London Royal Acadamy

Last week we visited the Royal Acadamy to see the Eyewitness Exhibition of Hungarian Photography. This related to our initial project which was to choose a photographer from either Brassai, Capa, Kertesz, Moholy-Nagy or Monkacsi and research their practice, influence on photography of their era and photography in general. We needed to then use this research as a source of Inspiration and accordingly shoot some black and white film in order to produce a final print.

I chose Maholy Nagy for my research. His work was instantly inspiring. I loved the geometric nature of much of his work using shapes, lines and angles within the environment to create beautiful images. Another interesting feature of Moholy-Nagy's work was the experimental side and his invention of the photogram. On reading about this and seeing his photograms I immediately wanted to get in the dark room and experiment myself. Moholy-Nagy was also interested in the industrial, machinery and the like and this also featured in his work. Moholy-Nagy was not just a photographer, he was a talented painter, sculpture, designer and of course teacher within the Bauhaus School of Art and Design. His composition is faultless. His works show great appreciation of the formal qualities of art, line, shape, form, texture, pattern and colour. If we consider the painting below "Construction" 1933 Oil on Aluminium.

It has all of the above qualities but it's the skill with which they are used to produce this final peice that is truly inspirational. The shapes are there, the lines, the pattern but through the use of light, shadow and tonal range he creates depth and another dimension to what is essentially a two dimensional painting. I would imagine there is some texture to the painting as well but that is difficult to appreciate from a photograph of the painting. For this painting he used oil on aluminium. Moholy-Nagy was experimental in his painting as well as his photography using new and interesting surfaces on which to paint.

The exhibition of Hungarian Photographers at the Royal Acadamy included many of his photographs. To see his genuine photographs in a gallery space was truly inspiring and for me quite emotional. To know they were the original images that he had taken, processed and printed himself left me filled with awe.