Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

“With historical insight and a keen eye, Joyce Tsai escorts us through the period of the interwar avant-garde and presents Moholy-Nagy as a master in the use of industrial materials to create compelling visual effects. Her passion and evocative narrative skillfully reveal the artist’s profound quest to synthesize art and life through technology.”—Lena Stringari, Deputy Director and Chief Conservator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum   “The result of close and sustained looking, this book reimagines a Weimar-era giant we thought we knew. It examines not just Moholy-Nagy’s painting practice, but also the interdisciplinary means at his disposal from the World War I battlefield to the Bauhaus and beyond. Tsai, like her subject, challenges stubborn divides between media and notions of artistic and technological progress. An indelible contribution to our understanding of Moholy-Nagy and his legacy and that of the interwar avant-garde.”—Lynette Roth, Daimler Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard Art Museums   “Going far beyond Moholy-Nagy, Tsai takes on nothing less than the greatest clichés associated with the avant-garde, giving much-needed historical traction and conceptual nuance to such matters as the end of painting, heightened sense perception, and the embrace of new technologies. One of the most astute and groundbreaking contributions amid renewed attention to early twentieth-century art, this book is a gift to the field.”—Christine Mehring, Professor and Chair, Department of Art History, University of Chicago