ABSTRACT
László Moholy-Nagy’s debut as leader of the New Bauhaus in Chicago was auspicious (Figure 5.1). A high-profile New York Times article in September of 1937, “America Imports Genius,” hailed his arrival along with that of three other men of “genius”: Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and Walter Gropius. The article cautioned, “The hospitality that America extends to these men should not be merely physical, but spiritual. We should not be in too great haste to ‘Americanize’ them—in the sense of attempting to indoctrinate them with all the beliefs we already hold. To make the most of their presence here we must think not only of what we have to tell them but of what they have to tell us.” 1 Despite this plea, Moholy-Nagy was quick to claim America as his own. Especially as Europe plunged into war, Moholy-Nagy’s unambiguous public statements reflected his desire to ingratiate himself with the country that he hoped would move the world beyond the war: “The present world crisis will bring unforeseen problems to all of us. We shall have to make decisions of great consequences, both to ourselves and to the nation. Whether or not Hitler wins, whether or not we get into the war, we shall undergo great strains because an equilibrium has been disturbed. Europe has lost the leading position which it had in culture and technics. America is now the country to which the world looks.” 2 This last observation is an early iteration of a position which would be taken up by a number of critics of art and architecture in the postwar period, but a tension can nonetheless be detected in Moholy-Nagy’s language—an uneasiness with which émigrés, understandably, conducted themselves, underscored here by Moholy-Nagy’s references to “us,” “we,” and “the nation.” The émigrés’ anxiety about their status in the United States was often palpable; their anxiety about the war Europe brought to the world propelled their efforts to continue their work in spite of that uncertain status. The New Bauhaus, 1937, Chicago, IL (Photograph by Herbert Matter, 1938) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203142721/3f14115e-4a5e-4ae9-80de-b7806af87db7/content/fig5_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
