Metallic Factures: László Moholy-Nagy and Kazimir Malevich

Abstract

In László Moholy-Nagy’s work, the concept of facture fused the material and immaterial, challenging preconceptions about its meaning, practice, purpose, matter and use. Facture was explored by the artist, in a way quite in tune with his Suprematist contemporaries, as an idea, a formless phenomenon, as well as a technological or scientific development. Exploring the significance of facture in Moholy-Nagy’s work, this article focuses on the theoretical and practical affinities that Moholy-Nagy and Kazimir Malevich shared in the early 1920s, as expressed in their approaches toward the creative process, with particular focus on the artists’ explorations of metallic factures.