This Sunday is the closing day of the exhibition, The Paintings of Moholy-Nagy: The Shape of Things to Come at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art – soon our 1946 Untitled (Space Modulator) by László Moholy-Nagy will return home to McMaster.

The exhibition is fantastic, as are all the staff I met when I couriered the work to California, but there was one aspect of this installation that surpassed all others for me as a preparator. In advance of the exhibition, a technician at the Santa Barbara Museum built an near-exact replica of McMaster’s work. It was not built to be exhibited, but for the sole purpose of perfecting the installation and lighting before the real thing arrived. Untitled (Space Modulator) involves a painted and etched plexiglass sheet suspended over a panel, casting shadows.

So you can imagine my surprise, when I arrived with our crate, to see McMaster’s work already hanging on the title wall in the gallery. A first for me after 27 years of prep work!

Worth noting: Another Moholy-Nagy replica IS in the exhibition, a kinetic sculpture Light Prop. See it in light and motion here.

– Jennifer Petteplace, Installation/Preservation Officer, McMaster Museum of Art