Diagram of Forces

One of the most influential avant-garde artists of the twentieth century, László Moholy-Nagy worked extensively with photography first at the Bauhaus in Germany and later at the Institute of Design in Chicago. He championed ‘New Vision’ photography that employed unexpected vantage points and experimental printing processes (such as photomontage and photograms) to redefine relationships with the visible world. Moholy-Nagy’s notes on the verso explain that, to make this photogram, “a light sensitive paper was made wet, squashed and exposed to light. The result is a ‘diagram of forces’ projected on the flat sheet.” Taking its own material base, the sheet of photographic paper, as its subject, this cameraless image explores the three-dimensionality of space on two-dimensional support.