Art from the 1920s for the space age. László Moholy-Nagy was a major presence at the Bauhaus. He designed for the future. For all the attention invested in new materials and technologies, the thin and intersecting straight lines and circles hover over terrestrial space. In the defiance of gravity, they don’t belong here; we don’t belong here. The color red constitutes the energy that powers the system. The yellow brings in a little warmth to an otherwise cold universe. After the death of God and the death of “man,” all that’s left is a universe of technological images. For all the actual human labor that goes into the business of art preservation, the systems on view are supposed to be autopoietic, i.e. jutting out from the terrestrial condition as autonomous, self-maintaining, and self-producing. They are intended as if to survive us. Now on view as part of Future Present, the big Moholy-Nagy exhibition at the NY Guggenheim is around for another couple of weeks.