press release
Josef Albers: Spirituality and Rigor
Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Perugia
20 March - 20 June 2013
Press view: 19 March, 12am
Further information and pictures: www.studioesseci.net
Press release
From 20 March to 20 June the Monuments and Fine Arts Office of Umbria, in conjunction with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation,
presents the first monographic exhibition on the sacred art of Josef Albers.
The exhibition, curated by Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of the Albers Foundation, and Fabio De Chirico, Head of the
Monuments and Fine Arts Office and Director of the Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, celebrates the 125th anniversary of the birth
of the great German-born American artist (Bottrop, 19 March 1888).
For the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation the exhibition is also a homage to Josef Ratzinger, Emeritus Pope of the Catholic Church,
a figure who embodies the values of “Spirituality and Rigor” referred to in the title of the exhibition.
Albers always lived in a powerfully mystical realm. Words like “spiritual” and “miraculous” were vital to him.
The great Bauhaus-trained artist was the quintessential craftsman, devoted to technical capacity, rigorous in his standards with
regard to materials and their use. At the same time he was also profoundly interested in the other-worldly, deeply immersed in
the transcendental and intensely religious. Which explains the title of the present exhibition: Spirituality and Rigor.
Born and brought up in Westphalia, one of the most strongly Catholic regions of Germany, Albers remained a devout Catholic
throughout his life.
This is the first exhibition to explore fully his sacred art, influenced both by his religious education and by his admiration for the
great masters of Christian art and architecture, especially Giotto and Dὓrer.
It brings together works from all the phases of his career, beginning with his first sketches of country churches and cathedrals,
his bold lithographs of naves and his vibrant sketches of steeples. It also includes one of his first drawings, depicting a Christian
graveyard, a subject he knew well, since at the age of twelve he was already painting crosses for grave markers in his hometown.
It ends with a selection of his later geometrical and abstract works.
The Perugia exhibition also features a reconstruction of the stained-glass window, Rosa Mystica, which Albers designed for the
St. Michael’s Church in Bottrop, and which was destroyed during the Second World War. Thanks to a careful study of archive
materials at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, in this exhibition the Lewis Glucksman Gallery presents for the first time a
full-scale reconstruction of Albers’ design.
Albers worked extensively with glass assemblages and constructions, used to explore the traditional themes of religious iconography,
such as the Cross, strongly influenced by Flemish art, and in particular by Jan van Eyck, as the works in the exhibition clearly show.
In his years at Black Mountain College, in the United States, Albers did various paintings with religious themes: abstractions of crosses
and other images that encapsulate the essential elements of traditional representations of the Annunciation.
His interest in the religious sphere also led him to make prints of Mexican gods, to create graphic abstractions with names like
Sanctuary, to take photographs of angels made from folded paper, churches or other places of worship, and to design extremely
original Christmas cards.
Finally, the exhibition presents the famous Homage to the Square series, drawings and paintings with a distinctly cosmic, alchemical
character from the final phase of his career as an artist.
The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, in Italian and English, curated by Nicholas Fox Weber and Fabio De Chirico,
with contributions by Julie Agoos, Oliver Barker, Leland del la Durantaye, Mark Patrick Hederman, Fiona Kearney and Colm Toibin.
The catalogue is distributed by the Glucksman Gallery.
The exhibition and catalogue have been made possible by the generous support of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.
Perugia, Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria
Opening hours: from 10.30 to 19.30
Telephone: + 39 075 58668415
www.gallerianazionaledellumbria.it
www.artiumbria.beniculturali.it
Press Office:
Studio ESSECI – Sergio Campagnolo. Telephone. +39 049 663499; info@studioesseci.net
