LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY
Bácsbársod (Hungary), 1895 – Chicago,(USA) 1946

A fondness for drawing, acquired during his convalescence from a war wound and strengthened by a brief period of training in Budapest, and an innate curiosity about culture and art were the sole characteristics that led him to Lajos Kassák, with whom he founded the MA group in 1917. He emigrated to Berlin in 1920, and there he joined the circle of the Galerie Der Sturm, where he presented his first solo exhibition, showing work that has been defined as “machine Dada” (1922). That year he also discovered the work of Malevich and Tatlin and Gabo’s kinetic experiments and the invention of the technique of the photogram in connection with the International Conference of Constructivists and Dadaists in Weimar. All of these circumstances introduced a change in his work, which began to explore movement and light as expressive languages and to develop them by the application of new techniques –photograms, photography, cinema- and industrial materials. The year ended with the publication of “Dynamisch-Konstruktives Kraftsystem” (Dynamic / Constructive System of Forces), a manifesto of his kinetic art.
In 1923 he joined the Bauhaus as an instructor in the metal workshop. In Dessau he became responsible for the institution’s publications, including Malerei, Fotografie, Film in 1925, until his resignation –resulting from his move away from the Constructivist rhetoric- and his return to Berlin in 1928. There he expanded his field of activities to include typography, exhibition design, and theatre set design -for the Kroll Opera House and Piscator’s theatre. At the twentieth Salon des artistes décorateurs (Paris, 1930) he exhibited the Lichtrequisit (Light-space Modulator), a synthesis of his conception of an art of light and movement; he also made his best-known film, Lichtspiel: Schwarz-Weiss-Grau.
After participating in Abstraction-Création, he lived in Amsterdam and London (1935), where he started on his space modulators, with which he continued his experimentation. In 1937 he went to live in Chicago as director of the New Bauhaus, promoted by the Association of Arts and Industries of that city. After his failure, in 1939 he founded the School of Design, which became the Institute of Design in 1944. He directed it until his death in 1946, a year before publication of Vision in Motion.