Modern Photography in the First Half of the 20th Century 25.5.2012-27.10.2012 László Moholy-Nagy, Untitled, 1926 photogram, gelatin silver print, 39.8×30 © Hattula Moholy-Nagy The exhibition turns the spotlight on New Vision as a unique phenomenon in the history of modern avant-garde photography, which emerged simultaneously in various centers throughout Europe, and later in the United States as well. The name “New Vision” was drawn from the title of a book by Moholy-Nagy, an interdisciplinary artist and an influential teacher who stressed the affinities between avant-garde artistic exploration and utopian ideas of modernism and progress. New Vision was not a tightly-knit artistic [...]

The Shpilman Institute for Photography is proud to announce the upcoming opening event of its residency at 27 Shoken St. Tel-Aviv, and of its opening exhibition: LUMA – Modern Photography from First Half of the 20th Century // May 25, 2012. Participating Artists: Berenice Abbott, Heda Benáková–Fantlová, Werner Bischof, Francis Bruguière, Margaret De Patta, František Drtikol, Elliott Erwitt, Lois Field, Jaromír Funke, Raymond Hains, Heinz Hajek–Halke, James Hamilton Brown, Henry Holmes Smith, Yasuhiro Ishimoto, Lotte Jacobi, Kenneth Josephson, William Keck, György Kepes, Imre Kinszki, Myron Kozman, Germaine Krull, Nathan Lerner, Edouard–Léon–Théodore Mesens, László Moholy–Nagy, Frank Paulin, Allen Porter, Max Pritikin, [...]

The Shpilman Institute for Photography and The Holon Mediatheque (Israel) are proud to announce The SIP Re/View # 2: W.G. Sebald, an interdisciplinary event dedicated to the works of noted German writer and scholar, whose work continues to resonate in contemporary art and culture. The SIP Re/View # 2 will take place on March 5, 2012. The evening will begin with a panel of local artists and writers: visual artist and writer  Zvi Goldstein, psychoanalyst, artist and art-critic Itamar Levi and The SIP’s research manager, Dr. Romi Mikulinsky will, present three perspectives about Sebald’s evocative use of images and photography as vehicle [...]

By Rotem Rozental Photograph by Alon Segal Protest When thinking about Bruce Weber, one tends to think about young handsome guys in commercial campaigns, or glamour projects that transformed the way fashion photography is currently viewed. Therefore, his new exhibition may reveal a different aspect of his photography to the wider public. Haiti/Little Haiti, now showing at The MOCA brings to the foreground an unexpected documentation of the local Haitian community in Miami. The exhibition displays 75 photographs Weber shot between the years 2003-2010. This was a visual response to what he perceived as an unjust immigration system implemented by [...]

Prof. Louis Kaplan @ The SIP Re/Views 1 from The Sip on Vimeo. Jan Tichy @ The SIP Re/Views 1 from The Sip on Vimeo. Open Discussion in The SIP Re/Views 2 from The Sip on Vimeo.

Moholy Nagy is still a major influence on many young artists around the world. MUSIC Going over the Myspace Bands list you can find two different bands called Moholy-Nagy. The bands express the differences in interpreting what they think Nagy meant when he said he’s looking for a new mechanical harmony . Moholy Nagy – The German Version Moholy Nagy – The Californian Version ANIMATION Among contemporary animation works relics of Nagy’s visual language can be easily found hiding under new techniques. Life Line – 2007 – created by tomek ducki PRODUCED at MOME (Moholy-Nagy University of Arts and Design Budapest) Visual [...]

In this short film, artists and commentators discuss the impact of Albers and Moholy-Nagy on contemporary art and design. Artists Daniel Sturgis and Michael Craig-Martin describe the importance of Albers’s groundbreaking explorations of form and colour, while design commentator Alice Rawsthorn and photgrapher Idris Khan talk about Moholy-Nagy’s obsession with light, and his enormous influence on twentieth-century design and photography. This short film was produced on the occasion of Albers & Moholy-Nagy: From Bauhaus to the New World and is for educational purposes only. All Albers images: © 2006. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn and DACS, [...]

  My new habit makes me think about Laszlo Moholy-Nagy; I can’t stop taking pictures with my new cell phone. I take pictures everywhere, and show it to everyone, but I keep thinking about Moholy-Nagy’s well known expression, quoted in Walter Benjamin’s Little History of Photography: “It is not the person ignorant of writing but the one ignorant of photography who will be the illiterate of the future.” Often regarded as prophetic, this expression captures the excessive nature of photography and photographs in our time. We “read” and “write” photographs constantly, surrounded by photographed images and producing our own. Is photography the language of [...]

  I have been very interested in moving the study of Moholy-Nagy out of the confines of Modernism. In this way, I want us to go beyond framing him as a modern Bauhaus master.  While this paradigm certainly has much to offer, Moholy-Nagy’s vision (in motion) and his intermedia artistic meanderings lend themselves to many fascinating frameworks.  In the particular case of my book Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: Biographical Writings (Duke, 1995), I wanted to show how his work had great relevance in light of issues and ideas crucial to postmodernism and deconstruction.  I am very pleased that your invitation to participate [...]

“Graphic symbols will permit the establishing of a new graphic and mechanical scale, that is, the creation of a new mechanical harmony, whereby the individual graphic symbols will be examined and their relations formulated within a rule.” (We should initiate) “…an examination of mechanical, metalic and mineral sounds. From these, attempts to devise – for the time being, in a graphic way – a special language. Special attention to be paid to symbols created by diffeent tonalities.” “Potentialities of the Phonograph“ Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, 1923. How about The Knife vs. Motomichi Nakamura? Any other ideas?

We came across the photographs of Sara Ulrich at the tipophoto2009. They are made with the magical accuracy of cutting through an adjacent fog, and definitely resonate Moholoy-Nagy’s photograms.   Sara Ulrich ©

By: Prof. Louis Kaplan A number of paradoxes tie up this scene of resignation. An identifiable subject speaks of his loss, of becoming anonymous. In an autobiographical narrative, Abstract of an Artist, the writes of his artistic techniques for losing himself, for losing his signature, the loss of assignment to a signature. In this manner, the text written as Abstract of an Artist documents the abstracting of an artist. In place of the identity of the maker, one will read an impersonal product label–numbers and letters of a computer bar-coded system stamped onto the back of a canvas in order [...]

by Rotem Rozental Technology is now an inherent part of our own materiality. Of our own vision. My keyboard is an extension of my fingers. My conciseness. The photographed image can re-create our surroundings in a completely different manner. Via various uses of technology it can make an old building look like an assemblage of geometrical, almost abstract, figures and shapes. The human body can be re-created as a small, almost insignificant form in the composition. Moholy-Nagy knew how to create this sense of total equality without making the viewer feel threatened. Even Moholy-Nagy needed to undergo struggles with contemporary [...]

TheSIP is proud to announce that our next event will focus on the life and work of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. We will host Jan Tichy and Prof. Louis Kaplan to talk about Moholy-Nagy: Past and Present, Vision and Practice. Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts. Louis Kaplan is a professor of history and theory of photography and new media in the Graduate Department of Art at the University of Toronto and the chair of the [...]