Pont Transbordeur, Marseille

Bauhaus Photography. In 1929 Moholy-Nagy traveled to Marseilles, where he photographed the Pont Transbordeur, a steel transporter bridge that was celebrated, like the Eiffel Tower, as an icon of modern construction. Like a number of other avant-garde photographers, including Germaine Krull, Herbert Bayer, and Florence Henri, Moholy-Nagy was fascinated by the dynamic spatial relations of the bridge's crisscrossing steel girders and open spiral staircase. In this photograph, he used the technique of reverse printing to create a bold graphic composition that simultaneously clarifies and transforms the structure of the bridge. The legacy of Hungarian artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy is among the most cherished in the lineage of photographic art, and he can be defined as a visionary whose radical experiments with photography entirely re-imagined the possibilities for the medium. Working in the early 20th century when photography was not considered a form of high art, Moholy-Nagy actively sought to break down boundaries and find new languages of photographic discourse. In doing so, he left behind an oeuvre of visual ideas that have provided artistic license to a century’s worth of photographers to experiment boldly beyond the conventional definitions of what photography is expected to be. Edition: 1 of 1