Immaterial: Brancusi, Gabo, Moholy-Nagy
17 January 2004 – 14 March 2004
The dematerialisation of the solid world has been a pre-occupation of Western artists from Impressionism, through Cubism to the present day. Immaterial explored the aspiration of three modernist artists of Eastern European origins, Constantin Brancusi, Naum Gabo and László Moholy-Nagy, to ‘dematerialise’ the sculptural object.
In their various ways these artists sought to replace mass and weight by light, space, time: Gabo and Moholy-Nagy through the use of new materials and movement; Brancusi through reflective surfaces, the sense of vertical leap and rotating bases.
Immaterial included sculpture, graphic works, photographs, photograms and film. It looked in particular at the interplay between sculpture and photography, going back to the photographic portrayal of Rodin’s sculptures which sometimes take on the air of 19th century ‘spirit’ photography. Brancusi’s own photographs, seen here in original, vintage prints, have his sculptures exploding and dissolving in light. Also included were Moholy-Nagy’s photograms and film Lightplay -black-white-grey (Lichtspiel: schwarz-weiss-grau) deriving from his kinetic sculpture, the Light Space-Modulator. Gabo’s previously unseen experiments with photographing moving light are strongly reminiscent of his sculptural forms.
The exhibition was accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.
