Josef Albers Homage to the Square – Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition: ‘Josef Albers in Mexico’ at the Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona

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

Anni Albers (American born Germany, 1899-1994)
Josef Albers, Mitla
1935-1939
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut, 1976

Heard Museum
2301 N. Central Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona 85004

Opening hours:
Monday – Sunday 10am – 4pm

Heard Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Josef Albers: Innovation and Inspiration’ at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.

Exhibition dates: 13th February – 11th April 2010

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976) '6 and 3' 1931

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976)
6 and 3
1931

One of my favourite artists – what a genius!

His exploration of colour and form is exquisite, sensitive and very moving – despite his belief that colours have no inherent emotional associations.

Marcus

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

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976)
Rolling After
1925-28

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976)
Piano Keys
1932

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976)
Steps
1932

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976)
Untitled (Leaf Study)
c. 1940

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976)
Structural Constellation, Transformation of a Scheme No.12
1950
Machine engraving on black vinylite mounted on board

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976) 'Structural Constellation, Transformation of a Scheme No.23' 1951

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976)
Structural Constellation, Transformation of a Scheme No.23
1951
Machine engraving on black vinylite mounted on board

Josef Albers (German, 1888-1976)
Structural Constellation, Transformation of a Scheme No.10
1950-51
Machine engraving on black vinylite mounted on board

Exhibition Illustrates Albers’ Sphere of Influence

The Hirshhorn possesses one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of work by Josef Albers (b. Bottrop, Germany, 1888; d. New Haven, Connecticut, 1976). “Josef Albers: Innovation and Inspiration” presents nearly 70 works spanning the artist’s 55-year career, many on view for the first time. Supplementing pieces from the museum’s holdings are key objects on loan from the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Organised by senior curator Valerie Fletcher, the exhibition also includes documentary photographs and examples of Albers’ teaching aids, and concludes with a display of works by artists who knew, worked with, studied under or openly admired Albers. The exhibition opens on February 11 and runs through April 11, 2010.

Josef Albers: Innovation and Inspiration encompasses the artist’s distinguished career from 1917 to 1973. The exhibition begins with four early self-portrait prints dating from the years of World War I, followed by a group of boldly abstract compositions from Albers’ tenure at Germany’s revolutionary Bauhaus, where he taught alongside such remarkable modernists as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. Albers participated in the school’s utopian aspiration to improve modern life through manufacturing and design-ideas that resonated throughout Albers’ career. The Hirshhorn’s show includes a series of black-and-white designs intended for mass production in glass, such as “6 and 3” (1931, see above), and an illuminated display of eight glass panels, in which the artist modernised and transformed the medieval tradition of stained-glass windows, best characterised by “Fugue (B)” (1925-1928).

Following the Nazi party’s rise to power, the Bauhaus was forced to close in 1933. Albers fled to the United States, where he was recruited to head the art program at the new Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There, Albers introduced a modified Bauhaus curriculum and hired vanguard modernists as teachers. He enthusiastically taught his students how art could be made from virtually any material, which he demonstrated in some of his own works, such as three “Leaf Study” collages (c. 1940, see above). Albers continued to advocate the clear structures of geometric abstraction, still mostly in black, white and primary colours, but was open to different stylistic approaches. He also briefly adopted the biomorphic forms associated with surrealism, as seen in the work “Proto-Form (B)” (1938).

In 1949, at the age of 62, Albers became chairman of the art school at Yale University, with a mandate to transform it from a conservative academic program to a proponent of modern concepts and applications. Believing firmly that colours have no inherent emotional associations, he meticulously explored their nuances and combinations in his work. He eventually limited the shape and number of his forms, which resulted in a standardised format that he called “Homage to the Square,” for which he is best known. Two dozen “Homage to the Square” compositions fill the central gallery in the exhibition, inviting viewers to examine the subtle complexities of their perceptions. The vivid yellow-orange-reds of “Glow” (1966, see below) startle the eye, while the pale grays of “Nacre” (1965, see below) suggest cool neutrality. These images create optical illusions, challenging viewers’ visual acuity. This series concludes with the artist’s vivid red-print duo, “In Honor of the Hirshhorn Museum,” on view for the first time since the museum opened in 1974.

In addition, this exhibition includes examples from Albers’ “Structural Constellation” series of reliefs (1954-1964, see above), which anticipated op art with their linear patterns. The reliefs’ commonplace material-laminated plastic-also fulfils the utopian goal of making art affordable to everyone. The two largest paintings on view, both titled “Variant” (1973), were donated by the artist’s wife and foundation in 1979.

Albers remained active and influential until his death in 1976, and many of his pedagogical innovations have become standard methodology in art schools across the country. His explorations of abstract form and colour also inspired and stimulated generations of artists and designers. Shortly after his arrival in America, he became a co-founder of the American Abstract Artists group and participated in exhibitions across the country, from New York to Michigan and beyond. The Hirshhorn’s exhibition ends with an array of works by colleagues, students and admirers, among them: weavings by the artist’s wife, Anni Albers; abstract constructions by Burgoyne Diller; streamlined images of labor by Jacob Lawrence; a large op art painting by Richard Anuskiewicz; textured creations by Eva Hesse and Robert Rauschenberg; and a minimalist stacked wall sculpture by Donald Judd.”

Press release from The Hirshhorn Museum website [Online] Cited 01/04/2010 no longer available online