JOSEF ALBERS - A SPACE BETWEEN THE GLOAMING AND THE NIGHT.
Paintings Titled Variants - David Zwirner - LONDON.
Josef Albers, Variant/Adobe, 1947. Oil on blotting paper. Image courtesy of David Zwirner.
Cool Bauhaus values meet the heat of an arid mid-century Mexico in a series of paintings - seemingly of abstracted landscapes - but in fact, could be seen as self-portraits. Reflected in the soft human touch of Josef Albers's calculated formula for life and art. Part tender poet and part uncompromising Geometrist - his line dissects and exposes an X-ray of what lies beneath.
A democratic appreciation of a single-story residence - a home - a safe space - whose symbolism is human and immediate - protective and peaceful - two windows, a single entrance, a flat roof. An educator on vacation - looking for a sanctuary from the repetition of timetabled terms and an evacuated past left behind in occupied Europe. The blacked-out doorways and windows stare back at the viewer blankly - the deep shadows mysterious - holding our gaze with cold intensity - both inviting from the beating heat and yet unnerving to trespass into territory more emotional than elemental.
Josef Albers, Anni Albers, Patzcuaro, Mexico, 1935-36. Photo negative. ©2023 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society(ARS), New York/DACS, London. Image courtesy of David Zwirner.
The minimalism of a single maze-like diagrammatic drawing - rendered with a rule - on finely gridded paper - bowing in its light wooden frame - as if still tacked to a studio wall reminds us of the theorist and educator in Albers - whose working renderings are like a mathematician’s calculations and by no means the conclusion.
Josef Albers, Study for Graphic Tectonics, c. 1942. Ink on paper. Image courtesy of David Zwirner.
Josef Albers, Anni Albers, Monte Albán, Mexico, 1939. Gelatin silver print. ©2023 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation/Artists Rights Society(ARS), New York/DACS, London. Image courtesy of David Zwirner.
The texture of the canvas is presented raw and rugged beneath the paint layers, a latticework of tiny interwoven threads quietly supporting a career of surfaces, celebrated for their dazzling brilliance and showmanship of survival. The quiet relationship of Herr and Frau Albers is very present within this exhibition - Anni Albers, the now celebrated master weaver, who quietly supported her famous husband throughout his career is seen momentarily in the tiny evidential source material, intricately indexed and presented alongside the masterworks within the exhibition.
Josef Albers' delight as a colourist is exceptional to witness in the flesh, the works seem to testify to the impossible beauty of the natural - each image another time of day, from the optimism of dawn to the acidity of noon, to the heartbreak of the gloaming to the dying embers of night.
Josef Albers, N.M. Black-Pink, 1947. Oil on Masonite. Image courtesy of David Zwirner.
A new dawn - a peaceful democracy presides within these gallery walls - where colour-drenched science is maintained in a meditation of visual poems - where the rhythmic restless sun - whose shadows fall like momentary reminders that time waits for no one - telling us to witness and enjoy the present, eyes open in wonderment - because who can say if that colour combination or day will ever be repeated.
Josef Albers, Paintings Titled Variants. David Zwirner, 24 Grafton Street, London - until 15 April, 2023.
Special Thanks: Sara Chan at David Zwirner London.