Lászlo Moholy-Nagy's ceaseless experimentation and integration of new materials and techniques distinguish him as a visionary proponent of the modern art era. He moved to America in 1937 to become Director of the New Bauhaus at the encouragement of Walter Gropius. Works of this period reflect the apex both of his expansion of media and also his graphic freedom. He used the new material of Plexiglas—first introduced to the United States in sheet form in 1934—for his hybrids of painting and sculpture that he called Space Modulators. The reflective and transparent qualities of the material served his desire to modulate and activate light in order to create the impression of motion and movement, often in unexpected ways. At times, he achieved extraordinary effects using sheets of flawed Plexiglas. During the manufacturing process, overheating of the plastic can cause bubbles, tide lines, and other imperfections to form on its surface. The defective sheets that Moholy-Nagy used may have been factory discards that were embraced by the artist due to the difficulty of obtaining materials like Plexiglas, which were needed for the war effort. Moholy-Nagy favoured the flawed sheets and accentuated their ability to cast shadows, exploiting the distortions they created and generating vibrating effects and a sense of movement.

Moholy-Nagy’s space modulators were a series of works that began in 1930 as a radical new form of art
which would incorporate multi-media such as film, kinetics, glass, metal, painting, and more all at once.
As his daughter Hattula Moholy-Nagy notes “Since there was no name for this kind of art, he called his
hybrid painting-sculpture creations light modulators” [or space modulators]. Sculpture, cinema, and
painting coalesce through these vibrant, hybrid works which the artist considered “vehicles for
choreographed luminosity.”