Difference between revisions of "György Kepes"
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− | == | + | {{Infobox artist |
− | + | |image = Gyorgy_and_Juliet_Kepes.jpg | |
− | + | |imagesize = 338px | |
+ | |caption = György and Juliet Kepes | ||
+ | |birth_date = {{birth date|1906|10|4|mf=y}} | ||
+ | |birth_place = Selyp, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) | ||
+ | |death_date = {{Death date and age|2001|12|29|1906|10|4|mf=y}} | ||
+ | |death_place = Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | ||
+ | |web = [[Wikipedia::http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/György_Kepes|Wikipedia]], [[Academiaedu::http://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Gyorgy_Kepes|Academia.edu]], [[OpenLibrary::http://openlibrary.org/authors/OL450339A/|Open Library]] | ||
+ | }} | ||
− | ; Flame Orchard | + | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_1931_Self-portrait.jpg|thumb|350px|''Self-portrait'', 1931. Gelatin silver print, c1937-40, 7.62 x 6.35 cm.]] |
− | "Beginning in the early 1800s, the stages of opera houses were lit with gas foot lamps, whose flames appeared on occasion to change shape with the volume and tone of the singers’ voices. CAVS founder György Kepes' ''Flame Orchard'' not only investigated this phenomenon, but also did much more. Reporting from the Bienal de Arte Coltejer in Medellín, Colombia, curator [[Jasia Reichardt]] compared watching ''Flame Orchard'' to watching clouds or the surface of the sea—but they were moving in synchrony with an "extraordinary synthesis of church music and modern jazz." | + | |
+ | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_1938_Lights.jpg|thumb|350px|''Lights'', 1938. Gelatin silver print.]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_1964-65_Luminous_wall_for_Boston_Harbor_Bicentennial.jpg|thumb|350px|Simulated effects of a proposed mile-long programmed luminous wall, suggested for the Boston Harbor Bicentennial, 1964-65.]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_c1970_Untitled_144.jpg|thumb|350px|''Untitled #144''. Vintage gelatin silver print, 21.6 x 16.5 cm, printed c1970.]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | '''György Kepes''' (1906–2001) was a Hungarian-born painter, designer, educator and art theorist. After emigrating to the U.S. in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus (later the School of Design, then Institute of Design, then Illinois Institute of Design or IIT) in Chicago. In 1967, he founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he taught until his retirement in 1974. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==Life and work== | ||
+ | ''This section is sourced from Marga Bijvoet, ''[http://web.archive.org/web/20100520001741/http://www.stichting-mai.de/hwg/amb/aai/art_as_inquiry_02.htm#catalysts Art as Inquiry]'', 1997.'' | ||
+ | |||
+ | György Kepes had become acquainted with the theories of the [[Bauhaus]] and [[Constructivism|Constructivist]] movements as well as Dadaist expressions while moving in progressive circles in Budapest. He was apparently very impressed with the Dada photomontages of [[Hannah Höch]] and [[Raoul Hausmann]]. During the late 1920s and early 1930s he changed from photography and photocollage to making films. In the meantime Kepes had become familiar with the work of [[László Moholy-Nagy]] and collaborated with him in Berlin and London between 1930-1937. During his stay in London he also made the acquaintance of a science writer, J.J. Crowther, and it was through him that Kepes met some of England’s leading scientists - Joseph Needham, J.D. Bernal, and C.H. Waddington. When Moholy-Nagy invited him to Chicago in 1937 to head the Light and Color Department of the Institute of Design (also called the New Bauhaus) in order to “form a nucleus for an independent reliable educational center where art, science, technology will be united into a creative program,” Kepes accepted. There he developed light and color workshops in which various forms and techniques were researched on their visual and psychological impact. However, in 1945 he was invited to introduce a series of visual design courses in the School of Architecture and Planning, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (MIT), something new at the time, and was subsequently offered the position of Professor of Visual Design and started the Center for Advanced Visual Culture (CAVS). His association with MIT would prove to be a long and fruitful one. During the following decades György Kepes put his ideas on paper in a number of books which became widely publicized and gave him wide recognition as educator and theorist. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Simulated effects of a proposed mile-long programmed luminous wall, suggested for the Boston Harbor Bicentennial, 1964-65. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ''The Language of Vision'' (1944) was his first attempt to connect the different languages of the different disciplines of knowledge, taking visual communication as a starting point. In particular the idioms of contemporary media like photography, motion pictures and television functioned in his eyes as a universal language that could be understood internationally. Coming from the Bauhaus and Constructivism, György Kepes was of course highly interested in an integration of the visual arts with the visual idioms of the daily environment, including design and architecture. He was able to develop this ideal vision through the interdisciplinary research groups which germinated at MIT around that time. This development was partly accelerated because of the school’s involvement in war research as a consequence of the United States’ activities in World War II. In 1942, a secret research group came together under the title Radar Laboratory. It was their task to develop a new electromagnetic radar system or anti-ballistic missile system, called Radio Detecting and Ranging. Rad Lab’s success was succeeded by the first interdisciplinary (a new term) laboratory at MIT: the Research Laboratory of Electronics in 1952. Its director was Jerome Wiesner, and one of the participants was [[Norbert Wiener]], who was making a name in the science of [[cybernetics]] at that time. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The interdisciplinary nature of these projects triggered Kepes’s interest to research possible relationships between art and science. While there was a growing exchange of ideas amongst a number of science departments, he noticed very little discourse between the humanities and science faculties. But even if many people thought that art and science were unmixable entities, Kepes was convinced that there existed a symbiotic relationship between the two, which would only grow stronger when nourished by each other. For him, technological progress was not in itself negative, but he warned against an uncontrolled utilization of it. Kepes: “The obvious world that we know on gross levels of sight, sound taste and touch, can be connected with the subtle world revealed by our scientific instruments and devices. Seen together, aerial maps of river estuaries and road systems, feathers, fern leaves, branching blood vessels, nerve ganglia, electron micrographs of crystals and the tree-like patterns of electrical discharge-figures are connected, although they are vastly different in place, origin and scale ... Their similarity of form is by no means accidental. As patterns of energy-gathering and energy-distribution, they are similar graphs generated by similar processes.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | When Kepes tried to give an account of the different functions of the visual arts and the sciences, and what might connect them, he kept returning to the idea that nature served as a common base, as a common language for both. Being both ordering devices in that they try to impose a structure upon the human experience, art and science could have a complementary function in restoring the balance in today’s society, which he felt had been lost. What connected them further, argued Kepes, was that both art and science were “image-making devices” which needed to visualize experiences. For György Kepes it was no accident that there was such a remarkable similarity between certain paintings and photographs and the images that had become visible through new optical technologies such as infrared and ultraviolet rays, microscopic and telescopic photography, X-rays and other radiation techniques. Both were looking for laws, such as pattern, structure, harmony, order or even disorder in natural and other phenomena. These technologies offered a completely new picture of nature’s order, which had hitherto been invisible to the human eye, giving new sensory experiences and expanding the range of perception. In order to make his findings known to the public, he organized an exhibition titled ''The New Landscape'' (1951), in which he presented the visual analogues between recent scientific visualizations of research models and the visual arts. Computer images, serial and other photographs of the “micro-world” and “macro-world” made by scientists, were presented next to artist’s images, showing analogous forms and patterns. A few years later he published ''The New Landscape in Art and Science'' (1956), in which he “attempted to present in pictures the new visual world revealed by science and technology, things that were previously too big or too small, too opaque or too fast for the unaided eye to see.” | ||
+ | |||
+ | György Kepes gradually moved beyond a comparison of visual analogues, on to another level of relationships between art and science. He felt that the scientific concerns with the invisible micro-world in terms of energy or dynamic organization instead of measurable, and tangible objects could be compared to the changes in the visual arts. The fact that sculptors had turned to new ‘immaterial’ technologies of light, video or laser was representative of this new way of thinking for him. Kepes was convinced that if artists and scientists were to work in a closer communion, it might be possible that artists would work out new visual images that could inspire scientists in their search for new visual models. | ||
+ | |||
+ | After the publication of ''The New Landscape in Art and Science'', György Kepes’s contributions to books and catalogues almost always revolved around a serious concern about the earth and the environment, emphasizing the thoughtless manner in which man-kind treats nature’s treasures. His arguments grew stronger in the early seventies when the ecological movement was rapidly gaining a large following and environmental concerns were vehemently and emotionally discussed in books like Charles Reich’s ''The Greening of America'' or Rachel Carson’s ''Silent Spring''. Kepes: “Our cities are our collective selfportraits, images of hollowness and chaos. And if not properly guided our immensely potent technology may carry within itself curses of even more awesome proportions. The yet not understood uncontrolled dynamics of scientific technology could do more than poison our earth; it is capable of wreaking havoc on man’s genetic nature.” [[Media:Kepes_Gyorgy_1972_Art_and_Ecological_Consciousness.pdf|(1972)]] It is here that Kepes found a social as well as educational role for the artist. Only an artist who was knowledgeable about the developments in science and understood the implications of new technologies could influence the expected environmental problems. For Kepes, this meant a new ''civic art'' (his term), based on interdisciplinary collaboration. One way to expand the vision of art was to create an exchange and communication for art with other disciplines, in particular the sciences. “In becoming a collaborative enterprise in which artists, scientists, urban planners and engineers are interdependent, art clearly enters a new phase of orientation in which its prime goal is the revitalization of the entire human environment; a greatly-to-be-wished-for climax to the rebuilding of our present urban world." [http://monoskop.org/images/f/f8/Kepes_Gyorgy_1971_Toward_Civic_Art.pdf#page=4 (1971: 72)] | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==Works (selection)== | ||
+ | ; Light-Space Modulator (1930) | ||
+ | With [[László_Moholy-Nagy#Berlin_.281928-1934.29|László Moholy-Nagy]]. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ; Flame Orchard (1972) | ||
+ | "Beginning in the early 1800s, the stages of opera houses were lit with gas foot lamps, whose flames appeared on occasion to change shape with the volume and tone of the singers’ voices. CAVS founder György Kepes' ''Flame Orchard'' not only investigated this phenomenon, but also did much more. Reporting from the Bienal de Arte Coltejer in Medellín, Colombia, curator [[Jasia Reichardt]] compared watching ''Flame Orchard'' to watching clouds or the surface of the sea—but they were moving in synchrony with an "extraordinary synthesis of church music and modern jazz." [http://museum.mit.edu/150/106 (Source)] | ||
''Flame Orchard'' consisted of six units like the one seen here, each housing a 2' x 2' x 3" gas container and a sound speaker that vibrated the gas. As composer Paul Earls' music played, the flames vibrated and leap. | ''Flame Orchard'' consisted of six units like the one seen here, each housing a 2' x 2' x 3" gas container and a sound speaker that vibrated the gas. As composer Paul Earls' music played, the flames vibrated and leap. | ||
See also: [[Ernst_Chladni#Chladni_figures_.28Klangfiguren.29|Chladni figures]]. | See also: [[Ernst_Chladni#Chladni_figures_.28Klangfiguren.29|Chladni figures]]. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ; More | ||
+ | [http://www.scaruffi.com/museums/kepes/index.html on Scaruffi.com], [http://www.joelsorokagallery.com/plogger/index.php?level=album&id=18 on JoelSorokaGallery.com], [http://www.tumblr.com/search/György+Kepes on Tumblr] | ||
==Publications== | ==Publications== | ||
− | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_Language_of_Vision.jpg|thumb| | + | |
− | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_ed_The_Man-Made_Object.jpg|thumb| | + | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_Language_of_Vision.jpg|thumb|350px|''Language of Vision: Painting, Photography, Advertising-Design'', 1944/1969, [http://monoskop.org/log/?p=11143 Log].]] |
+ | |||
+ | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_The_New_Landscape_in_Art_and_Science.jpg|thumb|350px|''The New Landscape in Art and Science'', 1956.]] | ||
+ | |||
+ | [[Image:Kepes_Gyorgy_ed_The_Man-Made_Object.jpg|thumb|350px|''Man-Made Object'', 1966, [http://monoskop.org/log/?p=11090 Log].]] | ||
+ | |||
===Books=== | ===Books=== | ||
− | * ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=11143 The Language of Vision: Painting, Photography, Advertising-Design]'', intro. Siegfried Giedion and Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa, Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1944; rev.ed., Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1964. | + | |
− | ** '' | + | * {{a|Kepes1944}} ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=11143 The Language of Vision: Painting, Photography, Advertising-Design]'', intro. Siegfried Giedion and Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa, Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1944; rev.ed., Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1964. |
− | ** '' | + | ** ''[[Media:Kepes_Gyorgy_El_lenguaje_de_la_vision_1969.pdf|El Lenguaje de la visión]]'', trans. Enrique L. Revol, Buenos Aires: Infinito, 1969, 302 pp. {{es}} |
− | ** ''Il linguaggio della visione'', trans. Franca Rossi Chiaia, Bari: Dedalo, 1971, | + | ** ''[[Media:Kepes_Gyorgy_Sprache_des_Sehens_1971.pdf|Sprache des Sehens]]'', ed. Hans M. Wingler, trans. Renate Pfriem and Almut v. Wulffen, Mainz and Berlin: Kupferberg, 1971, 200 pp. {{de}} |
+ | ** ''Il linguaggio della visione'', trans. Franca Rossi Chiaia, Bari: Dedalo, 1971, 253 pp. {{it}} | ||
** ''Shikaku gengo: kaiga shashin kōkoku dezain e no tebiki'' [視覚言語 : 絵画・写真・広告デザインへの手引], Tokyo: Gurafikku Sha, 1973, 201 pp. {{jp}} | ** ''Shikaku gengo: kaiga shashin kōkoku dezain e no tebiki'' [視覚言語 : 絵画・写真・広告デザインへの手引], Tokyo: Gurafikku Sha, 1973, 201 pp. {{jp}} | ||
** ''A látás nyelve'', trans. Katalin Horváth, Budapest: Gondolat, 1979, 253 pp. {{hu}} | ** ''A látás nyelve'', trans. Katalin Horváth, Budapest: Gondolat, 1979, 253 pp. {{hu}} | ||
− | + | ||
− | |||
* Kepes, et al., ''Graphic Forms: the Arts as Related to the Book'', Harvard University Press, 1949. Based on a series of four public meetings held on 17-18 January 1949 at the Fogg Museum of Art in Cambridge, 128 pp. | * Kepes, et al., ''Graphic Forms: the Arts as Related to the Book'', Harvard University Press, 1949. Based on a series of four public meetings held on 17-18 January 1949 at the Fogg Museum of Art in Cambridge, 128 pp. | ||
− | * ''The Visual Arts Today'', Wesleyan University Press, 1960. | + | |
+ | * editor, ''The New Landscape in Art and Science'', foreword John E. Burchard, Chicago: Paul Theobold, 1956, 384 pp; 4th ed., 1967. Contributions by sculptor Naum Gabo, physicist Bruno Rossi, art-historian Siegfried Giedion, architect Richard Neutra, psychologist Heinz Werner, cybernetician Norbert Wiener, and writer Charles Morris. Review: [http://www.jstor.org/stable/428025 Alford] (1958). | ||
+ | ** ''Zōkei to kagaku no atarashii fūkei'' [造形と科学の新しい風景], Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1966. {{jp}} | ||
+ | |||
+ | * editor, ''The Visual Arts Today'', Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1960. Repr. of ''Daedalus'' 89(1): "The Visual Arts Today", Winter 1960. | ||
+ | ** ''La situación actual de las artes visuales'', Buenos Aires: Tres, 1963, 124 pp. {{es}} | ||
+ | |||
* editor, ''Education of Vision'', New York: George Braziller, 1965. | * editor, ''Education of Vision'', New York: George Braziller, 1965. | ||
+ | ** ''Education de la vision'', trans. Danièle Panchout, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1967, xiv+213 pp. {{fr}} | ||
+ | ** ''Visuelle Erziehung'', Brussels: La Connaissance, 1967, xiv+233 pp. {{de}} | ||
+ | ** ''La educación visual'', México: Novaro, 1968, vii+233 pp. {{es}} | ||
+ | |||
* editor, ''Structure in Art and in Science'', New York: George Braziller, 1965. | * editor, ''Structure in Art and in Science'', New York: George Braziller, 1965. | ||
− | * editor, ''The Nature and Art of Motion'', New York: George Braziller, 1965. | + | ** ''La structure dans les arts et dans les lettres'', Brussels: La Connaissance, 1967, xv+189 pp. {{fr}} |
− | * editor, ''Module Proportion Symmetry Rhythm'', New York: George Braziller, 1966. | + | ** ''Struktur in Kunst und Wissenschaft'', Brussels: La Connaissance, 1967, xv+189 pp. {{de}} |
− | * editor, ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=11090 The Man-Made Object]'', New York: George Braziller, 1966. | + | ** ''La estructura en el arte y en la ciencia'', trans. Agustí Bartra, México, D.F.: Novaro, 1970, vii+189 pp. {{es}} |
+ | |||
+ | * editor, ''The Nature and Art of Motion'', New York: George Braziller, 1965, 195 pp. Review: [http://www.jstor.org/stable/30217324 Steele] (1966). | ||
+ | ** ''Nature et art du mouvement'', Brussels: La Connaissance, 1968, 195 pp. {{fr}} | ||
+ | ** ''Wesen und Kunst der Bewegung'', Brussels: La Connaissance, 1969, xviii+195 pp. {{de}} | ||
+ | ** ''El movimiento: su esencia y su estética'', trans. Agustí Bartra and Sergio Madero, México, D.F.: Novaro, 1970, xi+195 pp. {{es}} | ||
+ | |||
+ | * editor, ''Module, Proportion, Symmetry, Rhythm'', New York: George Braziller, 1966. | ||
+ | ** ''Module, proportion, symétrie, rythme'', trans. Danièle Panchout, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1968, 233 pp. {{fr}} | ||
+ | ** ''Modul, Proportion, Symmetrie, Rhytmus'', Brussels: La Connaissance, 1969, 233 pp. {{de}} | ||
+ | |||
+ | * editor, ''[http://monoskop.org/log/?p=11090 The Man-Made Object]'', New York: George Braziller, 1966, 230 pp. | ||
+ | ** ''L'Objet créé par l'homme'', trans. Danièle Panchout, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1968, 230 pp. {{fr}} | ||
+ | ** ''Der Mensch und seine Dinge'', Brussels: La Connaissance, 1972, 192 pp. {{de}} | ||
+ | |||
* editor, ''Sign Image Symbol'', New York: George Braziller, 1966. | * editor, ''Sign Image Symbol'', New York: George Braziller, 1966. | ||
− | * | + | ** ''Signe, image, symbole'', trans. Danièle Panchout, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1968, 235 pp. {{fr}} |
− | ** '' | + | ** ''Zeichen, Bild, Symbol'', Brussels: La Connaissance, 1972, 174 pp. {{de}} |
+ | |||
* editor, ''Arts of the Environment'', New York: G. Braziller, 1972. | * editor, ''Arts of the Environment'', New York: G. Braziller, 1972. | ||
− | ** ''El arte del ambiente'', trans. Nely Coarasa, Buenos Aires: Victor | + | ** ''El arte del ambiente'', trans. Nely Coarasa, Buenos Aires: Victor Lerú, 1978, 193 pp. {{es}} |
+ | |||
+ | * ''El arte y la tecnología: hacia la reconstrucción del medio ambiente urbano'', Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 1973, 51 pp. {{es}} | ||
+ | |||
+ | * ''L'arte visuale oggi: antologia di scritti'', ed. & trans. Branka Jankovic Russo, intro. Gianni Pirrone, Palermo: S.F. Flaccovio, 1977, 176 pp. {{it}} | ||
===Catalogues=== | ===Catalogues=== | ||
− | * ''Gyorgy Kepes: The MIT Years 1945-1977'', MIT Press, 1978, 104 pp. | + | * [http://www.drleslie.com/PMADMagazines/Spreads/kepes1.shtml "György Kepes insert"], intro. L. Moholy-Nagy, ''PM Magazine'' 3:6 (Feb-Mar 1940), 10 pp. Photograms and advertising work; inserts in the magazine. |
+ | * ''Light as a Creative Medium'', Harvard University, 1965, 35 pp. Exhibition held at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1965. | ||
+ | * ''Light and Design'', ed. Peter Seitz, Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1967, 32 pp. | ||
+ | * ''Explorations: Toward Civic Art'', Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1970, 8 pp. Held on 4 Apr-10 May 1970. | ||
+ | * ''Gyorgy Kepes: Works in Review'', Boston: Museum of Science, 1973. | ||
+ | * ''The MIT Years 1945-1977'', MIT Press, 1978, 104 pp. Exhibition held at Hayden Gallery, 28 April - 9 June 1978. | ||
+ | * ''Gyorgy Kepes: Light Graphics'', New York: International Center of Photography, 1984. | ||
+ | * ''[http://artandsciencemeeting.pl/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Pleasure-of-Light.pdf The Pleasure of Light: György Kepes and Frank J. Malina at the Intersection of Science and Art]'', 2011, 189 pp. {{en}}/{{pl}} Exhibition held at the National Museum in Gdansk; curated by Nina Czegledy and Rona Kopeczky. | ||
===Articles=== | ===Articles=== | ||
− | * "The Visual Arts and the Sciences: A Proposal for Collaboration", ''Daedalus'' 94:1, 1965, pp 117- | + | |
− | * "The Lost Pageantry of Nature", ''Arts Canada'' | + | * [[Media:Kepes_Gyorgy_1949_1999_Function_in_Modern_Design.pdf|"Function in Modern Design"]], in Kepes, et al., ''Graphic Forms: the Arts as Related to the Book'', Harvard University Press, 1949; repr. in ''Looking Closer 3'', eds. M. Bierut, J. Helfand, S. Heller and R. Poynor, New York: Allworth Press, 1999, pp 98-105. |
− | * " | + | |
− | * "Toward Civic Art", ''Leonardo'' 4:1 | + | * "Notes on Expression and Communication in the Cityscape", ''Daedalus'' 90:1, Winter 1961, pp 147-165. |
− | * "Art and Ecological Consciousness", in ''Arts of the Environment'', ed. Kepes, New York: G. Braziller, 1972, pp 1-12. | + | ** [http://atolyelabs.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/gyorgy-kepes.pdf "Kent Ölçeginde Disavurum ve Iletisim Üzerine Notlar"], trans. Bahar Öcal Düzgören, ''Cogito'' 8: "Kent ve Kültürü", 2014, pp 177-192. {{tr}} |
+ | |||
+ | * [[Media:Kepes Gyorgy 1965_The Visual Arts and the Sciences A Proposal for Collaboration.pdf|"The Visual Arts and the Sciences: A Proposal for Collaboration"]], ''Daedalus'' 94:1, Winter 1965, pp 117-134. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/20026898] | ||
+ | |||
+ | * "The Artist’s Response to the Scientific World", in ''Technology and Culture in Perspective: An Occasional Paper Published by the Church Society for College Work'', Cambridge, MA: Church Society for College Work, 1966. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * [[Media:Kepes_Gyorgy_1967_Light_and_Design.pdf|"Light and Design"]], ''Design Quarterly'' 68, 1967, pp 1-2 & 4-32. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * "Kinetic Light as a Creative Medium", ''Technology Review'' 70:2, Dec 1967. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * "The Lost Pageantry of Nature", ''Arts Canada'', Dec 1968, pp 33-39. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * "László Moholy-Nagy: The Bauhaus Tradition", ''Print'' 23, Jan-Feb 1969, pp 35-39 | ||
+ | |||
+ | * "Toward Civic Art", in ''Explorations'', Washington, DC: National Collection of Fine Arts, 1970; [[Media:Kepes_Gyorgy_1971_Toward_Civic_Art.pdf|rev.]], ''Leonardo'' 4:1, Winter 1971, Pergamon Press, pp 69-73; [[Media:Kepes_Gyorgy_1970_1972_Toward_Civic_Art.pdf|repr. in]] ''Arts in Society'' 9(1): "Environment and Culture", University of Wisconsin, 1972, pp 83-94. Originally published in connection with the exhibition 'Explorations' held at the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., from 4 April-10 May 1970. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * [[Media:Kepes_Gyorgy_1972_Art_and_Ecological_Consciousness.pdf|"Art and Ecological Consciousness"]], in ''Arts of the Environment'', ed. Kepes, New York: G. Braziller, 1972, pp 1-12. | ||
+ | |||
* "The Artist's Role in Environmental Self-regulation", in ''Arts of the Environment'', ed. Kepes, New York: G. Braziller, 1972, pp 167-191. | * "The Artist's Role in Environmental Self-regulation", in ''Arts of the Environment'', ed. Kepes, New York: G. Braziller, 1972, pp 167-191. | ||
==Interviews== | ==Interviews== | ||
− | * Douglas M. Davis, " | + | |
+ | * Douglas M. Davis, "Art & Technology—Conversations with György Kepes, Billy Klüver and James Seawright", ''Art in America'', Jan/Feb 1968, pp 38-45. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Dorothy Seckler, [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-gyorgy-kepes-11952 "Oral history interview with Gyorgy Kepes"], Archives of American Art, Aug 1968. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Jud Yalkut, "Sao Paulo, No! Smithsonian, Yes!, Conversations with Gyorgy Kepes", ''Arts Magazine'' 44:7, May 1970, pp 16-18. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Robert Brown, "Oral history interview with Gyorgy Kepes", Archives of American Art, Mar 1972-Jan 1973. [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-gyorgy-kepes-12180] | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Constance Breuer, "Interview with György Kepes in Wellfleet, Massachusetts", Archives of American Art, 1983. [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/interview-gyrgy-kepes-wellfleet-massachusetts-10575] | ||
+ | |||
* [http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/10394-gyorgy-kepes-interview-1988 Interview with Kepes], 1988. Interviewed at his home in Cambridge, MA, on the occasion of a California Polytechnic show on art and science, in December 1988. | * [http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/10394-gyorgy-kepes-interview-1988 Interview with Kepes], 1988. Interviewed at his home in Cambridge, MA, on the occasion of a California Polytechnic show on art and science, in December 1988. | ||
− | |||
==Literature== | ==Literature== | ||
− | * Jonathan Benthall, "Kepes' Center at | + | |
− | * Marga Bijvoet, [http://web.archive.org/web/20100520002336/http://www.stichting-mai.de/hwg/amb/aai/art_as_inquiry_02.htm "Interdisciplinary Collaborations: Ideas"], ch. 1 in Bijvoet, ''Art | + | * Katherine Kuh, "Gyorgy Kepes", ''Arts and Architecture'' 69:6, Jun 1952. |
+ | |||
+ | * Robert Reinhold, "M.I.T. Center Seeks to Wed Esthetics and Technology", ''New York Times'' 26 Dec 1969, p 31. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Jasia Reichardt, [http://books.google.com/books?id=vvY3ffWkiYYC&pg=PA525 "Art at Large"], ''New Scientist'', 1 Jun 1972, p 525. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Jonathan Benthall, "Kepes' Center at M.I.T.", ''Art International'' 19:1, Jan 1974, pp 28-31+49. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Judith Wechsler, [[Media:Wechsler_Judith_1978_Gyorgy_Kepes.pdf|"Gyorgy Kepes"]], in ''The MIT Years 1945-1977'', MIT Press, 1978, pp 7-19. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Jack Burnham, [[Media:Burnham_Jack_1980_Art_and_Technology_The_Panacea_That_Failed.pdf|"Art and Technology: The Panacea That Failed"]], in ''The Myths of Information: Technology and Postindustrial Culture'', ed. Kathleen Woodward, Madison, WI: Coda Press, 1980; repr. in ''[[Media:Hanhardt_John_ed_Video_Culture_A_Critical_Investigation.pdf|Video Culture: A Critical Investigation]]'', ed. John Hanhardt, Rochester, NY: Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1986. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Rudolph de Harak, "Gyorgy Kepes Revisits the Visual Landscape", ''AIGA Journal of Graphic Design'' 5:2, 1987; repr. in in ''Design Culture: An Anthology of Writing from the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design'', eds. Steven Heller and Marie Finamore, New York: Allworth Press, 1997. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Robert F. Brown, [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-otto-piene-12872 "Oral history interview with Otto Piene"], Archives of American Art, 1988-1990. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Marga Bijvoet, [http://web.archive.org/web/20100520002336/http://www.stichting-mai.de/hwg/amb/aai/art_as_inquiry_02.htm "Interdisciplinary Collaborations: Ideas"], ch. 1 in Bijvoet, ''Art as Inquiry: Toward New Collaborations Between Art, Science, and Technology'', Peter Lang, 1997. | ||
** [http://web.archive.org/web/20110719090048/http://www.stichting-mai.de/hwg/amb/aai/kunst_forschung_02.htm "Interdisziplinäres Gemeinschaftswerk: Pläne"], ch. 1 in Bijvoet, ''Kunst-Forschung'', n.d. {{de}} | ** [http://web.archive.org/web/20110719090048/http://www.stichting-mai.de/hwg/amb/aai/kunst_forschung_02.htm "Interdisziplinäres Gemeinschaftswerk: Pläne"], ch. 1 in Bijvoet, ''Kunst-Forschung'', n.d. {{de}} | ||
− | * Anne Collins Goodyear, | + | |
+ | * Howard Singerman, ''[https://aaaaarg.fail/thing/57f8f9979ff37c4969600df1 Art Subjects: The Making of the Artist in the American University]'', Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Anne Collins Goodyear, ''The Relationship of Art to Science and Technology in the United States, 1957–1971: Five Case Studies'', Austin: University of Texas, 2002. PhD dissertation. [https://www.proquest.com/docview/305503573 Excerpt]. [https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/11238] | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Michael J. Golec, "A Natural History of the Disembodied Eye: The Structure of Gyorgy Kepes’s ‘Language of Vision", ''Design Issues'' 18:2, Spring 2002, pp 3-16. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Reinhold Martin, ''[http://library.memoryoftheworld.org/#/book/988b3c70-729d-4614-a3be-9d2a93f5f465 The Organizational Complex]'', Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Anne Collins Goodyear, [[Media:Goodyear Anne Collins 2004 Gyorgy Kepes Billy Kluver and American Art of the 1960s.pdf|"György Kepes, Billy Kluver, and American Art of the 1960s: Defining Attitudes Toward Science and Technology"]], ''Science in Context'' 17:4, 2004, pp 611-635. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * ''[http://kepes.ucaldas.edu.co/ The Kepes Journal]'', since 2004. {{es}}/{{en}} | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Elizabeth Finch, ''Languages of Vision: Gyorgy Kepes and the ‘New Landscape’ of Art and Science'', New York: City University of New York, 2005. PhD dissertation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Bill Arning, ''Gyorgy Kepes’ Vision + Value 1965–1972: A Practical Training Program to Create a New Super-Perceiving Problem-Solving Artist'', Tufts University, 2008. PhD dissertation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Leigh Anne Roach, ''[https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu:176349/datastream/PDF/view A Positive, Popular Art: Sources, Structure, and Impact of Gyorgy Kepes’ 'Language of Vision']'', Florida State University, 2010, 154 pp. PhD dissertation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Anna Vallye, ''[http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A132341 Design and the Politics of Knowledge in America, 1937-1967: Walter Gropius, Gyorgy Kepes]'', New York: Columbia University, 2011. PhD dissertation. [https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/161437792.pdf] | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Melissa Ragain, [https://www.x-traonline.org/article/from-organization-to-network-mits-center-for-advanced-visual-studies/ "From Organization to Network: MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies"], ''X-TRA'' 14:3, Spring 2012. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Matthew Wisnioski, "Centerbeam: Art of the Environment", in ''A Second Modernism: MIT, Architecture, and | ||
+ | the “Techno-Social” Moment'', ed. Arindam Dutta, MIT Press, 2013, pp 188–225. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Anna Vallye, "The Middleman: Kepes’s Instruments", in ''A Second Modernism: MIT, Architecture, and the ‘Techno-Social’ Moment'', eds. Arindam Dutta, MIT Press, 2013. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Matthew Wisnioski, "Why MIT Institutionalized the Avant-Garde: Negotiating Aesthetic Virtue in the Postwar Defense Institute", ''Configurations'' 21:1, Winter 2013, pp 85-116. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Márton Orosz, ''A látás revíziója. Művészet mint humaniesta tudomány Kepes György korai életművében'', Eötvös Loránd University, 2013. PhD dissertation. {{hu}} | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Orit Halpern, "Visualizing: Design, Communicative Objectivity, and the Interface", ch. 2 in Halpern, ''Beautiful Data. A History of Vision and Reason since 1945'', Duke University Press, 2014, pp 79-144. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * John R. Blakinger, [https://www.tate.org.uk/research/tate-papers/25/aesthetics-of-collaboration "The Aesthetics of Collaboration: Complicity and Conversion at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies"], ''Tate Papers'', London: Tate, Spring 2016. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Timothy Michael Ridlen, ''[https://escholarship.org/content/qt2fc1w4xm/qt2fc1w4xm_noSplash_d8b8ada9e0426130611f69409a4a5e34.pdf The Research and Teaching of Art Despite Its Disappearance: Art in Academia, 1957-1977]'', San Diego: University of California San Diego, 2018. PhD dissertation. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * John R. Blakinger, ''[http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=50F40FD814FB6DEC496FF3F24BED5951 György Kepes: Undreaming the Bauhaus]'', MIT Press, 2019, 504 pp, [https://aaaaarg.fail/thing/5ed7c7019ff37c09c72e81be ARG]. [https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/gyorgy-kepes-1 Publisher]. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Inge Hinterwaldner, [https://kg.ikb.kit.edu/hinterwaldner/downloads/hinterwaldner_ws_18_19/09_art_n_tech_cavs_mit_02_online.pdf "Art & Technology Bewegungen in Amerika. György Kepes und das Center for Advanced Visual Studies am MIT"], 2019. Slides. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * John Beck, Ryan Bishop, [https://monoskop.org/images/1/13/Beck_John_Bishop_Ryan_Technocrats_of_the_Imagination_2020.pdf#page=55 "A Laboratory of Form and Movement: Institutionalizing Emancipatory Technicity at MIT"], ch 2 in Beck and Bishop, ''[https://monoskop.org/log/?p=22414 Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde]'', Duke University Press, 2020, pp 46-76. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==Archives== | ||
+ | * [https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/gyorgy-kepes-papers-7252 Gyorgy Kepes papers], Archives of American Art, Smithsonian | ||
+ | * [https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c80r9v19/ Gyorgy Kepes papers], Special Collections, Stanford University | ||
+ | * [https://act.mit.edu/special-collections/gyorgy-kepes-papers/ Gyorgy Kepes papers, 1962-1972], ACT MIT | ||
+ | * [https://act.mit.edu/special-collections/cavs-special-collection/ Center for Advanced Visual Studies special collection, 1967–2009], ACT MIT, [https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-new-digital-archive-showcases-work-center-advanced-visual-studies-0222] | ||
==Links== | ==Links== | ||
− | * [http:// | + | * [http://act.mit.edu/cavs/history/ A brief history of CAVS] |
− | |||
* [http://www.olivertomas.com/books/vision-value-series-edited-by-gyorgy-kepes-1965-6/ On the ''Vision + Value'' series] | * [http://www.olivertomas.com/books/vision-value-series-edited-by-gyorgy-kepes-1965-6/ On the ''Vision + Value'' series] | ||
+ | * [https://www.moma.org/interactives/objectphoto/artists/3067.html Biography and chronology on MoMA's Object:Photo resource] | ||
+ | * [http://adcglobal.org/hall-of-fame/gyorgy-kepes/ Kepes at ADC Hall of Fame], 1981. | ||
+ | * [http://www.kepeskozpont.hu/en/biography-of-gyorgy-kepes/ Portraits] | ||
+ | * [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/garden/27cape.html Nursery Juliet and Gyorgy Kepes built for their kids in their Cape Cod house] | ||
+ | |||
+ | [[Series:Graphic design]] | ||
+ | {{featured_article}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Kepes, Gyorgy}} |
Latest revision as of 15:24, 17 January 2023
![]() György and Juliet Kepes | |
Born |
October 4, 1906 Selyp, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary) |
---|---|
Died |
December 29, 2001 Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States | (aged 95)
Web | Wikipedia, Academia.edu, Open Library |
György Kepes (1906–2001) was a Hungarian-born painter, designer, educator and art theorist. After emigrating to the U.S. in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus (later the School of Design, then Institute of Design, then Illinois Institute of Design or IIT) in Chicago. In 1967, he founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he taught until his retirement in 1974.
Contents
Life and work[edit]
This section is sourced from Marga Bijvoet, Art as Inquiry, 1997.
György Kepes had become acquainted with the theories of the Bauhaus and Constructivist movements as well as Dadaist expressions while moving in progressive circles in Budapest. He was apparently very impressed with the Dada photomontages of Hannah Höch and Raoul Hausmann. During the late 1920s and early 1930s he changed from photography and photocollage to making films. In the meantime Kepes had become familiar with the work of László Moholy-Nagy and collaborated with him in Berlin and London between 1930-1937. During his stay in London he also made the acquaintance of a science writer, J.J. Crowther, and it was through him that Kepes met some of England’s leading scientists - Joseph Needham, J.D. Bernal, and C.H. Waddington. When Moholy-Nagy invited him to Chicago in 1937 to head the Light and Color Department of the Institute of Design (also called the New Bauhaus) in order to “form a nucleus for an independent reliable educational center where art, science, technology will be united into a creative program,” Kepes accepted. There he developed light and color workshops in which various forms and techniques were researched on their visual and psychological impact. However, in 1945 he was invited to introduce a series of visual design courses in the School of Architecture and Planning, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (MIT), something new at the time, and was subsequently offered the position of Professor of Visual Design and started the Center for Advanced Visual Culture (CAVS). His association with MIT would prove to be a long and fruitful one. During the following decades György Kepes put his ideas on paper in a number of books which became widely publicized and gave him wide recognition as educator and theorist.
Simulated effects of a proposed mile-long programmed luminous wall, suggested for the Boston Harbor Bicentennial, 1964-65.
The Language of Vision (1944) was his first attempt to connect the different languages of the different disciplines of knowledge, taking visual communication as a starting point. In particular the idioms of contemporary media like photography, motion pictures and television functioned in his eyes as a universal language that could be understood internationally. Coming from the Bauhaus and Constructivism, György Kepes was of course highly interested in an integration of the visual arts with the visual idioms of the daily environment, including design and architecture. He was able to develop this ideal vision through the interdisciplinary research groups which germinated at MIT around that time. This development was partly accelerated because of the school’s involvement in war research as a consequence of the United States’ activities in World War II. In 1942, a secret research group came together under the title Radar Laboratory. It was their task to develop a new electromagnetic radar system or anti-ballistic missile system, called Radio Detecting and Ranging. Rad Lab’s success was succeeded by the first interdisciplinary (a new term) laboratory at MIT: the Research Laboratory of Electronics in 1952. Its director was Jerome Wiesner, and one of the participants was Norbert Wiener, who was making a name in the science of cybernetics at that time.
The interdisciplinary nature of these projects triggered Kepes’s interest to research possible relationships between art and science. While there was a growing exchange of ideas amongst a number of science departments, he noticed very little discourse between the humanities and science faculties. But even if many people thought that art and science were unmixable entities, Kepes was convinced that there existed a symbiotic relationship between the two, which would only grow stronger when nourished by each other. For him, technological progress was not in itself negative, but he warned against an uncontrolled utilization of it. Kepes: “The obvious world that we know on gross levels of sight, sound taste and touch, can be connected with the subtle world revealed by our scientific instruments and devices. Seen together, aerial maps of river estuaries and road systems, feathers, fern leaves, branching blood vessels, nerve ganglia, electron micrographs of crystals and the tree-like patterns of electrical discharge-figures are connected, although they are vastly different in place, origin and scale ... Their similarity of form is by no means accidental. As patterns of energy-gathering and energy-distribution, they are similar graphs generated by similar processes.”
When Kepes tried to give an account of the different functions of the visual arts and the sciences, and what might connect them, he kept returning to the idea that nature served as a common base, as a common language for both. Being both ordering devices in that they try to impose a structure upon the human experience, art and science could have a complementary function in restoring the balance in today’s society, which he felt had been lost. What connected them further, argued Kepes, was that both art and science were “image-making devices” which needed to visualize experiences. For György Kepes it was no accident that there was such a remarkable similarity between certain paintings and photographs and the images that had become visible through new optical technologies such as infrared and ultraviolet rays, microscopic and telescopic photography, X-rays and other radiation techniques. Both were looking for laws, such as pattern, structure, harmony, order or even disorder in natural and other phenomena. These technologies offered a completely new picture of nature’s order, which had hitherto been invisible to the human eye, giving new sensory experiences and expanding the range of perception. In order to make his findings known to the public, he organized an exhibition titled The New Landscape (1951), in which he presented the visual analogues between recent scientific visualizations of research models and the visual arts. Computer images, serial and other photographs of the “micro-world” and “macro-world” made by scientists, were presented next to artist’s images, showing analogous forms and patterns. A few years later he published The New Landscape in Art and Science (1956), in which he “attempted to present in pictures the new visual world revealed by science and technology, things that were previously too big or too small, too opaque or too fast for the unaided eye to see.”
György Kepes gradually moved beyond a comparison of visual analogues, on to another level of relationships between art and science. He felt that the scientific concerns with the invisible micro-world in terms of energy or dynamic organization instead of measurable, and tangible objects could be compared to the changes in the visual arts. The fact that sculptors had turned to new ‘immaterial’ technologies of light, video or laser was representative of this new way of thinking for him. Kepes was convinced that if artists and scientists were to work in a closer communion, it might be possible that artists would work out new visual images that could inspire scientists in their search for new visual models.
After the publication of The New Landscape in Art and Science, György Kepes’s contributions to books and catalogues almost always revolved around a serious concern about the earth and the environment, emphasizing the thoughtless manner in which man-kind treats nature’s treasures. His arguments grew stronger in the early seventies when the ecological movement was rapidly gaining a large following and environmental concerns were vehemently and emotionally discussed in books like Charles Reich’s The Greening of America or Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Kepes: “Our cities are our collective selfportraits, images of hollowness and chaos. And if not properly guided our immensely potent technology may carry within itself curses of even more awesome proportions. The yet not understood uncontrolled dynamics of scientific technology could do more than poison our earth; it is capable of wreaking havoc on man’s genetic nature.” (1972) It is here that Kepes found a social as well as educational role for the artist. Only an artist who was knowledgeable about the developments in science and understood the implications of new technologies could influence the expected environmental problems. For Kepes, this meant a new civic art (his term), based on interdisciplinary collaboration. One way to expand the vision of art was to create an exchange and communication for art with other disciplines, in particular the sciences. “In becoming a collaborative enterprise in which artists, scientists, urban planners and engineers are interdependent, art clearly enters a new phase of orientation in which its prime goal is the revitalization of the entire human environment; a greatly-to-be-wished-for climax to the rebuilding of our present urban world." (1971: 72)
Works (selection)[edit]
- Light-Space Modulator (1930)
With László Moholy-Nagy.
- Flame Orchard (1972)
"Beginning in the early 1800s, the stages of opera houses were lit with gas foot lamps, whose flames appeared on occasion to change shape with the volume and tone of the singers’ voices. CAVS founder György Kepes' Flame Orchard not only investigated this phenomenon, but also did much more. Reporting from the Bienal de Arte Coltejer in Medellín, Colombia, curator Jasia Reichardt compared watching Flame Orchard to watching clouds or the surface of the sea—but they were moving in synchrony with an "extraordinary synthesis of church music and modern jazz." (Source)
Flame Orchard consisted of six units like the one seen here, each housing a 2' x 2' x 3" gas container and a sound speaker that vibrated the gas. As composer Paul Earls' music played, the flames vibrated and leap.
See also: Chladni figures.
- More
on Scaruffi.com, on JoelSorokaGallery.com, on Tumblr
Publications[edit]
![](/images/thumb/2/28/Kepes_Gyorgy_Language_of_Vision.jpg/350px-Kepes_Gyorgy_Language_of_Vision.jpg)
![](/images/thumb/b/be/Kepes_Gyorgy_ed_The_Man-Made_Object.jpg/350px-Kepes_Gyorgy_ed_The_Man-Made_Object.jpg)
Books[edit]
- The Language of Vision: Painting, Photography, Advertising-Design, intro. Siegfried Giedion and Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa, Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1944; rev.ed., Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1964.
- El Lenguaje de la visión, trans. Enrique L. Revol, Buenos Aires: Infinito, 1969, 302 pp. (Spanish)
- Sprache des Sehens, ed. Hans M. Wingler, trans. Renate Pfriem and Almut v. Wulffen, Mainz and Berlin: Kupferberg, 1971, 200 pp. (German)
- Il linguaggio della visione, trans. Franca Rossi Chiaia, Bari: Dedalo, 1971, 253 pp. (Italian)
- Shikaku gengo: kaiga shashin kōkoku dezain e no tebiki [視覚言語 : 絵画・写真・広告デザインへの手引], Tokyo: Gurafikku Sha, 1973, 201 pp. (Japanese)
- A látás nyelve, trans. Katalin Horváth, Budapest: Gondolat, 1979, 253 pp. (Hungarian)
- Kepes, et al., Graphic Forms: the Arts as Related to the Book, Harvard University Press, 1949. Based on a series of four public meetings held on 17-18 January 1949 at the Fogg Museum of Art in Cambridge, 128 pp.
- editor, The New Landscape in Art and Science, foreword John E. Burchard, Chicago: Paul Theobold, 1956, 384 pp; 4th ed., 1967. Contributions by sculptor Naum Gabo, physicist Bruno Rossi, art-historian Siegfried Giedion, architect Richard Neutra, psychologist Heinz Werner, cybernetician Norbert Wiener, and writer Charles Morris. Review: Alford (1958).
- Zōkei to kagaku no atarashii fūkei [造形と科学の新しい風景], Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1966. (Japanese)
- editor, The Visual Arts Today, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1960. Repr. of Daedalus 89(1): "The Visual Arts Today", Winter 1960.
- La situación actual de las artes visuales, Buenos Aires: Tres, 1963, 124 pp. (Spanish)
- editor, Education of Vision, New York: George Braziller, 1965.
- Education de la vision, trans. Danièle Panchout, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1967, xiv+213 pp. (French)
- Visuelle Erziehung, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1967, xiv+233 pp. (German)
- La educación visual, México: Novaro, 1968, vii+233 pp. (Spanish)
- editor, Structure in Art and in Science, New York: George Braziller, 1965.
- La structure dans les arts et dans les lettres, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1967, xv+189 pp. (French)
- Struktur in Kunst und Wissenschaft, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1967, xv+189 pp. (German)
- La estructura en el arte y en la ciencia, trans. Agustí Bartra, México, D.F.: Novaro, 1970, vii+189 pp. (Spanish)
- editor, The Nature and Art of Motion, New York: George Braziller, 1965, 195 pp. Review: Steele (1966).
- Nature et art du mouvement, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1968, 195 pp. (French)
- Wesen und Kunst der Bewegung, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1969, xviii+195 pp. (German)
- El movimiento: su esencia y su estética, trans. Agustí Bartra and Sergio Madero, México, D.F.: Novaro, 1970, xi+195 pp. (Spanish)
- editor, Module, Proportion, Symmetry, Rhythm, New York: George Braziller, 1966.
- Module, proportion, symétrie, rythme, trans. Danièle Panchout, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1968, 233 pp. (French)
- Modul, Proportion, Symmetrie, Rhytmus, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1969, 233 pp. (German)
- editor, The Man-Made Object, New York: George Braziller, 1966, 230 pp.
- L'Objet créé par l'homme, trans. Danièle Panchout, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1968, 230 pp. (French)
- Der Mensch und seine Dinge, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1972, 192 pp. (German)
- editor, Sign Image Symbol, New York: George Braziller, 1966.
- Signe, image, symbole, trans. Danièle Panchout, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1968, 235 pp. (French)
- Zeichen, Bild, Symbol, Brussels: La Connaissance, 1972, 174 pp. (German)
- editor, Arts of the Environment, New York: G. Braziller, 1972.
- El arte del ambiente, trans. Nely Coarasa, Buenos Aires: Victor Lerú, 1978, 193 pp. (Spanish)
- El arte y la tecnología: hacia la reconstrucción del medio ambiente urbano, Bogotá: Universidad de los Andes, 1973, 51 pp. (Spanish)
- L'arte visuale oggi: antologia di scritti, ed. & trans. Branka Jankovic Russo, intro. Gianni Pirrone, Palermo: S.F. Flaccovio, 1977, 176 pp. (Italian)
Catalogues[edit]
- "György Kepes insert", intro. L. Moholy-Nagy, PM Magazine 3:6 (Feb-Mar 1940), 10 pp. Photograms and advertising work; inserts in the magazine.
- Light as a Creative Medium, Harvard University, 1965, 35 pp. Exhibition held at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1965.
- Light and Design, ed. Peter Seitz, Minneapolis, MN: Walker Art Center, 1967, 32 pp.
- Explorations: Toward Civic Art, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1970, 8 pp. Held on 4 Apr-10 May 1970.
- Gyorgy Kepes: Works in Review, Boston: Museum of Science, 1973.
- The MIT Years 1945-1977, MIT Press, 1978, 104 pp. Exhibition held at Hayden Gallery, 28 April - 9 June 1978.
- Gyorgy Kepes: Light Graphics, New York: International Center of Photography, 1984.
- The Pleasure of Light: György Kepes and Frank J. Malina at the Intersection of Science and Art, 2011, 189 pp. (English)/(Polish) Exhibition held at the National Museum in Gdansk; curated by Nina Czegledy and Rona Kopeczky.
Articles[edit]
- "Function in Modern Design", in Kepes, et al., Graphic Forms: the Arts as Related to the Book, Harvard University Press, 1949; repr. in Looking Closer 3, eds. M. Bierut, J. Helfand, S. Heller and R. Poynor, New York: Allworth Press, 1999, pp 98-105.
- "Notes on Expression and Communication in the Cityscape", Daedalus 90:1, Winter 1961, pp 147-165.
- "Kent Ölçeginde Disavurum ve Iletisim Üzerine Notlar", trans. Bahar Öcal Düzgören, Cogito 8: "Kent ve Kültürü", 2014, pp 177-192. (Turkish)
- "The Visual Arts and the Sciences: A Proposal for Collaboration", Daedalus 94:1, Winter 1965, pp 117-134. [1]
- "The Artist’s Response to the Scientific World", in Technology and Culture in Perspective: An Occasional Paper Published by the Church Society for College Work, Cambridge, MA: Church Society for College Work, 1966.
- "Light and Design", Design Quarterly 68, 1967, pp 1-2 & 4-32.
- "Kinetic Light as a Creative Medium", Technology Review 70:2, Dec 1967.
- "The Lost Pageantry of Nature", Arts Canada, Dec 1968, pp 33-39.
- "László Moholy-Nagy: The Bauhaus Tradition", Print 23, Jan-Feb 1969, pp 35-39
- "Toward Civic Art", in Explorations, Washington, DC: National Collection of Fine Arts, 1970; rev., Leonardo 4:1, Winter 1971, Pergamon Press, pp 69-73; repr. in Arts in Society 9(1): "Environment and Culture", University of Wisconsin, 1972, pp 83-94. Originally published in connection with the exhibition 'Explorations' held at the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., from 4 April-10 May 1970.
- "Art and Ecological Consciousness", in Arts of the Environment, ed. Kepes, New York: G. Braziller, 1972, pp 1-12.
- "The Artist's Role in Environmental Self-regulation", in Arts of the Environment, ed. Kepes, New York: G. Braziller, 1972, pp 167-191.
Interviews[edit]
- Douglas M. Davis, "Art & Technology—Conversations with György Kepes, Billy Klüver and James Seawright", Art in America, Jan/Feb 1968, pp 38-45.
- Dorothy Seckler, "Oral history interview with Gyorgy Kepes", Archives of American Art, Aug 1968.
- Jud Yalkut, "Sao Paulo, No! Smithsonian, Yes!, Conversations with Gyorgy Kepes", Arts Magazine 44:7, May 1970, pp 16-18.
- Robert Brown, "Oral history interview with Gyorgy Kepes", Archives of American Art, Mar 1972-Jan 1973. [2]
- Constance Breuer, "Interview with György Kepes in Wellfleet, Massachusetts", Archives of American Art, 1983. [3]
- Interview with Kepes, 1988. Interviewed at his home in Cambridge, MA, on the occasion of a California Polytechnic show on art and science, in December 1988.
Literature[edit]
- Katherine Kuh, "Gyorgy Kepes", Arts and Architecture 69:6, Jun 1952.
- Robert Reinhold, "M.I.T. Center Seeks to Wed Esthetics and Technology", New York Times 26 Dec 1969, p 31.
- Jasia Reichardt, "Art at Large", New Scientist, 1 Jun 1972, p 525.
- Jonathan Benthall, "Kepes' Center at M.I.T.", Art International 19:1, Jan 1974, pp 28-31+49.
- Judith Wechsler, "Gyorgy Kepes", in The MIT Years 1945-1977, MIT Press, 1978, pp 7-19.
- Jack Burnham, "Art and Technology: The Panacea That Failed", in The Myths of Information: Technology and Postindustrial Culture, ed. Kathleen Woodward, Madison, WI: Coda Press, 1980; repr. in Video Culture: A Critical Investigation, ed. John Hanhardt, Rochester, NY: Visual Studies Workshop Press, 1986.
- Rudolph de Harak, "Gyorgy Kepes Revisits the Visual Landscape", AIGA Journal of Graphic Design 5:2, 1987; repr. in in Design Culture: An Anthology of Writing from the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, eds. Steven Heller and Marie Finamore, New York: Allworth Press, 1997.
- Robert F. Brown, "Oral history interview with Otto Piene", Archives of American Art, 1988-1990.
- Marga Bijvoet, "Interdisciplinary Collaborations: Ideas", ch. 1 in Bijvoet, Art as Inquiry: Toward New Collaborations Between Art, Science, and Technology, Peter Lang, 1997.
- "Interdisziplinäres Gemeinschaftswerk: Pläne", ch. 1 in Bijvoet, Kunst-Forschung, n.d. (German)
- Howard Singerman, Art Subjects: The Making of the Artist in the American University, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.
- Anne Collins Goodyear, The Relationship of Art to Science and Technology in the United States, 1957–1971: Five Case Studies, Austin: University of Texas, 2002. PhD dissertation. Excerpt. [4]
- Michael J. Golec, "A Natural History of the Disembodied Eye: The Structure of Gyorgy Kepes’s ‘Language of Vision", Design Issues 18:2, Spring 2002, pp 3-16.
- Reinhold Martin, The Organizational Complex, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.
- Anne Collins Goodyear, "György Kepes, Billy Kluver, and American Art of the 1960s: Defining Attitudes Toward Science and Technology", Science in Context 17:4, 2004, pp 611-635.
- The Kepes Journal, since 2004. (Spanish)/(English)
- Elizabeth Finch, Languages of Vision: Gyorgy Kepes and the ‘New Landscape’ of Art and Science, New York: City University of New York, 2005. PhD dissertation.
- Bill Arning, Gyorgy Kepes’ Vision + Value 1965–1972: A Practical Training Program to Create a New Super-Perceiving Problem-Solving Artist, Tufts University, 2008. PhD dissertation.
- Leigh Anne Roach, A Positive, Popular Art: Sources, Structure, and Impact of Gyorgy Kepes’ 'Language of Vision', Florida State University, 2010, 154 pp. PhD dissertation.
- Anna Vallye, Design and the Politics of Knowledge in America, 1937-1967: Walter Gropius, Gyorgy Kepes, New York: Columbia University, 2011. PhD dissertation. [5]
- Melissa Ragain, "From Organization to Network: MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies", X-TRA 14:3, Spring 2012.
- Matthew Wisnioski, "Centerbeam: Art of the Environment", in A Second Modernism: MIT, Architecture, and
the “Techno-Social” Moment, ed. Arindam Dutta, MIT Press, 2013, pp 188–225.
- Anna Vallye, "The Middleman: Kepes’s Instruments", in A Second Modernism: MIT, Architecture, and the ‘Techno-Social’ Moment, eds. Arindam Dutta, MIT Press, 2013.
- Matthew Wisnioski, "Why MIT Institutionalized the Avant-Garde: Negotiating Aesthetic Virtue in the Postwar Defense Institute", Configurations 21:1, Winter 2013, pp 85-116.
- Márton Orosz, A látás revíziója. Művészet mint humaniesta tudomány Kepes György korai életművében, Eötvös Loránd University, 2013. PhD dissertation. (Hungarian)
- Orit Halpern, "Visualizing: Design, Communicative Objectivity, and the Interface", ch. 2 in Halpern, Beautiful Data. A History of Vision and Reason since 1945, Duke University Press, 2014, pp 79-144.
- John R. Blakinger, "The Aesthetics of Collaboration: Complicity and Conversion at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies", Tate Papers, London: Tate, Spring 2016.
- Timothy Michael Ridlen, The Research and Teaching of Art Despite Its Disappearance: Art in Academia, 1957-1977, San Diego: University of California San Diego, 2018. PhD dissertation.
- John R. Blakinger, György Kepes: Undreaming the Bauhaus, MIT Press, 2019, 504 pp, ARG. Publisher.
- Inge Hinterwaldner, "Art & Technology Bewegungen in Amerika. György Kepes und das Center for Advanced Visual Studies am MIT", 2019. Slides.
- John Beck, Ryan Bishop, "A Laboratory of Form and Movement: Institutionalizing Emancipatory Technicity at MIT", ch 2 in Beck and Bishop, Technocrats of the Imagination: Art, Technology, and the Military-Industrial Avant-Garde, Duke University Press, 2020, pp 46-76.
Archives[edit]
- Gyorgy Kepes papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian
- Gyorgy Kepes papers, Special Collections, Stanford University
- Gyorgy Kepes papers, 1962-1972, ACT MIT
- Center for Advanced Visual Studies special collection, 1967–2009, ACT MIT, [6]