TRANSPARENT THINKER

Laslo Maholy-Nagy was a transparent thinker.  This revelation came thru loud and clear at the current Guggenheim show, Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, in NYC.

When you think of Maholy-Nagy, you generally think of Constructivist work.  We have, for example, covered the constructivist work of El Lissitsky at this page.

The great thing about Maholy-Nagy is that most of his work is three dimensional, and he imagined transparency in the constructivist planes and shapes that he painted.

The show stopper for me is his drawing at the top of this page.  This is titled Kinetic Constructive System;  Structure with Moving Parts for Play and Conveyance.  And the entire drawing is transparent.  The spiraling tilted forms recall of course Tatlin’s Monument for the Third International.

In his paintings and drawings, he worked in both perspective and axonometric projection systems.  And the forms, as they overlap each other, are transparent.  This example, titled Z VIII, is distemper and graphite on canvas.  And the transparency that he evokes is great.

Moholy-Nagy also loved photograms.  In case anyone needs a refresher, a photogram is where objects are placed on top of photo paper, and then the paper is exposed to light.  If you use transparent or translucent objects, then the effects are interesting as the light is modulated as it goes thru the object.  Photograms are of course similar to X-ray prints, which were touched on at this page.

And then the show had Moholy-Nagy’s transparent constructions.  He was enamored with the possibilities of plastic.  And he made constructions that were a combination of plastic and drawn / painted shapes and lines.  So of course there is a fantastic transparency to these pieces.

This example, titled B-10 Space Modulator, is made of plexiglass and oil paint.  Plexiglass was introduced in 1934, and he immediately employed it’s reflective and transparent qualities.

So it was absolutely great to have Moholy-Nagy’s transparent mindset revealed in this show.  As has been mentioned before, (TRANSPARENT DRAWING AT MOMA!), anytime I go to art museums now, I am principally preoccupied with flushing out any transparent work.

Moholy-Nagy was a transparent thinker.  At the Guggenheim show, his transparency whomped me over the head.

Dizzyingly great.

All the photos above were taken by me.  And kudos to the Guggenheim for permitting photography.  In a future post, I promise I will rant about the inexplicable no photography rule that exists in some shows and museums.