Page 45 - Studio International - July August 1975

the subject itself to look posed, though
there is an exception in the case of the
curiously surrealist Dolls" which
Moholy placed in a setting that was also
used for other subjects. The appeal of
this particular setting for Moholy was
clearly the way in which space-
perception is upset by the fact that the
shadow thrown by the grid has —
photographically — a solidity equal to that
of the grid itself.
There is a film scenario of the later
'twenties, Once a Chicken, Always a
Chicken 46, which also uses imagery in
a way that is suggestive of Surrealism. It
is in a different category from his other
films and film projects, in that it would
have involved a highly formalized use of
actors. The film's structure would have
been derived from contrived situations
rather than from the editing of material
observed and shot on location with a
minimum of manipulation (as for
instance in the 1929 Marseilles film). The
situations themselves are menacing and
enigmatic: colonies of eggs bounce
around with a life of their own, chasing
people down the street. Where Moholy's
filmic treatments of the urban landscape
and its rhythms are a development of the
preoccupations of his photographs, and
the short completed sequence from
Light-Play Black White Grey, a kinetic
extension of the photogram, this scenario
is more closely related to his highly
individual treatment of the photocollage
medium. (One of the points of departure
for Once a Chicken, Always a Chicken was
in fact a 1925 photocollage of the same
title.)
Whereas his photographs were usually
given purely descriptive titles for
purposes of identification, the titles of the
photocollages have a part to play in the
impact of the visual material. They are The Law of Series 1925
often untranslatable and, like the imagery Photocollage, 21.5 x 16 cm. are larger than his head. This
itself, witty and enigmatic. Moholy's MOMA, New York foreshortening conditions another
so-called photoplastics (Fotoplastikes: optical surprise : one naturally tends
plastic in the sense of form, as in peculiar impact of his photocollages to read a rapidly converging perspective
Neoplasticism) have little to do with is usually determined by the way the into the imagery, the space of the
photography as he conceived it, for they images are related in an illusionistic and photographic close-up; and yet the
are in no way complementary to, or an yet sometimes ambiguous three- overlapping images are all the same size
extension of, the organ of sight, but dimensional space. The spatial framework in real terms. Illusionistically, therefore,
food for the mind. They do not involve implied by disparities of scale in the the images that appear to be further
the photographic organization of light, imagery is often further defined by back loom larger than the ones glued
but rather the selection and manipulation pencilled lines. Sometimes the lines link on top of them (in front of them). A
of pre-processed imagery. Often a the photographic fragments together and further twist appears in the fact that the
photocollage would evolve further: it form themselves into further imagery: images are not, in fact, the same, although
might be given a new title; or a new they may look like wires or define planes. identical in posture, expression and
photocollage would be produced as a In other photocollages, they serve purely actual size. The figure gives the
pendant to the original one (as in a series constructional purposes. The images impression of having been lit from
centering on the jealousy theme)'. Like were often cut direct from magazines different angles, although the five images
the Berlin Dadas, Moholy recognized or other sources, but occasionally appear to derive from the same
that photocollage (and photomontage) Moholy worked them up. exposure and not several different ones.
could provide a basis for effective poster In one of the earliest (Chute, 1923, Moholy probably worked up the
design as well as being (for Moholy) an in the Museum of Modern Art, New apparently variable lighting by
ideal medium in which to explore personal York), he prints up a single image in manipulation in the printing of a single
associations. But, unlike the Dadas, gradually increasing sizes so that the negative before cutting out the images.
Moholy used his imagery sparingly, with figure appears to loom out of the The more personal photocollages and
close attention to its positioning on the distance into the foreground in Moholy's disparate treatments of the
white surface. How to Stay Young and interminable repetition. Another film medium should give the lie to any
Beautiful (a photocollage which Moholy photocollage called The Law of Series impression that his work tended to be a
once had reproduced in negative) 48 uses (1925) seems related to his interest in secondary outgrowth of his theoretical
a tiny splayed figure, glued on in conflict serial photography — except that he is here formulations. Admittedly, the early
with its own centre of gravity, to set the able to indulge in manipulations which photograms had been his first solution to
ring spinning round the static figure would have been incompatible with his the specific problem of finding a
trapped inside. Occasionally he worked conception of photography proper. An `productive' approach to the
with an apparently Dada or Surrealist- image is repeated five times : that of a photographic medium; but his thesis
derived confrontation of unexpected man photographed in foreshortened that art progresses from the material to
entities within the image, but the perspective so that his outstretched hands the immaterial, 'from pigment to light',

25