Executed in Chicago in 1942, László Moholy-Nagy’s CH For R1, Space Modulator, Scene from My Lightplay is a monumental ode to light and a powerful encapsulation of the artist’s concept of Light-Space Modulators. Deeply entrenched in the artist's photographic practice and Bauhaus philosophies, the present work is a culmination of years of artistic investigation across disciplines.
By the early 1920s, exposure to the Suprematist works of Kazimir Malevich (see fig. 1) had liberated Moholy-Nagy from figuration. Malevich’s reduction of forms to their simplest elements profoundly affected the young artist, who in turn sought to balance a similar sense of freedom and constraint within his own work. In tandem with the architectural theories of critic Adolf Behne—who extolled the aesthetic and experiential virtues of glass as a medium—Malevich’s distilled, nonrepresentational compositions led Moholy-Nagy to create a series of “Glass Architecture Pictures” embodying light and transparency in painting (see fig. 2).
RIGHT: FIG. 2 LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY, ARCHITECTURE (ECCENTRIC CONSTRUCTION), CIRCA 1921, OIL, METALLIC PAINT, AND GRAPHITE ON BURLAP, SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
At the same time, the artist began to experiment with photographic processes with the assistance of first wife, photographer and editor Lucia Moholy. At a time when photography was not considered a fine art form, Moholy-Nagy harnessed the power of light as a medium to cultivate a style of experimental photograms, or images created through light exposure without the use of a camera (see fig. 3). These abstracted patterns of light and dark would define Moholy-Nagy's aesthetic and influence his other artistic modes throughout his career.
In the course of his early light experiments, Moholy-Nagy sought to expand the compositional plane and began to envision the possibilities of such light effects in motion, leading to the first sketches for his Light-Space Modulator (Light Prop) in 1922.
The rise of Russian Constructivism in the 1920s, then gaining popularity in Berlin where Moholy-Nagy was based, proved the next major influence on the artist’s work. The movement’s emphasis of three-dimensional forms, like Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument of the Third International (see fig. 4), further encouraged Moholy-Nagy’s forays into the sculptural realm. While itself static, works such as Nickel Sculpture with Spiral (see fig. 5), illustrate the artist’s movement toward mechanized and kinetic art in the early years of the decade.
By the time Walter Gropius hired him to the Bauhaus faculty in 1923, Moholy-Nagy had achieved a synthesis of artistic ideas rooted in Constructivist ideologies and their all-encompassing approach to art, design, architecture and typology in a rapidly technologizing society. During his tenure at the radical new school, Moholy-Nagy would continue to build upon his visions for Light Prop as his teachings and own artistic processes expanding across mediums.
The early sketches for his Light Prop would at last be realized in three-dimensional form with the advent of the 1930 Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris. Coordinated by Gropius, the Deutsche Werkbund’s display at the exhibition featured an array of design objects within a series of model rooms created by former Bauhaus instructors including Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer and Herbert Bayer. It was for this exhibition that, in collaboration with the German electronics company AEG, architect Stefan Sebök and Dadaist poet Hugo Ball, Moholy-Nagy created the one of the earliest electrically powered kinetic sculptures.
The Light-Space Modulator (Light Prop) machine comprised of multiple metals and plastics cut, shaped and joined in variegated patterns and outfitted with an electric motor. The first iteration of the work included a wood box which fit over the machine and was lined with colored light bulbs (see fig. 6). When activated, the sculpture's mechanisms danced around one another, casting light and shadow into the surrounding space. With this powerful reconciliation of light, form, motion and technology, the Light Prop is arguably the most complete realization of László Moholy-Nagy’s artistic philosophy. The seminal work would accompany the artist throughout his life as he relocated the the United States during the war. As art historian Joyce Tsai explains, the physical work lived on through the artist's 1930 film on the subject, Lightplay: Black-White-Gray, which incorporated documentary clips and experimental photographs of the kinetic sculpture:
“'[Light Prop]' accrued an afterlife, its renown based upon his published descriptions of its potential and upon 'Lightplay,' his film of the machine. 'Lightplay' might have run just once at a commercial house in his lifetime, but began showing internationally in art-house cinemas almost immediately. It presents the machine in a series of tightly framed sequences, each highlighting a different section of its structure and rotational movement. It interjects manipulated frames of film—in negative, double-exposed prints, and angled projected distortions—integrating views of the 'Light Prop' as if shot by X-ray or produced as a photogram. 'Lightplay' is short, suggestive, and showcases Moholy’s ability to conjure new effects in moving pictures.”
View Moholy-Nagy's 1930 Film, Lightplay: Black-White-Gray
“Lightplay: Black-White-Gray” by László Moholy-Nagy from Harvard Art Museums on Vimeo.
Though Gropius and Moholy-Nagy had each moved on to their own private and commercial practices since leaving the Bauhaus, it was Gropius who in 1937 would tap his former colleague to head a new design school in Chicago (see fig. 6). The New Bauhaus, as it was dubbed, was a continuation of the groundbreaking Gesamtkunstwerk principles begun in Germany. Sensitive to and profoundly inspired by his new environment, Moholy-Nagy adapted the teachings for American audiences—fueled as ever by his indefatigable belief in the creative potential of humankind.
Though The New Bauhaus consistently faced financial constraints and ultimately closed just a year later, Moholy-Nagy worked tirelessly at its successor, the School of Design in Chicago (later the Institute of Design) to further the Bauhaus principles in the 1940s.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, such a program was forced to adjust to the cultural and political climate. Functional design became increasingly important with the rollout of new war machines and commercial materials, and students were expected more than ever to contribute meaningful products to society. As he had done in Germany, Moholy-Nagy rooted his own work and teachings on a fundamental understanding of modern materials. Just as he had with earlier works like his Telephonbild series (see fig. 7) and paintings like Gal Ab I, which were executed on steel and galalith, respectively, Moholy-Nagy continued to utilize industrial media in his painting in Chicago.
"In working with these materials, uniformly colored, opaque or transparent plastics, I made discoveries which were instrumental in changing my painting technique. This had inevitable repercussions on my thinking concerning light problems. To produce true, primary relationships, my former idea of an objective painting, was not the only reason for my use of smooth flat surfaces. It was also nearest to the transition of light into color and color into light, something like an objective texture invention for a delicate and evasive medium. By producing real radiant light effects through transparent dyes on plastic and through other means, one has no need for translating light into color by painting with pigment."
RIGHT: THE PRESENT WORK (ILLUSTRATION ROTATED)
Space Modulator CH for R1 takes this practice as a point of departure while expanding upon the pioneering sculptural, light and film investigations completed in the intervening years. The present composition reimagines a still from the artist’s black and white Lightplay film of 1930, capturing the nuances of light, shadow and mechanics on a grand scale and in an ecstatic lattice of line, texture and color.
"The jumbled elements [of 'CH For R1, Space Modulator, Scene from My Lightplay'] are captured as if in playful intergalactic free fall."
The present work is among the largest ever created by the artist and exists not only as an homage to his time in Chicago—the CH in the title signifying where the work was created—but also documenting the era in American history. The composition is painted upon a sheet of red Formica—an industrial laminate material which was invented in Cincinnati around 1912 to replace the mica used as insulation in electrical parts. By the 1930s, Formica had become a ubiquitous element not only in industrial and automotive applications, but also as an aesthetic element of interior and product design (see fig. 8). In the 1940s, like many materials manufactories, the company shifted its focus to the war effort, creating weapon and airplane parts.
With Space Modulator CH for R1, Moholy-Nagy utilizes the characteristically colorful Formica as a base for his application of oil pigment as well and incised lines. The artist alternates the smooth texture of the plastic, with his shallow incisions and thick areas of impastoed paint, highlighting the material qualities of each.
The epitome of the "total work," CH For R1, Space Modulator, Scene from My Lightplay integrates Moholy-Nagy’s earliest investigations into varied forms of media. While his early paintings represented light as an element within the composition, Light Prop later harnessed the power of light as its own medium within space. Lightplay in turn captured these projections in photographic motion; in 1942, CH For R1, Space Modulator, Scene from My Lightplay expanded upon a momentary glimpse of the motion picture, reconciling a lifetime’s parallels of artistic exploration in one monumental work. Held in the collection of the artist's family for nearly 80 years, the present work comes to auction for the very first time.
Light Prop and the Evolution of the Space Modulator Works
