Past perfect: why the best modern art shows its primitive roots

A new show of Josef Albers' rare photographs of Mexican ruins proves that modern artists can't escape the lure of the ancient

Blurred lines: Josef Albers' rare black and white drawings in pictures

The most advanced art of the 20th and 21st centuries has one eye constantly looking back at the earliest and most primal human creations.

A new exhibition about Josef Albers, the Bauhaus teacher and master of the abstract square, at London's Waddington Custot Galleries is a case in point. As well as designing works of cool geometrical clarity, Albers took powerful photographs. His images find intimations of the abstract in the real world: sharp lines, bold angles, cutting shadows.

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