László Moholy-Nagy: The Art of Light (2010) [Spanish]

An artist and thinker of astounding energy and ability, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was a true world citizen of the early twentieth century, an ambassador-at-large for Constructivism, Suprematism, Dada and the Bauhaus. He brought the same Constructivist optimism to every medium he tackled, from plexiglass and light sculpture to typography to his photographic experiments in color to his Suprematist canvases, his influential pedagogy at the Bauhaus and at the Institute of Design in Chicago. Moholy-Nagy’s concept of the arts as a totality, his pedagogy and his confidence in the new industrial culture that would level distinctions between art and craft led him into all fields of creative production. The ultimate modernist Renaissance man, Moholy-Nagy was prolific in so many realms that his detractors inevitably charged him with dilettantism. This accusation ignores his very real innovations in photography–for example his photograms–and light sculpture, as well as the fact that the artist’s aims possessed a conceptual unity in their common aspiration to make an “art of light.”

László Moholy-Nagy: The Art of Light presents Moholy-Nagy’s work in all of its glorious unity and diversity. Including more than 200 works, from painting, photography (black and white and color) and photograms to collages, films and graphic design, it emphasizes his greatest years of productivity, from 1922 to the end of his life. The Art of Light is the new definitive volume on this hero of modernism.

László Moholy-Nagy: El Arte de la Luz
Book coordination: Doménico Chiappe, Luisa Lucuix
Editor: Emilio Ruiz Mateo
Publisher: La Fábrica Editorial / Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid
ISBN: 8492841257, 9788492841424
264 pages

exhibition (Madrid, 2010)

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Alessandro Colizzi: Bruno Munari and the Invention of Modern Graphic Design in Italy, 1928-1945 (2011)

“Despite the difficult political conditions under the Fascist regime, Italy saw its own modernist wave hit the commercial arts in the 1930s, resulting from a complex interplay of factors as diverse as the weight of Futurism, the rise of advertising, and the debate surrounding Rationalist architecture. This research examines Bruno Munari’s work as a graphic designer from the late 1920s to mid-1940s, with the aim of understanding the emergence and characteristics of the modernist trend in Italian graphic design. Taking shape in Milan, this original ‘design culture’ eclectically brought together two quite different strains of Modernity: a local tradition represented by the Futurist avant-garde, and a European tradition associated with Constructivism. Munari (1907–1998) worked simultaneously as painter and as advertising designer: he debuted with the Futurists, whose broader cultural reach he shared, while also remaining open to other currents—such as Dadaism and Surrealism—and ultimately aligned himself with a more Abstractionist stance. Insofar as he was an exponent of the new advertising profession, his design work also reflects its evolution, mixed references, aspirations, and limits. Concentrating on Munari’s stylistic development, the study seeks to explore the interaction between the Futurist visual vocabulary and conceptions coming from architecture, photography, abstract painting, and functionalist typography trickling in from central and northern Europe. Hence, the discussion positions the designer in his time and place, concentrating as much on the artefacts as on the broader cultural framework. Secondly, the study attempts to assess Munari’s reputation against a body of exemplary work, based on firsthand documentation. It is the first extensive, detailed record of Munari’s graphic design output, and as such provides a substantial base for a full understanding of his œuvre. While Munari’s evolution is dealt with chronologically, the analysis of his graphic works highlights key areas of visual interest, offering a cross reading that sheds light on their underlying poetics, themes, and formal attributes. In its trajectory, Munari’s wide-ranging graphic design work shows how modernist ideas were received and assimilated in the Milanese environment of the 1930s, as well as the shift in conceptions of the graphic design profession—from one related to avant-garde art practice to a Modern one, based on rational idioms. The roots of modern Italian graphic design, which fully emerged after 1945, can be traced to this heterogeneous legacy—and it is no coincidence that Munari became one of the fields’ leading exponents.” (Abstract)

Doctoral Thesis
Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
Promotor: G. Unger
Co-promotor: T.M. Eliëns

Publisher

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Jeff Berner (ed.): Astronauts of Inner-Space: An International Collection of Avant-Garde Activity (1966)

17 Manifestoes, Articles, Letters, 28 Poems & 1 Filmscript.

With manifestoes by Raoul Hausmann, John Arden, Jorgen Nash, Decio Pignatari, Maurice Girodias, Bruno Munari, Allen Ginsberg, Franz Mon, Marshall McLuhan, Max Bense, Diter Rot, Otto Piene, W. S. Burroughs, Dom Sylvester Houedard, Konrad Bayer, Margaret Masterman, R. Watts

Publisher Stolen Paper Review Editions, San Francisco, and The Times Publishing Co, London, 1966
66 pages
scanned by Lori Emerson

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