L.AL I 1936

László Moholy-Nagy made L.AL I with a quiet palette of grey tones; it’s all angles and circles, like a spaceship docking. I imagine Moholy-Nagy hovering over the canvas, thinking about constructivism and the Bauhaus—all those utopian ideas about art, design, and technology merging together. He's pushing paint around, not in an expressive way, but precisely, carefully, trying to create a sense of depth and movement with flat shapes. There is something so touchingly earnest and optimistic about this kind of painting, even now. You can see how he's thinking about form and space, trying to build a new kind of visual language. These artists were all in conversation with each other, dreaming up a new world. It's a reminder that painting is always a way of thinking, of asking questions, and of imagining different possibilities.