'György Kepes, The New Landscape'

Liverpool John Moores University and Tate Liverpool present the first European showing of György Kepes, The New Landscape. The exhibition can be viewed at LJMU’s John Lennon Art and Design Building (Duckinfield Street, off Brownlow Hill) from 15 April to 19 June, Monday to Friday, from 10am to 6pm. Entry is free.

The Hungarian born György Kepes was an artist and educator and the display focuses on his work as an exhibition designer and features a re-construction of the modular exhibition structure designed by Kepes for the 1951 show of the same name.

The exhibition forms a companion piece to the first UK solo exhibition of Kepes’ experimental photography, presented simultaneously by Tate Liverpool until 31 May 2015. Together these sister exhibitions demonstrate how LJMU and Tate Liverpool’s partnership continues to thrive, and are the latest events to highlight the successful cultural partnership between the leading arts organisation and LJMU.

Andrea Nixon, Executive Director, Tate Liverpool said: 

“Tate Liverpool’s partnership with LJMU marks a development in the way that we work with higher education institutes. Following on from a successful sponsorship of our exhibition Art Turning Left: How Values Changed Making 1789-2013 in 2013, we are continuing to work closely together. Not only does our partnership help us develop new audiences to the gallery via jointly programmed public events but has also strengthened our research capacity through the collaborative post of Research Curator.”

Dr Edward Harcourt, LJMU Pro-Vice-Chancellor (External Engagement), said: 

“The aim of the partnership and collaborative post is to develop students’ curatorial and learning practice and encourage new ways of thinking and working, from academic knowledge exchange to public and community learning programmes. Dr Isobel Whitelegg, Convenor of LJMU's Exhibition Research Centre, holds the collaborative LJMU-Tate Liverpool post and works across both organisations to establish educational links and enhance research outputs.”

Hungarian-born artist, designer, and visual theorist György Kepes (1906-2001) was Professor of Visual Design at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), from 1946 to 1974. His ambition was ‘to find channels of communication that interconnect various disciplines'. Exhibitions frequently featured among the platforms that he used to support the process of ‘confronting, combining, and comparing knowledge’.

Reflecting his interest in the relationship between light, organic form, and technology, Kepes combined found scientific imagery with reproductions of his own experimental photography in order to present the ‘new frontiers of the visible world.’  

The modular exhibition structure at LJMU’s Exhibition Research Centre will be complemented by a selection of archival material relating to Kepes’ role as exhibition designer, and organiser. This extends from The New Landscape era to later projects, notably including his unrealised proposal for USA representation at the 1969 Bienal Internacional de São Paulo.

György Kepes, The New Landscape also features a printed intervention by artist Tadej Pogačar which stems from research into Kepes’ 1969 São Paulo project. Kepes’ proposal for US representation in Sao Paulo was radical, emphasising collaboration over individual authorship.

György Kepes, The New Landscape is curated by John R. Blakinger (Stanford University) with Isobel Whitelegg & Tadej Pogačar.