Orbiting Lucia, 2022
site specific installation built for “Refracting Histories” at the Museum of Contemporary of Photography, ChicagoText
Orbiting Lucia (2022) manifests the weight of Lucia Moholy’s (under recognized) co-authorship with her husband Lazlo Moholy-Nagy. Lucia (1894-1989) co-authored the photogram, amongst other contributions to photographic theory and practice. Her proof of their work together is articulated in a single paragraph in her 1972 essay, Marginalien zu Moholy-Nagy/Moholy-Nagy, Marginal Notes.
Sonja Thomsen created an immersive space in the MoCP stairwell that is a tribute to Lucia Moholy, whose career was overshadowed by her once husband, Bauhaus educator László Moholy-Nagy. Thomsen works with reproductions of Moholy’s photographs, cropping sections to emphasize imagery of hands across different generations to underscore unacknowledged labor and care provided by women. She places images within varying levels of light, which fluctuate in the installation depending on where one stands. Looking up, a mobile titled and manner of our collaboration (2022) recalls an apostrophe, the punctuation of possession. Thomsen invites us to reconstruct Moholy’s fragmented legacy and to question our modes of access to information by animating the link between the known and the unknown. – Kristin Taylor, Curator of Academic Programs & Collections, Museum of Contemporary Photography
Video
Related Publications
References
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Exhibited in “Refracting Histories” at the Museum of Contemporary Photography,
Chicago IL, November 2022 – April 2023 -
Susan Aurinko, New City Art, Remixing the Past: A Review of “Refracting Histories” at Museum of Contemporary Photography, November 21, 2022
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Lucia Moholy, Moholy-Nagy: Marginal Notes, Documentary Absurdities, 1972
Works held
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lucia legend i, 2022, archival pigment print, custom frame 14 x 19 x 2 inches (35.56 x 48.26 x 5.08 cm)
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lucia legend ii, 2022, archival pigment print, custom frame 14 x 19 x 2 inches (35.56 x 48.26 x 5.08 cm)
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lucia legend iii, 2022, archival pigment print, custom frame 14 x 19 x 2 inches (35.56 x 48.26 x 5.08 cm)
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lucia legend iv, 2022, archival pigment print, custom frame,19 x 24 x 2 inches (48.26 x 60.96 x 5.08 cm)
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lucia legend iv, 2022, archival pigment print, custom frame 14 x 19 x 2 inches (35.56 x 48.26 x 5.08 cm)
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lucia legend v, 2022, archival pigment print, custom frame 14 x 19 x 2 inches (35.56 x 48.26 x 5.08 cm)
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documentary absurdity, 2022, carbon transfer on aluminum, 5 x 6 inches (12.7 x 15.24 cm)
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Clara’s hands, 2022, carbon transfer on aluminum plate, 11 x 7 x 2 inches (27.92 x 17.78 x 5.08 cm)
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our penumbrae (100 & 99), 2022, 2018-2022, silver gelatin prints, ink, acrylic, shadows of Mary Nohl’s mobiles, silhouette of artist, 10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.32 cm)
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our penumbrae (74 & 93), 2022, silver gelatin prints, ink, acrylic, shadows of Mary Nohl’s mobiles, 10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.32 cm)
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and manner of our collaboration, 2022, wood, acrylic, glass mirror, steel, brass and rotating motor, 5 x 4 x 5 feet (152.4 x 121.92 x 152.4 cm)
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feel the process of their formation reverberate in my mind, 2022, single channel video, 5:54 min
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