Facets Has László Moholy-Nagy Films on DVD

Facets partners with the Moholy-Nagy Foundation to bring all nine films to wider audience.
Facets is proud to offer nine László Moholy-Nagy films on DVD: Impressions of the old Marseille Harbor, Lightplay: Black White Gray, Berlin Still Life, Big City Gypsies, Architects’ Congress, Lobsters, The New Architecture and the London Zoo, Design Workshops, and Do Not Disturb.
László Moholy-Nagy was one of the most prolific and versatile artists of the 20th Century. His contributions laid the groundwork for modern photography, art and design, and his ideas and institutions continue to influence artists today.

These short films include experimental works, documentaries, and travelogues shot and directed by Moholy-Nagy from the late 1920’s to mid 1940’s. His best known film was made in 1930, called Ein Lichtspiel schwarz weiss grau (A Lightplay: black, white, gray) which became a classic of early experimental film. It records the movements and light effects produced by a kinetic sculpture he designed. Variously referred to as The Light-Space Modulator, The Light Machine, and Light Prop for an Electric Stage, it was constructed of metal and glass and driven by an electric motor. It has become Moholy-Nagy’s most iconic work.

Born in 1895 in southern Austria-Hungary, László Moholy-Nagy was “a modern artist of the twentieth century,” known as a painter, photographer, typographer, sculptor, designer, writer and filmmaker. He was also known as a teacher of Bauhaus — Germany’s design school — a hotbed for ideas, revolutionary curriculum and home to some of the most inventive minds in art and design. Its stated goal was to promote “a new unity of art and technology in the service of humanity.” Moholy-Nagy saw art and the artist as active agents in improving society.

In Chicago, Illinois he promoted this philosophy through his school, The School of Design, which is now a department of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Many of the teaching methods and exercises were essentially those of the Bauhaus, adapted to the American context. The objective was also the same, namely to educate the whole person, so that he or she could make a contribution to society.

Moholy-Nagy Quotes
 

“The Illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as the pen.” ~ László Moholy-Nagy

“The reality of our century is technology: the invention, construction and maintenance of machines. To be a user of machines is to be of the spirit of this century. Machines have replaced the transcendental spiritualism of past eras.” ~ László Moholy-Nagy

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