Machine: Black, White, Grey" (1932) to integrate film media achieving an even more complex, layered perspective."When the light-prop was set in motion for the first time in a small mechanics shop in 1930, I felt like the sorcerer's apprentice. The mobile was so startling in its coordinated motions and space articulations of light and shadow sequences that I almost believed in magic."
from http://www.zakros.com/mica/wvrF01/notes/Class2/class2.html
