An untitled photograph, circa 1940, of the Grand Pyramid in Tenayuca, Mexico. Albers took thousands of photographs during his trips south of the border with his wife, the artist-weaver Anni Albers.
"During their first visit to Mexico, in the winter of 1935–36, Josef and Anni Albers knew that they were in a 'country for art like no other.' The couple returned to Mexico thirteen times by the late 1960s, developing a passion for pre-Columbian art and architecture that would influence Josef’s abstract painting and prints and fuel his innovative approach to photography. In 1933, after the Nazis closed the Bauhaus, the German art and design school where they both were instructors, the Alberses moved to North Carolina to teach at Black Mountain College. On their frequent trips to Mexico, they drove to archaeological sites throughout the country—from Monte Albán and Teotihuacán to Uxmal and Chichén Itzá—studying the monumental constructions and amassing a large collection of sculptures and ceramics. For Josef, the complex abstract vocabulary of pre-Columbian art and architecture embodied the principles he and Anni espoused in their work and teaching. ..."
Guggenheim (Video)
NY Times - Homage to Mexico: Josef Albers and His Reality-Based Abstraction
Brooklyn Rail
artbook
2009 May: Josef Albers, 2010 September: The Full Spectrum: Josef Albers
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