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A sculpture of metals, plastic and wood.

The sculpture sits on a black metal open square with two silver metal poles and a horizontal bar across the top to support the internal structure which consists of a large vertical silver disc with holes on the left side. Silver metal bars support round silver discs and a vertical rectangle of smaller, closely spaced silver bars.

Gallery Text

One of the earliest electrically powered kinetic sculptures, Light Prop for an Electric Stage holds a central place in the history of modern sculpture. Representing the culmination of Moholy-Nagy’s experimentation at the Bauhaus, it incorporates his interest in technology, new materials, and, above all, light. Moholy sought to revolutionize human perception and thereby enable society to better apprehend the modern technological world. He presented Light Prop at a 1930 exhibition of German design as a mechanism for generating “special lighting and motion effects” on a stage. The rotating construction produces a startling array of visual effects when its moving and reflective surfaces interact with the beam of light. The sculpture became the subject of numerous photographs as well as Moholy’s abstract film Lightplay: Black, White, Gray (1930). Over the years the artist and later the museums made alterations to the sculpture to keep it in working order. It is still operational today.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
BR56.5
People
László Moholy-Nagy, American (Bacsborsod, Hungary 1895 - 1946 Chicago, Ill., USA)
Title
Light Prop for an Electric Stage (Light-Space Modulator)
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Lichtrequisit einer elektrischen Bühne
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
1930
Culture
German
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/299819

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1520, Modern and Contemporary Art, Art in Germany Between the Wars
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Aluminum, steel, nickel-plated brass, other metals, plastic, wood and electric motor
Dimensions
151.1 × 69.9 × 69.9 cm (59 1/2 × 27 1/2 × 27 1/2 in.)
216 lb

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, gift; to Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1956.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Sibyl Moholy-Nagy
Accession Year
1956
Object Number
BR56.5
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Charles Werner Haxthausen, "The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard: the Germanic Tradition", Apollo (May 1978), vol. 107, no. 195, pp. 403-413, p. 410, repr. p. 410 as fig. 7
  • Charles Werner Haxthausen, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Abbeville Press (New York, NY, 1980), pp. 12, 61, repr. pp. 60-63
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 357, p. 301, repr.
  • Peter Nisbet and Emilie Norris, Busch-Reisinger Museum: History and Holdings, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1991), p. 67, ill.
  • Robert Atkins, Artspoke: A guide to Modern Ideas, Movements, and Buzzwords, 1848-1944, Abbeville Press (New York, 1993), p. 69, b/w
  • James Cuno, Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Ivan Gaskell, and William W. Robinson, Harvard's Art Museums: 100 Years of Collecting, ed. James Cuno, Harvard University Art Museums and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (Cambridge, MA, 1996), pp. 344-345, repr. color
  • Masterpieces of world art : Fogg Art Museum, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1997
  • Seiyo Bijutsukan [The History of Western Art], Shogakukan Inc. (Tokyo, Japan, 1999), p. 1039, repr. in color
  • Gary Garrels, ed., Celebrating Modern Art: The Anderson Collection, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (San Francisco, CA, 2000), fig. 62, b/w illus.
  • Peter Nisbet and Joseph Koerner, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, ed. Peter Nisbet, Harvard University Art Museums and Scala Publishers Ltd. (Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2007), p. 119
  • Peter L. Galison, Gerald Holton, and Silvan Schweber, ed., Einstein for the 21st Century, Princeton University Press (Princeton, New Jersey, 2008), pp. 112, 114, fig. 8.7, ill.
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), p. 207, ill.
  • Leah Dickerman and Barry Bergdoll, Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, exh. cat., ed. David Frankel, The Museum of Modern Art (New York, 2009), cat. no. 374, p. 275, color repr.
  • Philip F. Palmedo, Lin Emery, Hudson Hills Press (Manchester, VT and New York, 2012), p. 124-125, fig. 7.2, ill.
  • Linda Henderson, The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2013), p. 35, ill. (black and white)
  • Gyula Ernyey, "The Hungarians in Bauhaus", Herito Quarterly, International Cultural Center, Krakow, Poland (Krakow, Poland, 2016), No. 24, pp. 20-21, p. 21, ill. (b/w)
  • Matthew S. Witkovsky, Carol Eliel, and Carol Vail, ed., Moholy-Nagy: Future Present, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 2016), p. 190
  • Joyce Tsai, Angela Chang, Matthew Battles, and Jeffrey Schnapp, László Moholy-Nagy’s Light Prop as Design Fiction: Perspectives on Conservation and Replication, Leonardo, Leonardo (10.1162/LEON_a_01429, 2017), 5, 3, Pages 311-315
  • Keely Orgeman, Lumia: Thomas Wilfred and the Art of Light, exh. cat., Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven, CT, 2017), pp. 32-33, ill. (color)
  • Joyce Tsai, László Moholy-Nagy: Painting after Photography, University of California Press (Oakland, CA, 2018), pp. 85-112, fig. 3.1, ill. (color)
  • David Reinfurt, A *New* Program for Graphic Design, Inventory Press (Los Angeles, CA, 2019), p. 48, ill. (b/w)
  • The Hakone Open-Air Museum, The Utsukusi-ga-hara Open-Air Museum Collection Guide, Chokoku-no-mori Art Foundation (Kanagawa, Japan, 2020), p. 264, ill. (color)
  • Laura Muir, Object Lessons: The Bauhaus and Harvard, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2021), pp. 265, 279, plate 30, ill. (color)
  • Emily Jean Hood and Joe Fusaro, The Visual Experience, 4th Edition, Davis Publications Inc. (Worcester, MA, 2021), p. 201, fig. 6-5, ill. (color)
  • Peter Weibel, ed., Kinetismus: 100 Years of Electricity in Art, exh. cat., Kunsthalle Praha (Prague, 2022), pp. 92-93, ill. (color)
  • Light: Works from the Tate Collection, exh. cat., Nikkei Inc (Tokyo, 2023), p. 17, fig. 18, ill. (color)
  • Stina Barchan, The Dada Archivist: Hannah Höch, Kurt Schwitters and Berlin Dada, Peter Lang (Oxford, 2023), p. 111., fig. 45, ill. (b/w)
  • Karen Marta, ed., Gustav Metzger: Interviews with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Hauser & Wirth Zürich (Zürich, 2024), p. 114, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

  • 19th- and 20th-Century Paintings and Sculpture from the Museum's Collection, Harvard University Art Museums, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 06/11/1980 - 08/31/1980
  • Re-View: S118 European & American Art since 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 09/13/2008 - 04/09/2011
  • Re-View: European and American Art Since 1900, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/03/2011 - 06/01/2013
  • 32Q: 1520 Art in Germany Between the Wars (Interwar and Bauhaus), Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 12/10/2018; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 08/05/2019 - 01/01/2050
  • The Bauhaus and Harvard, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 02/08/2019 - 07/28/2019

Subjects and Contexts

  • The Bauhaus

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Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu