May 24, 2019 – Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition dates: 1st February – 27th May 2019

Curator: Lauren Hinkson, Associate Curator of Collections at the Guggenheim Museum in New York

Organised by The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Study for Homage to the Square, Closing
1964
Acrylic on Masonite
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, The Josef Albers Foundation, Inc., 1996

It is fascinating to see “the influence and connectivity between the work of Josef Albers and the abstracted geometric vocabulary of pre-Columbian art, architecture and material culture” … and the press release might add, between Albers, architecture and the flattened, geometric vocabulary of his photographs.

The lesser-known photographs and collages are “a visual conversation Albers created in response to his frequent visits to Mexico to view archaeological sites as early as the 1930s, illustrating the nuanced relationship between the geometry and design elements of pre-Columbian monuments and the artist’s iconic abstract canvases and works on paper.”

But these photographic collages stand as works of art in their own right, for they are music not just notation. Just look at the elegance and tension between the lower images in Mitla (1956, below). You don’t group photographs together like this so that they sing, so that the ‘ice-fire’ as Minor White would say (that space between each image that acts as tension between two or more images), enacts powerful attractors of light, form and energy (or spirit, if you like) … without knowing what you are doing, without feeling the presence of what you are photographing.

While artists have used photographs as “models” for other forms of art for years (for example Atget’s “documents for artists”), and we acknowledge that purpose, these images stand on their own two feet as visually nuanced, cerebral and finished works of art.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Heard Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Study for Sanctuary
1941-1942
Ink on paper
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut, 1976

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Ballcourt at Monte Alban, Mexico
c. 1936-1937
Gelatin silver print
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut, 1976

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Tenayuca I
1942
Oil on Masonite
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut, 1976

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
The Pyramid of the Magician, Uxmal
1950
Gelatin silver print
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, The Josef Albers Foundation, Inc., 1996

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Governor’s Palace, Uxmal
1952
Gelatin silver print
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, The Josef Albers Foundation, Inc., 1996

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Luminous Day
1947-1952
Oil on Masonite
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut, 1976

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Platform of the Eagles, Chichen Itza
1952
Gelatin silver print
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut, 1976

The Heard Museum is presenting Josef Albers in Mexico. The exhibition demonstrates the influence and connectivity between the work of Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976) and the abstracted geometric vocabulary of pre-Columbian art, architecture and material culture. The Heard Museum is the third and final stop of the exhibition which opened in New York in 2017 then traveled to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice in 2018.

Josef Albers in Mexico is organised by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and curated by Lauren Hinkson, Associate Curator of Collections at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Drawing from the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Josef Albers in Mexico presents an opportunity to learn about a little-known aspect of the artist’s practice and the influences he absorbed in his travels.

“Through his close attention to ancient architecture, Josef Albers developed new modes of seeing the modern world,” says Lauren Hinkson. “This exhibition of his celebrated paintings, along with lesser-known photographs and collages, reveals the complex and often surprising roles of place, time, and spirituality in Albers’s body of work.”

Included in the exhibition are rarely seen early paintings by Albers, including Homage to the Square and Variant / Adobe series, works on paper, and a rich selection of photographs and photocollages, many of which have never before been on view. The photographic works reveal a visual conversation Albers created in response to his frequent visits to Mexico to view archaeological sites as early as the 1930s, illustrating the nuanced relationship between the geometry and design elements of pre-Columbian monuments and the artist’s iconic abstract canvases and works on paper. Accompanying the artworks are a series of letters, personal photographs, studies and other ephemera.

Josef Albers was born in Bottrop, Germany in 1888 and was a fixture at the pioneering school of art, architecture, and design, the Bauhaus, until its forced closure by the Nazis. Albers and his wife, Anni Albers (1899-1994), an accomplished artist and textile designer, relocated to the United States in 1933, where he first accepted a position as head of the department of art at Black Mountain College outside of Asheville, North Carolina, a position he held until 1949. He then went on to be the head of the design department at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Josef and Anni Albers traveled often to Latin America with particular interest in Mexico – visiting the country more than a dozen times from the 1930s to the 1960s. Albers’ fascination with the visual culture of Mexico left an indelible mark on his own artistic production and methodology, with sites like Teotihuacán, Chichén Itza, Monte Albán, and Mitla resonating within his paintings and stimulating new experiments in his photography.

The Heard also produced a series of public programs co-curated by the Heard Museum’s Fine Arts Curator, Erin Joyce. Topics include explorations of colour theory with some of todays’ leading artists, designers, and architects; the influence of Indigenous art and aesthetics on broader visual art, the role it has on informing artistic production and investigations into formalism and politics. Josef Albers in Mexico runs through Monday, May 27, 2019 at the Heard Museum.

Press release from the Heard Museum website [Online] Cited 25/02/2019

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Mitla
1956
Gelatin silver prints and postcards, mounted to paperboard
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut, 1976

Josef Albers (American born Germany, 1888-1976)
Mitla (detail)
1956
Gelatin silver prints and postcards, mounted to paperboard
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut, 1976