The predominance of classic and documentary photography in America in the 1930s did not go unchallenged. In 1937 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a pioneer at the Bauhaus and refugee from Nazi Germany, founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago. The following year it became known as the Institute of Design, a name soon synonymous with experimentation, integration of the arts, a distinguished faculty, and a long list of accomplished graduates, especially in the area of photography. The philosophy and influence of the Institute of Design (ID) continues, as evidenced by the exhibition Siegel, Josephson, and Jachna: Chicago Experimentalists (October 28, 1988-January 8, 1989), curated by Sandra Phillips and held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The Super-Real
Moholy-Nagy's basic premise was that the arts are an integral part of human experience. In addition, he believed that the discovery of the unconscious mind and vision in motion, both space-time problems, were not only unique to our era but were also grist for the mill of art. For Moholy-Nagy, photography, an art form produced by a machine, duplicates the exterior world and also "can become the tool of the fantastic, of the dream and the super-real." Furthermore, photograms, photomontage, superimposition, prisms, mechanical and chemical manipulation are all basic and effective means of expression in photography. In fact, Moholy-Nagy said that these techniques "help create a more complex and imaginary language of photography."
The photographers in this exhibition have sustained Moholy-Nagy's visionary quest. Arthur Siegel (1913-78), one of Moholy-Nagy's first students at ID, began his career as a photojournalist and commercial photographer, but is best known as a teacher and innovator in the use of 35 mm color photography. In one of his early documentary photographs, Right of Assembly (1939), he documented a Chrysler strike, with many of the protesters holding placards with terse but poignant messages: "Buy Defense Bonds," "Forget Profits, Win the War," etc. But even in these seemingly innocuous photographs, Siegel photographs the workers from an angular, aerial view unusual for the time and undoubtedly a technique that he had learned from Moholy-Nagy.
Siegel's slide projections onto his wife's nude torso are technically novel. The effects that he achieves in his use of textures, however, vary in their intensity and excellence. For example, in Nude and Projection (1947) the crystalline texture on the profiled nude seems a little too harsh and obvious. On the other hand, in Nude and Projection (1948) the cracking, dried earth is merged with the face and nude figure, resulting in a much more convincing image.
As early as the 1940s, Siegel had experimented with color, but it wasn't until he experienced severe emotional problems, went into psychoanalysis, and became personally acquainted with Freud's ideas that color became a significant means of expression for him. In a series of dye-transfer prints, In Search of Myself, he turned to life in the street and photographed neon signs, store windows, reflections, and pedestrians. This approach resulted in a complex imagery that is a metaphor for his own inner world. In State Street, Chicago (1951), from within the store he photographed a woman looking into a store window at a shoe display as pedestrians pass in the street behind her. And in another even more complex image, State Street Jewelry Shop (1956), he photographed several
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