Tp4 is a sophisticated example of Moholy-Nagy’s approach to capturing light during a period of intense creativity when he was living once again in Berlin, having spent the past several years teaching at the Bauhaus alongside Joseph Albers, among others. Light Space Modulator is a remarkable kinetic display created in 1930 that shows the extreme experimental direction of his art at this t.mes . His unconventional use of industrial plastics was designed to increase the possibilities of refraction, reflection and mirroring in his two-dimensional work by exploiting the surface sheen, translucence and malleability of these newly developed materials. Having encountered the Russian Constructivists in Berlin, Moholy-Nagy was persuaded that a revolutionary society demanded a radically new artistic language but the techniques he developed around transparency significantly expanded the purely rectilinear vocabulary of Constructivist abstraction.
The basic cruciform structure haunted Malevich throughout his life and is equally prevalent in the work of Moholy-Nagy, though both artists avoided any semblance of traditional religiosity. Malevich’s own interpretation of his use of symbols remains ambiguous but he certainly described the cruciform shape in mystical terms, and while it is an image which finds its apex in the iconographic traditions of Christianity, it is also an expression of form at its most elemental: both oppositional and complimentary, the warp and weft of the transcendental versus the linear that accounts for the archetypal figure of the weaver in multiple pre-Christian philosophies. Tp4 is a superb example of how intersecting axes can act as the source of inner tension and dynamism in an undefineds pictorial space.
As Krisztina Passuth writes “Inspired by Malevich’s soaring squares and rectangles, he started putting the figures in front of and behind each other, so that they might appear through each other and their system of construction be clearly outlined. He conserved the inner, almost unreal purity of Suprematist pictures, but arranged their free floating nature into rational form, stressing new elements of undisturbed beauty, harmony and decorativeness” (K. Passuth, Moholy-Nagy London, 1985, p. 25).
Experiments with new materials
The titles of Moholy-Nagy’s works often reference the support materials. "Sil" for example, indicates silberit plastic, "Gal" for galalit or "Al" for aluminium. The Rheinisch-Westfälischen Sprengstoff-Fabriken (RWS) company in Germany produced a variety of a large variety of plastic products, all with the prefix "Tro" which Moholy-Nagy is known to have used in his work.
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T1Oil, sprayed paint, incised lines and paper on Trolit, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York -
Tp2Oil and incised lines on Trolit, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York -
Tp3Oil and incised lines on galalith, Private collects ion © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York -
Composition Tp5Oil and incised lines on galalith, Private collects ion © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The barely perceptible lines which connect the various elements in the upper half of the present lot are characteristic of the precision Moholy-Nagy brought to his work ("a gem-cutter" is how his second wife described him). Like Alexander Rodchenko, he would draw thin lines with a ruler to create the skeleton of his compositions which would cross the background without dispelling the floating impression of the geometric motifs. The elegance of Moholy-Nagy’s tracery and his delicate treatment of light however, sets him apart from the Constructivists who often dispensed with the subtleties of fine brushwork.
Tp4 was presented by Moholy-Nagy as a wedding gift while living in Chicago, the city in which he founded the New Bauhaus. A powerful work from his critical second Berlin period, the present lot has never before appeared at auction.
"The brush…became an insufficient and imprecise instrument in the new, non-objective painting, and it was crowded out by the press, the roller, the ruling pen, the compass."
Plastics and Plexiglas: market precedents for Moholy-Nagy
