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Gallery Talk: Activation of Moholy-Nagy’s Light Prop for an Electric Stage

László Moholy-Nagy, American, Light Prop for an Electric Stage, Light-Space Modulator, 1930. Aluminum, steel, nickel-plated brass, other metals, plastic, wood, and electric motor. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, BR56.5. © 2015 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

Gallery Talk

Harvard Art Museums
32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA

Melissa Venator, the Stefan Engelhorn Curatorial Fellow in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, will give this gallery talk.

Is it an experimental lighting device, the subject of New Vision films and photographs, or a motorized kinetic sculpture? The Light Prop has expanded our definition of art for 90 years. Learn more about this fascinating object and see it in operation, in conjunction with the exhibition The Bauhaus and Harvard (February 8–July 28, 2019).

Free with museums admission. This talk is limited to 15 people and tickets are required. Ten minutes before the talk, tickets will become available at the admissions desk.

Please meet in the Calderwood Courtyard, in front of the digital screens between the shop and
the admissions desk. Museums staff will be on hand to collect tickets.

Gallery talks are offered by curators, conservators, fellows, and other museums staff; they focus on aspects of the installation process, exploring both intellectual and more practical considerations. Museums staff will, for example, tease out arguments at play in the galleries, discuss conservation treatments, look closely at specific collections, or draw connections between works of art throughout the museums.