Languages of vision: Gyorgy Kepes and the "new landscape" of art and science.
Item
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Title
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Languages of vision: Gyorgy Kepes and the "new landscape" of art and science.
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Identifier
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AAI3187401
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identifier
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3187401
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Creator
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Finch, Elizabeth.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Geoffrey Batchen
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Art History | Biography
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Abstract
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Relying on archival and published sources, this study of the Hungarian-American artist Gyorgy Kepes (1906--2001) analyzes how his belief in the social role of the artist---a belief he came to embrace prior to his arrival in the United States---figured in his post-World War II practice as an artist, teacher, and cultural theorist. In particular, it demonstrates that, like other modernists, Kepes responded to the challenges of his epoch by conceiving of various paths to "wholeness" and "order." Principal among these paths was the desire to enact an interdisciplinary "ethic" that would lead to the "union of the arts and sciences." It shows how Kepes pursued these stated ideals---which resonated with emerging postwar concepts of universal structures evident in the Unity of Science movement and linguistics---by advocating for collaborations between artists and scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught from 1946 to 1974, and by integrating scientific photographs into his books and exhibitions. While I acknowledge Kepes's indebtedness to the Hungarian artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, with whom he has traditionally been associated, I have sought to focus on the social and intellectual currents that induced Kepes to expand Moholy-Nagy's general interest in technology and science into an all-encompassing aesthetic credo. Kepes took the modernist ideal of a social and technological utopia into the late twentieth century, where its biases toward "modern man" eventually came under attack.;The dissertation is divided into an Introduction and four chapters. The Introduction outlines the topic in relation to the extant literature on Kepes. Chapter One demonstrates the significance of Kepes's early career in Budapest, Berlin, and London to his postwar activities in the United States. Chapter Two discusses his experiences in Chicago, where he taught photography, graphic design, and advertising at the New Bauhaus. Chapter Three analyzes Kepes's teaching, exhibition, and publication initiatives at MIT. Chapter Four documents the founding of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in 1967, where Kepes pursued art projects on a "civic scale" in an effort to encourage a sense of community during a period of tumultuous social unrest.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
