A unique and surprising book on Josef Albers, accompanying a major Guggenheim exhibition on the influence of Mexico on Albers' work
Josef Albers (1888 - 1976) was both a student and a teacher at the Bauhaus.
With rise of the Nazis in 1933, he and his wife Anni Albers emigrated to North Carolina, where they founded the art department at Black Mountain College.
In 1950, they moved to New Haven, Connecticut, where Josef Albers became Director of Department of Design at Yale University School of Art.
He is best known for his homage to the square paintings.
Albers traveled repeatedly to Mexico from 1935-1968 and was profoundly inspired by ancient Mexican art and architecture.
This book is the first to feature the photographs Albers took of the Aztec pyramids & shrines together with the paintings that were inspired by Mexico.
The structural similarities between Aztec architecture and Albers' paintings are striking -- and will be eye-opening to anyone who thinks they know Albers!
Josef Albers books of paintings sell out quickly: Josef Albers in America (Hatje Cantz), Josef Albers (Silvanna), Josef Albers: Minimal Means, Maximum Effect (La Fabrica), Josef Albers: Homage to the Square (RM), Josef Albers: No Tricks, No Twinkling (Konig) are all -- unfortunately -- OUT OF PRINT.
Only 2 other books are in print currently on his paintings: the $100 T&H book from 2006 and the new David Zwirner book.
Contributors to this books are: Lauren Hinkson, Curator, Guggenheim Museum, and Joaquin Barriendos, Professor, Columbia University
Albers in "the promised land of abstract art”: the little-known influence of Mexico
“Mexico is truly the promised land of abstract art,” Josef Albers wrote to his former Bauhaus colleague Vasily Kandinsky in 1936. Josef Albers in Mexico reveals the profound link between the art and architecture of ancient Mesoamerica and Albers’ abstract works on canvas and paper. With his wife, the artist Anni Albers, Albers toured pre-Columbian archeological sites and monuments during his 12 or more trips to Mexico and other Latin American countries between 1935 and 1968. On each visit, Albers took black-and-white photographs of pyramids, shrines, sanctuaries and landscapes, which he later assembled into rarely seen photo collages. The resulting works demonstrate Albers’ continued formal experimentation with geometry, this time accentuating a pre-Columbian aesthetic.
Josef Albers in Mexico brings together photographs, photo collages, prints and significant paintings from the Variants/Adobe (1946–66) and Homage to the Square (1950–76) series from the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation. Two scholarly essays, an illustrated map and vivid color reproductions of paintings and works on paper illuminate this little-known period in the influential artist’s practice.
Lauren Hinkson is Associate Curator of Collections at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Hinkson conducts permanent collection research with a focus on postwar, contemporary, and time-based media art. Hinkson manages the Guggenheim’s acquisition program and is one of the organizing curators for the museum’s Young Collectors Council, which acquires the work of emerging artists for the permanent collection. She lectures and publishes on these topics. Hinkson graduated from Brown University with a BA in the History of Art and Architecture.
Joaquín Barríendos is a professor at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He teaches graduate courses focused on visual culture and Latin American art, with an emphasis on social movements, artists networks, geopolitics of art, visual translatability, conceptual practices, and institutional critique.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Josef Albers in Mexico.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Wall Street Journal
Richard Woodward
the architecture and sculpture of ancient Mexico were vital to [Albers'] art, not only as a database of motifs for his paintings but also as a kind of secular church where his faith in abstract art for the modern age was renewed.
The New York Times
Roberta Smith
"Josef Albers in Mexico” has an energetic syncopation generated by the paintings’ singing colors, which alternate with the silvery sepia of the photographs.
Hyperallergic
Dennis Zhou
A necessary corrective to Albers’s reputation as more pedagogue than painter and the misconception that abstraction can ever be free of outside influence.
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In his 1937 Harvard University lecture, Truthfulness in Art, Josef Albers declared, “Let us learn from the Mexican artist truthfulness to conception and material, truthfulness to art as spiritual creation.” Having traveled to Mexico fourteen times between 1935 and 1967, Albers and his wife, textile artist Anni Albers, found in pre-Columbian art elements of the streamlined, visionary ethos they had helped to forge at the Bauhaus prior to World War II. Through Modern abstraction, they sought, according to Latin American cultural historian Joaquin Barriendos, “to reinvigorate a constructive philosophy in which matter and spirit intertwine.” This synthesis is perfectly illustrated in the paintings and black-and-white architectural photo collages collected in bookseller favorite Josef Albers in Mexico —back in stock at last. Featured image is “Variant/Adobe, Orange Front” (1948-58). continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 13 in. / 128 pgs / 110 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $55.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $79 GBP £50.00 ISBN: 9780892075362 PUBLISHER: Guggenheim Museum Publications AVAILABLE: 11/21/2017 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Guggenheim Museum Publications. By Lauren Hinkson. Text by Joaquin Barríendos.
Albers in "the promised land of abstract art”: the little-known influence of Mexico
“Mexico is truly the promised land of abstract art,” Josef Albers wrote to his former Bauhaus colleague Vasily Kandinsky in 1936. Josef Albers in Mexico reveals the profound link between the art and architecture of ancient Mesoamerica and Albers’ abstract works on canvas and paper. With his wife, the artist Anni Albers, Albers toured pre-Columbian archeological sites and monuments during his 12 or more trips to Mexico and other Latin American countries between 1935 and 1968. On each visit, Albers took black-and-white photographs of pyramids, shrines, sanctuaries and landscapes, which he later assembled into rarely seen photo collages. The resulting works demonstrate Albers’ continued formal experimentation with geometry, this time accentuating a pre-Columbian aesthetic.
Josef Albers in Mexico brings together photographs, photo collages, prints and significant paintings from the Variants/Adobe (1946–66) and Homage to the Square (1950–76) series from the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation. Two scholarly essays, an illustrated map and vivid color reproductions of paintings and works on paper illuminate this little-known period in the influential artist’s practice.
Lauren Hinkson is Associate Curator of Collections at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Hinkson conducts permanent collection research with a focus on postwar, contemporary, and time-based media art. Hinkson manages the Guggenheim’s acquisition program and is one of the organizing curators for the museum’s Young Collectors Council, which acquires the work of emerging artists for the permanent collection. She lectures and publishes on these topics. Hinkson graduated from Brown University with a BA in the History of Art and Architecture.
Joaquín Barríendos is a professor at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He teaches graduate courses focused on visual culture and Latin American art, with an emphasis on social movements, artists networks, geopolitics of art, visual translatability, conceptual practices, and institutional critique.
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