GYÖRGY KEPES Interthinking Art + Science

We tend to forget about the humanist aspect of those new art forms that came into existence in the wake of the cybernetic culture and technological advancement in the post-war era. The Hungarian-American painter, photographer, designer, theoretician, educator, and impresario, György Kepes (1906–2001) is often associated with the term “American Bauhaus.” First the assistant and then the collaborator of his compatriot, the constructivist painter, filmmaker, and media theoretician László Moholy-Nagy, Kepes gained access to the most influential circles of the European avant-garde movement already in the very beginning of his career. After his immigration to the US in 1937 he was appointed to the head of the Light Department of the New Bauhaus/School of Design in Chicago. There, he extended the aesthetics of the cameraless abstract photography terming his invention as “photodrawing” and “photopainting.” He had classes on drawing and publicity design, experimented with camouflage technologies, and started to write his textbook on visual education titled Language of Vision (1944). Based on his recognition as an artist–instructor in 1946 he was invited to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he taught design fundamentals to architecture students. György Kepes’ agency not only served as an important historical precursor and reference point for some contemporary phenomena that we use as a cliché today like “visual culture” or “new media art,” but his approach to integrating art into society aimed to create a new aesthetic for the civic space based on a collective sensory experience. Kepes borrowed the concepts of homeostasis and thermodynamics from the natural sciences as an analogy to describe the optimal conditions of living organisms and the correcting mechanisms inside the cybernetic systems. By doing so, his intention was to foster the integration of the synthetic and natural environment through technology with the purpose of regaining the “lost paradise” in our corroded man-made world. To make his case, in 1967 Kepes founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT to dovetail fellow artists with poetic vision, conceptual-minded scientists, and engineers possessing new arsenals of technology. The goal of this unusual teamwork was to collaboratively produce site-specific environmental works presaging climate awareness and the concept of the Anthropocene (e.g. Boston Harbor and Charles River projects, 1968–1972). While the pivotal exhibition Kepes curated in 1951 at MIT titled The New Landscape in Art and Science lifted the veil from the hidden structure of the macroscopic universe, his public artworks were known for their monumental scale. The most appropriate linchpin between Kepes’ private and public art was the energizing quality of light—an indispensable ingredient of all his experiments. He regarded light as an absolute and symbolically charged kinetic form representing an infinite spatiality and the most potent tool for artistic communication (e.g. Programed light mural for the KLM ticket office, New York, 1959; Light Tower, Baltimore, 1964; The Nightscape of the City, Milan Triennial, 1968; Photoelastic Walk, MIT/Explorations, 1970; Blue Sky on the Red Line at Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass., 1985). The luminous signals also gained importance as a historic phenomenon, manifested in the exhibition Light as a Creative Medium featured in 1965 in the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard. Knowledge, vision, and light were corresponding categories in his philosophy. Having this in regard we shouldn’t wonder why the most evident sinew of Kepes’ pan-artistic enterprise termed “interthinking” and “interseeing” were the 6+1 volumes of the Vision + Value series he edited between 1965 and 1972. These books outlined the integrity of some disparate fields in the natural and social sciences as well as in architecture and design with the intention to intensify our “creative awareness” and to enrich the potentials of the maimed and dwindling world that we live in.

György Kepes is the namesake of the International Kepes Society, founded in 1996 by Attila Csáji.
In line with the spirit and activities of György Kepese, the members of the Society aim to present and utilize research results, and support artistic creative programs. It consists of artists, scientists, and research engineers. The group seeks to facilitate the establishment or deepening of human connections among representatives from diverse fields and nations, which can be mutually enriching, with their common interest being contemporary life and openness to new scientific and technical developments. Their activities extend beyond just technical arts, with the core being the society of light artists who have engaged in fruitful dialogues at light symposiums regularly held over the past decades since 1993.

WHO WAS GYÖRGY KEPES, WHY SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT HIM, AND WHY IS HIS WORK SO OVERDUE NOW? 

György Kepes was a trailblazer in blending art, science, and technology, establishing himself as a precursor to new media art and what we now identify in academic circles as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). He was instrumental in establishing "light art" as a standalone artistic medium. Additionally, Kepes coined the term "civic art," emphasizing the integration of visual arts with urban development in the revitalization of public spaces. As a prominent artist represented by the Saidenberg Gallery on Madison Avenue, he carved out a distinct path within the New York School’s abstract expressionism, offering a fresh and innovative perspective through his paintings. His educational work at the New Bauhaus/School of Design in Chicago also revolutionized cameraless abstract photography by reviving techniques like "cliché verre." Kepes was the first visual artist invited to teach at MIT in Cambridge, where he remains the only person to have received the prestigious title of Institute Professor within the School of Architecture and Planning. His exhibitions were groundbreaking, showcasing scientific photographs alongside artworks through the "new landscape" concept he introduced in 1951, which aimed to expand visual culture by creating new iconography to represent what is beyond human sight.

In 1967, Kepes founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT, where he brought together artists, scientists, and engineers. This Center quickly emerged as a global hub for new media art, fostering groundbreaking experiments in lasers, holography, video, digital imaging, and even Sky Art. Many of the Center’s projects, driven by ecological awareness and early anthropocene thinking, established it as one of the first research laboratories of its kind in an academic setting. Kepes’ exhibitions, curatorial work and educational concepts delved into the expansion and interaction of human senses, advocating for a new form of synergistic thinking. Although his vision of fusing technology with art was often perceived as overly utopian, several of his Cold War-era projects—such as his proposed commission for the US Pavilion at the 1969 São Paulo Biennale—were discontinued due to contemporary beliefs about the incompatibility of the “two culture.”
 

Kepes’ publications, including Language of Vision (1944), The New Landscape in Art and Science (1956), The Visual Arts Today (1960), and the Vision + Value series (1965–1971), remain foundational texts in design and art curricula worldwide. His theoretical work has shaped educational programs, influencing institutions in countries like Colombia, Japan, Iran, Singapore and Hungary.
 

WHAT IS THIS FILM ABOUT?

Márton Orosz's new feature-length documentary (Hungary/Canada), the result of nearly 15 years of work, delves into the extraordinary life and artistic evolution of György Kepes, charting his journey from Europe to the United States. The film not only tells Kepes’ captivating story but also provides a vivid account of the rise of new media art, offering an exciting window into the creativity and innovation that defined the Mid-Century era.