First published 2009

by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published 111 tile USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue. New York, NY 10016. USA
ROUl/edge is an imprmt of the Taylor & FrancIs Group, an rnforma busrness
2009 selection and editorial matter, Jeffrey Saletnlk and Robin
Schuldenfrel; IndiVidual chapters. the contributors
Typeset In Unlvers Light by BookcrBh Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershlre
Printed and bound In Great Britain by The Cromwell Press Group,
Trowbridge, Wiltshire
All fights reserved, No part of thiS book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized In any form or by any electronic, mechanical. or other means, now
known or hereaher Invented, Including photocopying and recording, or In
any information storage or retrieval system. without permission In writing
from the publishers.
Every effort has been made to contact Please adVise
the publisher of any errors or omissions, and these will be corrected In
subsequent editions,
Brmsh Library Cataloguing In Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publicatlon Data
Bauhaus Construct : fashioning Identity. discourse and modernism I edited
by Jeffrey Saletnik and Robin Schuldenfrel .
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and Index.
1 Bauhaus. 2. Art. German-20th century. 3, Deslgn-Germany-
History-20th century. 4. Avantgarde (Aesthetics)-Germany-
History- 20th century. I. Saletnik, Jeffrey. II. Sdluldenfrel, Robin.
N332 G33B4262 2010
709,04-dc22
ISBN10: 0-415-77835-2Ihbkl
ISBN1O: 0-415-77836-0 Ipbkl
ISBN10: 0-203-86867-6 lebkl
ISBN13: 978-0-415-77835-0 Ihbkl
ISBN13: 978-0-415-77836-7Ipbkl
ISBN13: 978-0-203-86867-6Iebkl
2009014700
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
1ntroduction
Jeffrey Saletnik and Robin Schuldenlrei
Part 1: Agents
The Bauhaus Manifesto Postwar to Postwar: From the Street
to the Wall to the Radio to the Memoir
Karen Koehler
2 The Irreproducibility of the BaUhaus Object
Robin Schuldenfrei
3 The Disappearing Bauhaus: Architecture and its PubliC in
the Early Federal Republic
Frederic J. Schwartz
4 Pedagogic Objects: Josef Albers, Greenbergian Modernism,
and the Bauhaus in America
Jeffrey Saletnik
Part 2:Transference
5 A Refuge for SCript: Paul Klee's "Square Pictures"
Annie Bourneuf
6 Lyonel Felninger's Bauhaus Photographs
Laura Muir
7 Excavating Surface: On the Repair and Revision of Laszlo
Moholy-Nagy's Z VII (1926)
Joyce Tsai
8 Picturing Sculpture: Object, Image and Archive
Paul Parer
vii
ix
11
13
37
61
83
103
105
125
142
163
v
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973) Despite Adorno's rejection of Heldegger's Seinsphrlusophie.
It overlaps frequently with aspects of Adorno's own: see Sllke Kapp, "Asyl fUr Obdad1lose,
oder ZWischen Frankfurter KOehe und Frankfurter Schule: Z8/tsdmh fur Imrisc/1e Theone no
18/19(2004).
37 Bartnmg, Mensell und Rilum, 72; Heldegger. ?Gerry. Language. Thoughr, 145--6 (translation
modified)
38 Bannmg, Mensch und Raum, 84; Heldegger, Poetry. Language, Thought 161 /translation
modified)
39 Bartnmg, Mensch und Raum. 126.
40 Ibid . B6
41 A brief but balanced diSCUSSion of Scharoun's mterest In Heldegger's thought appears In
Peter Blundell Jones, Hans Scharoul1 (London: Phsldon, 19951. 136. See also J Christoph
Burkle, Hans Scharoun (ZOrich: Artemis, 1993), 96.
42 Banning, ManscJ1 und Raum, 111-17.
43 Ibid .. 114
44 Hemrlch Lauterbach, NUber die Aufgabe desWerkbundes," If"! Zwisdl6n Kunsl und Industoe:
Der Deutsche Werkbund. ed, Wend Fischer (Munchen Die Neue Sammh..mg, 19751,413-14
45 Max Bense. U Kunst In kunstlreher Welt," Werk und Zeil5, no 11 (1956); 3
46 Ono Frlednch Bollnow, Mensch und Raum {Stuttgart Kohlhammer, 1963). BoUnow is men--
!toned often In Adorno's Jargon der Eigenrlichkeil.
47 Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Mlndustnemesse contra Werk und Zett 6, no. 6 (1957), repr
In FIscher, ZWischen Kuns( und Indus/(le. 436-37.
48 Hans SchWlppert, "Warum Werk und Zeit 5, no 5 (1956). repr In Fischer.
ZWischen Kunst und Indusrne, 428
49 Hans Sdlwlppen, und Emfuhrung zur Tagung "Ole groBe Landzerstbrung,H Werk
und Zeit 8, no. 12 (1959): 1, repr in Fischer, Zwischen Kunst und InduslfI6, 447.
50 Koeppen, DasTrelbhaus, 120.
51 Gert Kalow, ed_. Ole KunSl ztJ Hause zu sem. fine Senderrelhe des hessischen Rundfunks
(Munchen: Piper, 1965), 147--61-
52 Alexander MltScherllch, O,e Unwlf!ltchke,( unsefe' Sriidre, Ansllfrung zum Unfrreden (Frank-
fun am Main: Suhrkamp, 1965).
53 Ulrich Conrads, "Stadtebau zWischen Unvernunft und Hoffqung;' In DRs bescfliidigte Leben.
Diagnose und Theraple in emer Welt unabsehbarer Veranderungen, ed A. Mltscherllch
(Grenzach: Hoffmann-La Roche, 1969)' 148
54 Konrad Juie Hammor. ed. Ole Bochumer Erklarung 16. September 1965 IBerlin: 50Zlal-
demokratlsche Partel Deutschlands, 19651.
55 Walter Rossow, "Die 'Landzerstorung' und derWerKbund," Werk und Zelc 11, no. 311962). 3
56 Werk und ZelllB, no 7 (1969): 1.
57 "Veranderungen In der Herausgeberschaft und U1 del Redaktlon." Werk und Zeit 20, /'10, 7
119911 I
58 Rolf Wiggershaus. Ole Frankfurter Smule. 3. Aufl.lMunchen dtv. 1991 I, 687
59 Theodor W Adorno, Negative DialectiCs. trans E. BAshton (1966; London Routledge &
Kagan Paul. 19731.3
60 Wiggershaus. Ole Frankfurter Schule. 702. Stefan Muller-Ooohm, Adorno, Eine Biograpllie
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 20031, 705-6.
82
Chapter 4
Pedagogic Objects
Josef Albers, Greenbergian
Modernism, and the Bauhaus in
America
Jeffrey Saletnik
To reject mechanical or habitual application is to promote induc-
tive studies recognizing practIce before theory, trial and error
before insight. In short, we believe in learning by experience,
which naturally lasts longer than anvthing learned by reading or
hearing only.
Josef Albers I
As a teacher, Josef Albers encouraged a relational approach to material
that priori tized active engagement with matter through comparative and
counterintuitive applications: he stressed "observing eyes, flexible minds,
and skilled hands:" Such activity starkly contrasts with concept ions that
one's medIum possesses inherent qualit ies, the propertIes of which it
IS the task of the artist to elucidate. The sensory-integrated practices of
Bauhaus preliminary instruction, although still essential to the training of
artists and designers, were denuded of value in their American context
due in part to the specialized tendencies that came to dominate Ameri-
can art criticism following World War II. The prioritization of medium spec-
Ificity common in Greenbergian art criticism posited an autonomous art
object incongruent with attItudes about the functIoning of creative media
as propagated by Albers. Albers advanced a mode of material inquiry in his
practice that viewed matter as potential; significantly, he encouraged the
creation of objects that functioned pedagogically insofar as t heir material-
ity made connect ions beyond the work itself. As had been t he case at the
83
Bauhaus, Albers gave precedence to process. This was cultivated through
the methods and practices of preliminary instruction, to which Albers had
been exposed as a student and which he was later responsible for teach-
ing at the Bauhaus, and which he introduced at several institutions in the
United States. including Black Mountain College and Yale University.'
This essay situates Albers's practice-and, by extension, atti-
tudes about the functioning of objects held at the Bauhaus-in the con-
text of key art critical values in mid-twentieth-century America, in particular
those of Clement Greenberg. In comparing Albers'S critical reception to
that of Barnett Newman and Hans Hofmann, it highlights not only differ-
ences in terms of how Albers and his Amer.ican contemporaries were
understood through a Greenbergian lens. but also how Albers's Bauhaus-
indebted approach to the medium and the object were supplanted by a
formalist agenda to which neither he nor the Bauhaus adhered. This dis-
placement becomes evident when one examines the inductive practices
which Albers employed in the classroom and through which he expressed
attitudes about the object as demonstration piece. At stake is a funda-
mental difference between disinterested and engaged viewing. but also a
theoretical elision of practice by "medium;' which undermines the role of
the Bauhaus in twentieth-century American art.
As arguably the most potent voice writing about art in mid-twen-
tieth-century America, Greenberg is unique: his criticism holds a discursive
weight with which historians and critics still contend. Greenbergian notions
of meaningful art practice-and responses to them-have contributed sig-
nificantly to perceptions of what it means to have been a modern artist in
America. Thus, while objects created by Bauhaus artists attracted some criti-
cal attention, the Bauhaus prioritization of practical experiment was largely
discounted. When we consider the consequences of excludirt9 Bauhaus
practices in art critical discourse, it becomes evident that this omission Was
historically as significant as Walter Gropius's overarching-perhaps even
overbearing-presence in the casting of the Bauhaus in America. The effects
of omissiof"\ also lay bare the degree to which art critical values
and structures are inherently exclusionary, in particular with regard to expec-
tations about the function of art Objects. art viewing. and art making.
Greenberg seldom chose to write about Albers and other Bau-
haus artists and designers, a fact that is significant to the history of the
school's American reception since the art critic considered the Bauhaus-
and much so-called German art-to be outside parlance on meaningful art
practice. As he wrote. it was Kandinsky's "bad luck" to have come to French
modernism having "had to go through German modernism first."4 Indeed,
the Bauhaus and individuals associated with it were subjects of lesser
84
critical importance in mid-t wentieth-century American criticism, an absence
noted by Greenberg's foe, Harold Rosenberg, who lamented that "the twen-
tieth century is rich in persof")ages-the Bauhaus masters, Gertrude Stein-
whose creations are rarely looked at or read."s More than mere antipathy
toward German art. however. Bauhaus-indebted approaches to making and
viewing were out of step with Greenbergian formalist values. The disinter-
ested relationship between work and viewer implicit in Greenberg's criti-
cism as well as his advocacy for self-reflexive relationships between surface
and support foreclosed the practice of many Bauhaus masters and students
from his modernist discourse. Many Bauhaus objects required an active and
engaged viewer and, in some instances, a user. And under Albers's tutelage
in particular, students were presented with the medium as a means ior
exploration, the boundaries of which were to be investigated toward pro-
ductive ends.
6
In contrast. Greenberg deemed artistic practice as a quest
tor discovering what was "unique in the nature of [an art's) medium" as
representing the" proper area of competence of each art."7
To assert that the terms of Greenbergian modernism contrib-
uted to the obfuscation of the Bauhaus is meant not as a value judgment
nor to claim that Greenberg's was the only significant voice writing on
art at the time, nor to oversimplify the context in Which Bauhaus ideas
were introduced in America. Indeed, rebuking Greenberg has been quite
commonplace since the late 1960s and 1970s'The art criticism of Rosen-
berg and Meyer Schapiro was similarly influential in mid-twentieth-century
America and cofltributed to the school's art critical reception.
9
For instance,
the Bauhaus was implicated in Schapiro's view that the "taste for indus-
try, technology and science" in the 1920s led to an art of "coolness and
mechanical control" that now seemed "less interesting and even distaste-
ful" in light of the "arti st's active presence" upon the surfaces of con-
temporary abstract painting.
1o
And significantly, an array of forces including
political attitudes toward Germany immediately preceding and during
World War II, cold war anxieties about socialism. and hostility to so-called
modern architecture and design guided how the Bauhaus was received in
the United States." It is productive to isolate Greenberg in both this nexus
and that of mid-twentieth-century art criticism because many of the terms
that were characteristic of his criticism were similarly key concerns at the
Bauhaus; the medium and materiality were essential to the pedagogic pro-
gram at the design school. Yet the kinds of questions the critic asked of art
were antithetical to Bauhaus practice.
When Greenberg did mention the Bauhaus he invoked the
word Bauhaus as value-laden catchall for" hardness;' "flat silhouettes;'
and "firm contours" or-much in keeping with the neo-Kantian tenor of
85
.,
Josef Albers
VarianUAdobe, Red Front, 1947,
oit on Masontte, 22 x 26 In
his criticism-objected to the notion that there was some larger content
or purpose for work either produced at the school or in its wake. About
Albers's exhibitions at the Egan and Janis galleries In 1949 he wrote:
Alas, Albers must be accounted another victim of Bauhaus mod-
ernism, with its doctrinism [and1 its inability to rise above merely
decorative motifs. It is a shame, for an original gift IS present in
this case that is much superior to all that. One has to regret that
Albers has so rarely allowed the warmth and true plastic feeling
we see In hiS color to dissolve the ruled rectangles in which all
these potential virtues afe imprisoned.
12
When writing about Barnett Newman in 1952, however, the critic assumed
a quite different stance, claiming that Newman's "emphasis is predomin-
antly on color, which in his case is sensuous without being soft, and his
effect is usually much warmer and more painterly" than what one expects
given the geometry of his work. He continued, claiming, "Newman does
not intend to startle or shock;' ultimately stating that in "the presence of
these canvases one realizes immediately Imy emphasisl that he is faced
by major art." 13
At the Egan and Janis exhibitions Albers displayed a range of
works made between the 1920s and late 1940s, Among the more recent
of these, Greenberg would have seen paintings similar to Varianr/Adobe,
Red Front (Figure 4.1). " The artist's surfaces are not as rigid as Greenberg
suggests. Albers's asymmetrically arranged planes of color appear to pen-
etrate one another, so as to obfuscate the points at which they Intersect.
This is not unlike what one observes in Newman's Adam IFigure 4.21, as
its bands of color move beyond the bounds of the artist's characteristic, lin-
ear "zip." In both paintings, one observes the transmutation of boundaries
where colors meet. In the case of Albers's work, this is achieved through
the positioning and combination of color: although difficult to ascertain in
86
black-and-white reproduction, colors often appear to be layered upon one
another or transparent. yet are not; one color seems to be more saturated
than another, yet the two are actually the same tone. Although Green-
berg obJected to the work as "merely decorative" and saw its geometry as
threatening to the modernist program. Albers used this structure to dem-
onstrate the interaction of color as relational. This interaction only became
apparent upon prolonged viewing and, significantly, found meaning when
one turned one's gaze away from the painting, newly aware of the i n t r ~
action of color In one's daily experience. Newman, in contrast. aspired to
achieve the sublime, specifically directing the viewer to engage his work
at a close distance, so that one might be enveloped by the canvas. \5 As he
posted in the Betty Parsons Gallery upon the exhibition of (the then unti-
tled) Adam and other work in 1951, "there is a tendency to look at large
87
pictures from a distance. The large pictures in this exhibition are intended
to be seen from a short distance."16
Greenberg had no truck with Albers's work insomuch as his
practice itself was pedagogic and thus didactic. H,s frustration with Albers,
however, had little to do with the artist's teaching per se and everything
to do With his art. In contrast. the critic's overall attitude was favorable
with regard to the work of Hans Hofmann, whom he acknowledged as
"probably the most important art teacher of our time." " Greenberg's focus
remained the surface of Hofmann's painting; as the critiC wrote. "His paint-
Ing is all painting; none of it publicity, mode, or literature." " He praised
Hofmann because the artist's views about art were in keeping With his
own; indeed, they influenced his criticism,"The artist included the follow-
ing stale me nt-replete with what would come to be known as Greenber-
glan language-in the 1937-1938 brochure for the Hans Hofmann School
of Fine Arts:
the organic elements of painting are the flatness of the surface
used and its plastic medium, color. the pictorial development
which retains the character of these elements in an equilibrium
of volume and forces produces the plastic effect of "pictorial
space," "realistic space;' that of optical illusion, is contrary in its
character to an instinctive use of the medium. 20
Hofmann and Albers differ in terms of the intentional ity of their objects:
the work of the former is self-referential, whereas the work of the latter
imposes itself upon the viewer-it expects that we see differently, not
that we revel in its painterly effects per se, This, in part, is why Greenberg
would be drawn to Hofmann, yet cast Albers as "doctrinaire," Greenberg
saw no place for pedagogic objects meant to draw one's attention to the
act of viewing, as did those produced by, Albers and others affiliated With
the Bauhaus" Rather, Greenberg saw it as his role to guide viewing hab-
its: to serve both the artist-conduit and the disinterested viewer.
Albers rendered Instability, a perceptually shifting surface
through his choice of color and proportion; if not these colors in this com-
bination one would not experience the same Visual effect.
22
like Variant!
Adobe, Red Front, Albers's Homage to the Square, Black Settmg (Figure
4.3) demonstrates the interaction of color, Albers shows how this combin-
ation of color creates a pulsating visual effect, as a white square appears
to move to the fore, only seemingly to recede when overtaken by a cyan
square before moving to the fore once again. The work exhibits an unre-
solvable relationship in which color remains in flux, highlighting that what
one actually sees is light rather than surface, In contrast and much to
88
4.3
Josef Albers, Homage to fhe Square,
Black Setting. 1951. oil on Masonlte-,
32x321n
Greenberg's pleasure, Hofmann utilized the properties of painting to enh-
ven the medium, not to educate the viewer, In Hofmann's Goliath (Figure
4.41. his so-called "push-pull" technique creates a sense of depth without
emplOYing illusion; red, yellow, and blue quadrangles appear to float above
44
Hans Hofmann.
Goliat/) , 1960,
ad on canvas.
84
1
Al x 60 In
89
the surface. An array of multi-colored, brushy gestures-rendered on the
same, flat picture plane-create dimension and depth. Albers does not
attempt to deny that his surfaces are painted; the marks of his hand are
evident. And Insomuch as one looks at Hofmann's painting, one also per-
ceives It. But there is both an immediacy and a stasis to Hofmann's float-
ing quadrangles quite dissimilar to Homage to the Square, Black Setting.
Unlike Albers's play with the process of perception, Hofmann's painting
addresses problems particular to painting and is testament to the artist's
facility in manipulating material in accordance with the "plastic medium"
of color and the "flatness of the surface.""
JUst as Greenberg was by no means the only art critical voice
in mid-century America, Albers was not the only target of this vein of
criticism. Albers's practice, however, is an effective means of introducing
a larger problem regarding the reception of the Bauhaus in America. In
holding up the Bauhaus and American modernism, the Albers-Greenberg
dynamic reveals a disconnection between Bauhaus-indebted practices and
American art critical values.
In a purely formal sense, eschewing narrative and mimesis In
favor of the plastic qualities of two- and three-dimensional visual objects
themselves-as could be said about the appearance of many Bauhaus
obJects, such as Marianne Brandt's Tea Infuser and Stramer (Figure 2.2,
page 39)-seems in keeping with Greenberg's views insofar as they are
indebted to European modernist traditions. Brandt's design consists of a
combination of basic geometric forms, and its visual vocabulary is unador-
ned. Indeed, artist-designers affiliated with the Bauhaus were likely among
the unnamed "purists" to whom Greenberg made reference when he
called for literature to be expunged from visual art so as to quell the domi-
nance of narrative, which forced the nonliterary arts to "deny their own
nature:'" But while Greenberg acknowledged the "Dutch and Germans"
as among those responsible for realizing the full potential of "abstract pur-
Ism;' he also blamed them for consolidating it into "a school, dogma and
credo," claiming that they sterilized the expressive factors of abstraction as
a result ," For Greenberg, the powerful expressiveness of abstractIOn (to
Invoke Charles Harrison) was the formal system itself" Art was Impotent
neither utopian nor dystopian, apolitical, and certainly lacking function.
Both Bauhaus-indebted instructional methods and Greenber-
gian modernism Involve the search for essential elements and emphasize
structural and material coherence. Yet Greenberg implies that the Inherent
physical properties of the artistic medium should help define how artists
use their material in accordance, for instance. with the flatness of the paint-
ing surface-Jackson Pollock's splatter and Helen Frankenthaler's stains
90
correspond to the "nature" of painting,v Thus. the medium is granted a
kind of agency, such that it gUides the artist in the creative act. Although
a Bauhaus-indebted approach to material and materiality encourages stud-
ents to seek answers to design problems from and through an exploration
of material properties, the individual , by contrast, possesses the agency
to employ this knowledge to numerous ends. The" nature" of the material
world does not prescribe, but rather Informs its use.
Yet due to the predominance of Greenberg's critical voice.
Bauhaus practices ohen have been received through a Greenbergian
lens. Contemporary cntiques of Bauhaus-indebted teaching strategies
frequently invoke the terms that Greenberg brought to the forefront of
mld-twentieth-century art critical discourse. It has been commOn to pro-
claim that the "medium-centered" teaching methods of the Bauhaus are
obsolete, as has Thierry de Duve, who stated that teaching at the Bauhaus
was" based on the reduction of practice to the fundamental elements of
a syntax immanent to the medium" and if ItS methods function in light of
contemporary mixed-media, conceptual art practice, they do so "In spite of
themselves:' " According to de Duve's View, and In keeping with Rosalind
Krauss's more general assertion that contemporary artists work in a "post-
medium" condition. " artists are no longer bound to the confines of the
medium, notwithstanding the question of whether they ever were. The
critical negation of Bauhaus instnuctlOnal methods In the United States, as
perpetuated by Greenberglan criteria, serves as testament to the pervas-
iveness of the critic's views. But more, and likely much to Albers's dismay,
the degree to which the Bauhaus was caught in a web of responses to
Greenberg!an discursive structures-despite never having been embraced
therein-also speaks to the degree to which the language of criticism
guides understandings of practice.
Learning by Induction
Although Greenberg would cast the school generically as a style, visual
unity was not a Bauhaus priority; rather, the Bauhaus emphasized the
actiVities of art making and approached the medium as an active tool-
as praxis. By categoriZing Bauhaus objects according to a priori aesthetic
criteria. Greenbergian medium specificity overlooks the role of objects as
essential to Bauhaus practIce, as means to an end rather than an end them-
selves. In contrast to the critic's deductive reasoning, Albers saw mean-
ing as induced through practice. At the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College,
and Yale University his instruction was productive; it was about complicat-
ing understanding rather than reduction and refinement. and his teachlllg
91
methods were geared toward general design principles, such as (and nota-
bly for Albers) color interaction, which he understood as a means of visual
orgarjization. Albers would describe his instructional approach as that of
creating "visual empathy" through which one gained "the ability to read
the meaning of form and order" and to "articulate" this knowledge in terms
of the "conditions of formulation."30 At the Bauhaus, he made reference
to his method as induktives Lernverfahren (and as "inductive studies" in
America). a movement from detailed study to general principles. " Thus, the
acquisition of basic skills was first sought in Isolation from their application,
with the understanding that the individual parts (i.e. the building blocks of
design) precede their combination and the for.mation of a whole. Accord-
ingly. Albers's pedagogic emphasis lay in practical, concrete exercises; in
"learning through conscious practice."32 Yet his classroom was a forum for
active demonstration, not free experimentation. This activity of building up
from basic knowledge runs in opposition to a Greenbergian approach based
in overarching fundamental principles.
The attention Albers paid to perceptual fundamentals was in
keeping with the goals of preliminary instruction under his predecessors
at the Bauhaus, Johannes Itten and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, yet his approach
diverged from Itten's emphasis upon the body as site for sensory stimulus
and Moholy-Nagy's prioritization of sensory communication.
33
Albers encour-
aged students to investigate the properties of material in his material study
(Werklehrel so as to explore their structural potential, which-in light of the
increasingly prevalent rhetoric of industry at the Bauhaus-was tethered to
the creation of "commercial form" and the" union of purpose and material:'"
HIs approach to the medium was pragmatic, as were his teaching methods.
Albers's students were encouraged to investigate material by
subverting expectations-to demonstrate potential, rather than to define
function. At the Bauhaus, he chose to focus primarily upon two- and three-
dimensional studies in material, which he separated into the categories:
"Material" studies, which involved "construction" and" MaTerie" exercises
(also known as matiere and the term used henceforthl, which Involved
" cornbination."3s
In the first of these methods, material studies, students were
charged to construct structures with a single material, such as corrugated
cardboard. metal sheets, wire, glass. and plastic. Among the Illost com-
mon assignments-one that remains a mainstay in many art and design
curricula-were paper studies in which students were to explore the prop-
erties of paper. only allowed to cut or fold it so as to create forms that
highlighted the material's structural possibilities (Figure 4.51 ' About these
exercises and Albers's teaching generally Hannes Beckmann recalled:
92
45
AI bers and students
manipulating a sheel of paper
al Black Mountain College
in 1946
I remember vividly the first day of the [Preliminary CourseJ.
Josef Albers entered the room, carrying with him a bunch of
newspapers . ... "Ladies and gentlemen IAlbers saidJ. we are
poor, not rich. We can't afford to waste materials or time .... An
art starts with a material. and therefore we have first to inves-
t igate what our material can do. So, at the beginning we will
experiment without aiming at making a product. At the moment
we prefer cleverness to beauty . ... Our studies should lead to
constructive thinking .... I want you now to take the newspapers
... and try to make something out of them that is more than you
have now. I want you to respect the material and use it in a way
that makes sense-preserve its inherent characteristics. If you
can do without tools like knives and scissors, and without glue,
Jalll the better:' "
Results varied considerably and, according to Beckmann, the student who
simply folded the paper such that it could stand on its side was singled out,
for he demonstrated how paper-a pliable material--could be made stiff. '"
He had enabled one to see the material differently.
The relational aspect of Albers's instruction was expressed most
explicitly in the second of these methods, matiere exercises. Albers often
had students make lists of contrasts such as dark/light, warm/cold. soft/hard
and would then ask that they formulate associations between these terms
and material qualities generally or charge them to demonstrate contrasting
relationships in advanced exercises: for instance. the creation of positive
93
and negative space uSing a single material.
39
Matiere involved the combina-
tion of material available in the Bauhaus workshops: strips of cellophane,
wire mesh, fabric, nails, and thus purposeful rather than found matter.
Students were to demonstrate comparative qualities-elastic/stiff, planar!
linear, straighVbent-and categorize material according to Struktur, Faktur.
and Textur.
40
Like material studies, matiere were meant to enable new ways
of seeing and observation through one's active engagement with the mate-
rial world. The exercises were a means of determining, as Albers wrote:
... which formal qualities predominate today-harmony or bal-
ance, rhythm or scale, geometric or arithmetic proportion,
symmetry or asymmetry, rosette or row-and in conjunction
with that. what holds more interest-complicated or elemen-
tary form, multiplicity or simpliCity, composition or construc-
tion, mysticism or hygiene, volume or Ime, beauty or prudence,
ancestral portraits or to1let5.
41
The activity of making matiere was distinct from the act of discussing
what trends could be identified among them. They were at once a means
of material understanding, yet also a platform for exchange: they were
intended to be didactic objects.
Albers's stated goals for his Werkfehre were to prOVide students
with an overview of many materials and a feeling for design concerns;
to encourage economy, responsibility, discipline. and Criticism through
independent discovery; and to determine with which material they might
like to work as they continued their studies.
42
The means were as signific-
ant as these ends, Albers included a discussion of "methode" among his
course outline, lectured on the topic of "creative education," and published
"Werklicher Formunterricht," an essay in which he laid out hiS views on
education as a balance of discipline and freedom, experimentation, and
the encouragement of controlled mlstakes." The dialectics of education-
literally the process of drawing out, rather than imposing information and
knowledge-became even more pronounced In the radically new context
of Black Mountain College, where the importance of faCilitating exchange
among students was essential to the collaborative nature of the institution
and its educational program. Unlike the Bauhaus, Black Mountain offered
students a largely self-directed education In literature, music, Visual an,
the sciences, and other diSCiplines under the rubric of general education.
Although Albers seldom engaged the nonvisual overtly in his
teaching at the Bauhaus-as did Itten and Moholy-Nagy-he was ada-
mant that the essential principles of material and design could be applied
across diSCiplines. Unlike Greenberg's modernism, With its emphaSIS upon
94
differences between the arts, Albers's pedagogical method stressed com-
mon principles that united the arts and encouraged that learning take place
through "parallelism" rather than "separatism." In reference to the curri-
culum at Black Mountain he wrote:
To speak In professional terms: We should discover for Instance
that music, too, has to do with proportion and the values of line
and volume; also that literature can be static and dynamic, and
can have staccatos and crescendos, and poems can have color:
that the play on the stage has not only dramatic climax but also
an optical and an acoustical one; that there are musical qualities
in all art-that every work of art is built (composed), has order,
consciously or unconsciously.""
This was more than mere rhetoric at the college; students were
asked to address the interpenetration of the arts in their examinations. One
of ten required questions on the" Oualifying Examination" in 1948-when
Albers was college rector-was: "Discuss the interrelationships of paint-
ing, musical composition and architectural structure. Choose your exam-
ples and compare them."4!:1 It IS taken as given that interrelationships exist
and merely left to the student to articulate them. Although oriented toward
visual understanding, Albers's instruction at the college addressed widely
applicable fundamental principles: proportion, line, volume, and color as
well as static and dynamic form. His students-many of whom took his
courses as part of their general educatIOn-were to apply these principles
to their own work and in their own fields of study as they saw fit . This is not
to say that Albers did not recognize differences among creative media. In
a lecture on abstract art given soon after his arrival in the United States he
used medium-based qualities to indicate "a development toward the pure
arts;' the aims of which were that music be "primarily a combination of
tones," painting be "a combination of colors," and dance be a "combination
of movements."46 But he continued:
Let us say this In artistic terms: we want more
Composition
Combination
Construction
DynamiC and static
Weight and qualities
Rhythm and balance
And so on,
95
Although here Albers maintains a distinction the temporal and
visual arts, he did not value the formal qualities of tel\e, color, and move-
ment per se, as did Greenberg. Rather, his aim in rraklng these remarks
was to advocate how abstraction was implicit to life itself. He stated, "A
life is more than nature, so is art more than life. BecaJ5e art IS spirit-that
means an essential seeing-instead of imitation we need translation."47
Indeed, Albers did not seek to prescribe the conditons of visual experi-
ence or aspire-as did Kandinsky, Mondrian, and othiCs for whom "essen-
tial seeing " was key-to craft wholly abstract vocabuanes of visual form.
Rather, his teaching demonstrated the terms of trarelatlon by prioritizing
process over form.
Albers's curricular aspirations remained consistent, regardless
of the course in question. An undated synopsis of curriculum for the
1948-1949 academic term at Black Mountain includes detailed descrip-
tions of his drawing and painting courses, which wee taught throughout
the year, as well as courses in basic design, color, am structural sculpture,
taught alternating every other SIX statenents as to how art
courses relate to the college curriculum precede the descriptions of the
goals for each course. The courses are open to "artsts and non-artists."
They are not" directly concerned with self expression or completed work,"
but rather they are laboratory classes that aim "firs at observation and
articulation, that is, conscIous seeing," and emphmize the "control of
means, hand, landl tools;' as well as the collaborativ comparative nature
of peer review and critique as fostering "self-criticilm and judgment."49
His final statement addressed the concept of art as acourse of study: "Art
here means more a process and way of living than a product or its produc-
tion. Art as an educational means aims at an intensi\8 USe of our senses
and a broader and deeper vision of our self and of Ife world." " Although
adamant that no finished work was made In his claslroom, the exercises
produced in his courses were highly valued, so much so that they were
routinely displayed as part of senior exhibitions, and thus the demonstra-
tion of one's process was tantamount to finished pHducts made outside
the classroom.
Color Instruction, for which Albers is porhaps most widely
known, exemplified how the emphasis on perceptlal estrangement in
his teaching was meant to bnng hierarchies of visua order to conscious-
ness,SI In the course students used foliage, paper, and other materials
available to them in their studies; they did not mix pigments to create
a new, composite color, and thus his color instructon was a compara-
tive rat her than an additive process (Figure 4.6). Emcises were meant
to attune students to perceptual phenomena and by extension, the
96
46
Albers and students
in the Color Course
atYale University in
1952
interaction of color as relational and unfixed. As was so in his other
courses, students employed a process of trial and error, often plaCing
countless pieces of "Color-aid" paper in combination with one another
until arriving at the desired, at times unexpected Visual effect. They would
manipulate color so as to create a sense of volume or weight, various sur-
face and optical effects such as the illusion of fluted edges, the appearance
of transparency, or the optical effect of one color assuming the qualities
of another. Indeed, Albers desired to achieve these same effects in his
own painting practice (Figures 4.1 and 4.31. in which he emphasized per-
ceptual exchange between colors in lieu of establishing conceptual unity.
Indeed, the inductive studies Albers employed in his teaching were quite
opposed to Greenberg's modernism: they were meant to be non-medium-
specific, purposeful, and largely self-determined. And, significantly, objects
produced in Albers's courses were intended to be didactic; they functIOned
as demonstration pieces, as did Albers's own work.
The discourse in which Greenberg established himself was
specifically one of wnting about viewing, predicated upon a language of
formalist abstraction as tethered to the structural properties of the medium
and its specializing effects. In a sense Greenberg was a teacher, 5.2 the critic
directed his reader in how to see-and evaluate-works of art. " Although
he believed that aesthetic experience was intuitive, Greenberg saw the
critic's role as that of inViting "the reader to look at works of art Iso as) to
see if he agrees with the critic."501 At the Bauhaus, seeing was integral to
97
preliminary Instruction, yet Bauhaus pedagogic methods and practices cast
vision as but one of many senses at the service of making, For Greenberg,
the maker's goal was to capitalize on the characteristic qualities inherent
in the medium with which he worked, as if he were in service t o a tradi-
tion of painting or sculpture. Al bers encouraged the crafting of an apparatus
that drew anention away from the physical object and the subversion of
perceptual expectations as a means of design innovation, The competing
applications of (Platonic) idealized seeing as facilitated by Greenberg and
the propagation of an (Aristotelian) embodied vision at the Bauhaus have
distinct genealogies, yet the former often has superseded the laner in art
cntical discourse, This was especially the case as the Bauhaus was received
in an American context. where Bauhaus objects and practices came into
contact with the terms of Greenbergian formalism and medium fi xation.
Acknowledgments
This essay was assisted by a grant from the Berfln Program for Advanced German and European
Studies With funds prOVided by the Frele U/llversitat Berlin I would like to thank Brenda Danilo
Wltz and Jessica Csoma at The Josef and Ann! Albers Foundation, as well as Dawna Schuld and
Christa Robbins
Notes
Josef Albers, Search Versus Re-Search [Hartford, CT. Trinity COllege Press, 1969). 13.
2 Ibid, 36
3 After receiVing hiS teaching certification In primary education, Albers taught primary school
between 1908 and 1913, From 1913 to 19151'e st udied at the Komgllche Kunstsdlule In Bedln,
from which he received certif ication as an art teacher He later attended the Kunstgewerbe,
schule In Essen and Konigllche Bayensche Akademle der 811denden Kunst In MUnich before
enrolling al the Bauhaus In 1920, where he attended Johannes Itten's Prellmmary Course and
partiCipated In the stalned.glass vvorkshOp. In 1923 he began teaching materlaf study (Werk-
lehrel , an aspect of preliminary Instruction, assuming full responslbl!lty for preliminary instruc-
tion from 1928 to 1933 Upon hiS erfl1gratlon to the United Stales, Albers taught al Black
Mountain College from 1933 to 1949 and at Yale Umverslty from 1950 to 1960 He served as
VIsiting or guest Instructor at many Instltulions, Including the Cincinnati Art Academy, Pran
Institute, Graduate School of DeSign at Harvard UniverSity, UnIVerSity of Oregon, Syracuse
UnlYerslty, and the University of South Florida. He also lectured extensively throughout the
Amencas, See Frederick A. HorOWitz and Brer,da Danilowltz, Josef Albers' To Open Eyes (Lon
don' Phaldon, 2006) for a comprehensive study of Albers's teaChing of deSIgn, draWing, color,
and painting at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and Yale UniverSity.
4 See Clement Greenberg, HKandlnsky," in Arr and Culture: Cnflcal Essays {Boston: Beacon
Press, 1961 I. 111-14 Greenberg did devote conSiderable and anentlon to the work ofWass-
Ily Kandll1sky and Paul Klee,
5 Harold Rosenberg, "Thoughts in Off Season;' In Art Oil the Edge: Creators and Situil/lons
(New York: Macmi(1an, 1971), 24Z
98
6 ral Smnh addresses concepts of the medium held in the weavmg workshop in context of
Inteliecrual debates In Germany, through which "weaving as medium was formulated See
Weavmg Work ar the Bauhaus The Gendermg and Engendermg of 8 Medwm. 1919-1937
(Ph.D dlSS, University of Rochester, 2006)
7 Greenberg cl,;lImed that "each art
H
had to "use the chEiraCtenStlC of [its] diSCipline to cntlcrze
the diSCIpline Itself, nOt In order 10 subvert II but in order to entrench 11 more t!fll1ly In Its area
of competenceH See Clement Greenberg, "Modernist Painting," In Clement Greenberg'
the Coliected Essays and Crmcism, ed John O'Bnan, vol 4 IChlcago: UniverSity 01 Chicago
Press, 1986), 85-93.
8 Among Greenberg's notable detractors have be,en Leo Stemberg, Lucy Lippard. Rosalind
Krauss. andT. J. Clark More recemly In Clement Greenberg Between lhe Lines, tfans Brian
Holmes (Paris: Editions DIs Voir, 1996), Thierry de Duve has suggested that the lime for
responses to Greenberg has passed and that there eXIsts a need for a reappraIsal of Ine
CTitIC, Caroline A, Jones I'nvesugates the fashioning of Greenberg's unique subJocttvlty In her
Eyesighl Alolle' Clemenr Greenberg's Modernism and l/le Bureaucrallz8110n of Ole Senses
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005)
9 Harold Rosenberg wrote of the Bauhaus In terms of collage as olJtgrowtn of preliminary
instruction, one of few C(((ICS to note how Bauhaus'lndebted pedagogic methods were of
Impon beyond the classroom. See "Collage Philosophy 01 Put-Togetherness,H fn Rosen-
berg, Art on the Edge. 173-80.
10 See Meyer Schapiro, "Recent Abst ract Pallltmg;' In Modem Art 19th & 20ch Cenwfles (New
York: George Brazliler, \978),213-32,
11 [n The Bauhaus andAmeriC<! F"sf Contacts. 19 19--1936 (Cambridge. MA, MIT Press, 1999),
Margret Ken!gens-Cralg discusses the formatIOn of the InternatIOnal Style as among the fac-
tors that lad to Ihe suppression of the Bauhaus Weltanschauung. Karen Koehler IIweS!lgates
how the 1938 Bauhaus 1919- 1928 exhlbllJon at The Museurl1 of Modern Art "negotiated
events of world history" through lhe "self-Imposed censorship" of ItS organIzers, InclUding
Walter Groplus and Herbert Bayer in "The Bauhaus. 19\9-1928: GroPIUS In bule and the
Museum of Modern An. N.V, 1938," 111 An, Culrure, and Meclta Under the Third Reich, ed
Richard A Eilin (Chicago: UniverSity of Chicago Press, 2002), 287-315, See also Gabnele
Diana Grawe. Call for Action: Mltglleder des Bauhauses In Nordameflka (WeImar Verlag und
Databank fur Gelstesw!ssenschanen, 20021,
12 Clement Greenberg, " ReView of exhibitions of Adolf Gonlleb, Jackson Pollock. and Josef
Albers," 111 Clemem Greenberg the Col/ecred Essays and CritICism, vol. 2, ed John O'Brian
(ChIcago: UniverSity of Chicago Press, 1986),285
13 Clement Greenberg, "Feeling Is All." repnnted as Pall/san ReView Art Chronicle', 1952:'
III Ar! and CtJlturs' Critical Essays fBoslon: Beacon Press. 1961), 150, Greenberg writes,
"even If Ilis pictures do consist of only one or two (sometimes more) rectlUnear and paral-
lel bands 01 cofor against a flat field," HIS mention of "shock" IS likely a direct reference to
critical wmings on Newman that pre-dated Greenberg's essay See Melissa Ho,
ology," In Barnert Newman, ed Ann Temkin (Philadelphia, PhiladelphIa Museum of An,
2002),325
14 Albers showed work made between the 1920s and late 19405 at Ihe Egan ex/lIl)l\IOn, enti-
lied "Paintll'1gs In Blade Grey White," The exhibition at the JaniS Gallery, "Pall'ltmgs tItled
comprised rnore reeefll work. Albers did not begin to make hiS IConiC Homage [0
rhe Squclfe palnttngs until 1950.
15 As Newman wrote about hiS painting. Image we produce IS the self-eVident one of
revelalfon, real and concrete, that can be understood by anyone who will look at It Without
the nostalgiC lens of history." See Barnett Newrnan. "The Sublime IS Now," Tigers Eye',
99
50 Ibid
51 Albers published hIS (:imonic InteraCTion of C%ras a boxed set with 80 color foliOS ard com-
mentary 111 1963 INew Haven and London. Yale University Press, 1963) and a smaller verSion
of the work In 1971 Haven and london Yale UmverSlty Press, 1971), which has seen
several revISions and reprintlngs. most recently In 2006
52 I use leacher Intentionally to distingUish Greenberg from Albers, an educator who, In keep-
ing with the definition of the term, facilitated a Hprocess of reanng" as opposed to the
dlrectedness and presumed instructional authorny of leaching
53 ThiS was eVident In Greenberg's teaching. The cntlC taught HThe Development of Modernist
Pamting." " Sculpture from Their Onglns to the Present Tlme,H and a course on criticism and
Kant's Cfluque of Aesthe(Jc Judgment at Black Mountain In summer 1950. Albers had left
the college In 1949 alfld thus did not come In contact With the cntlc directly See Mary Emma
Harris, The Arts 8( 8Jack Mountam Col/ege tCambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).
54 Clement Greenberg i n conversation With Karlhelnz LudekJng, N Clement Greenberg: Modern-
Ism or in Clement G,.eenberg: Late Writings, eel Robert C. Morgan tMif"H'lsa-
polls: Univelslty of MIf)fleSOIa Press, 2003), 217
102
Part 2
Transference
no 6. (December 1948): 51-3, reprinted In Charles Hamson and Paul Wood, Arr In Theory
1900-1990 (Oxford' Blackwell, 19921,574.
16 See Ann Temkin, "Barnell Newman on ExhIbitIOn." m Temkin, Bamett Newman, 41
17 Among Hofmann'S students were Red Grooms. Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Joan
MltCt'1ell, and Louise Nevelsoll. Albers's sl ude/1ts inC)llded Raben. Rauschenberg. Eva
Hesse, and Richard Serra
18 Clement Greenberg, "Review of an Exhibition of Hans Hofmann and a Reconsideration of
Mondnan's The Nalian 7 (April 1945)' in Clement Greenberg' the Coflected Essays
and Cnflcism. vol 2, ed. John O'Brlan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19861. 18.
19 Greel1berg wrote, "Hoffman ISle! has not yet published his Views, but they have already
directly and Indirectly influenced many. including tillS writer-who owes more to the Initial
illummation received from Hofmann's lectures than to any other source" Ibid.
20 Punctuation IS Hofmann's "Brochure, Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts. New York, 1937-
38," In Cynthia Goodman, Hans Hofmann (New York Wtmney Museum of Art, 1990). 164-5.
21 One could, for Instance, make a Similar claim about the practice of laszlO Moholy-Nagy, In
particular hiS Interest in light.
22 So Importallf were the precise cotors and proportions used to Albers, he would often list the
pigments as well as their manufacturer on the verso of his palntmgs.
23 For Greenberg, .. grasped the Issues al stake better than did Roger Fry and
bener than Mondfian, Kandlnsky, Lhote, Ozenfant. and all the others who have tried to
'explicate' the recent revolution In painting." Greenberg, "ReView of an Exhibition:' 18
24 See Clement Greenberg. "Towards a Newer Laocoon:' In Clement Greenberg: the Collected
Essays and CritiCISm. vol 1, ed. John O'Bnan (Chicago: UniverSity of Chicago Press, (986),
23-37
25 Ibid
26 See Charles Hamson, Essays on An and Language (Oxford: Blackwell , 1991). among othel
texts.
27 In a 1964 catalogue essay for an exhlbitJOn Greenberg curated, "Post Painterly Abstraction:'
he discussed some of the exhibiting artists as reacting against painterly abstraction, claiming:
"rneir reaction against It does not constitute a return to the past, a going back to where Syn-
thetiC Cubism or geometrical painting teft off .... They are Included (in the exhlbltlonl because
they have won their "hardness" from the "softness" of Painterly Abstraction: they have not
Inherited it from Mondrian, the Bauhaus, Suprematlsm, or anything else that came before:'
Clement Greenberg, "Post Painterly Abstraction," In Clement Greenberg: llle Collected Essays
and Cmiclsm. vol. 4. eel John O'Brian (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 19861, 192.
28 Thierry de Duve, "When Form Has Become AttlllJde - And Beyond," In The Amsl and lhe
Academy: Issues In Fme A,./ EdUc<J/lon and (lJe Wider Cultural Context, ed. Stephen Foster
and Nicholas deVille (Southampt on, UK: John Hansard Gallery, 1994),31
29 See Rosalind Krauss, A Voyage all the North Sea: Art If) tl)e Age of rhe Post-MedIUm Condl-
(/on (London: Thames & Hudson, 1999).
30 Albers, Search Versus Rs-Search. 10
31 "Werklehre Albers" (1927). The Josef and Anm Albers Foundation, Betllany, CT. Albers con-
tinues to note that this was achieved through communal critique of one's work (gemein-
QJme krllli( der srbeilen). See also Albers, Search Versus Re-Searci1. 13
32 John Dewey's" learning by dOing" approach to Instruction as tethered directly to actiVity was
known to Albers---especlally subsequent to illS emigration-and became essential to hiS
conception of education See John Dewey, Art and Experience (Chicago. Umversity of Chj.
cago Press. 1934) and Josef Albers, "Art as Experience," Progressive Education, 1210ctober
1935): 391-3.
33 For an extensIVe analysis of teaching practice at the Bauhaus. including that of Johannes
100
Ilen, Laszl6 MoholyNagy, and Josef Albers, see Ramer K WiCk, Teactung at the Bauhilus
IOsthldern--Rult Hatje Cant-z, 2000)
34 Undated translation/notes based upOn Albers's essay "Werklld1er FormuntBrnctlt;' Black
Mountain Collego Records, 1933-1956, Nonh Carolina State Arctwes. Raleigh, NC
35 I focus on Albers's three-dImensional studies here Albers's two-dimenSional course assign-
nents enabled students \0 e)!.plore Visual relationships through draWing and collage studies..
One such study was knOYJn as a exerCIse. In which familiar matenal, such as
JEgeS from the newspaper, were cut mto stripS and rearranged as collage to achieve varIOus
cpllcal effects Like Moholy-Nagy, he also used photographiC techniques In hiS instruction.
See Horowrtz and Dantlowlrz, Josef Albers. 112.-22
36 About the study depleted In FIgure 4.5, Albers remarked: "ITtlis photographl shows a mutual
Md manual examination of a volume-space study, more specifically a 'structural or9anlza-
t on' study. A multI-Sided pyramid IS fonned by folding a Single, undivided sheet of paper. The
r.roblem IS to determine the propel relationship of the cut bonom edge \0 both tile plane
tasis of the plywood board and the varying angulature of the pyramid's slopes." Albers,
Search Versus Rs-Search, 92-3.
37 Hannes Beckmann, "Formative Years;' in Bat/hallS and Bauhaus People, ed. Eckhard Neu-
mann INewYork: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 1970),196
38 Ibid
39 Falner K. Wick has shown that Albers's Contrast exerCises were largely mdebted to Inen's
employment of similar methods at the See WiCk, Teaci!lng at the Bauhaus. See
aso Rolf Bothe. Peter Hahn and Hans Christoph von Tavel, ads. Oas friJhe Bauhaus und
..bhannes Ittan (OstfildemRuiL Verlag Gerd Hatle. 1994),
40 taszl6 Moholy,Nagy also had students organize arrays of maner In elaborate tactile charts,
a<'Id analyze matenats according to categories StlUktiJf was the Internal compoSition of a
matenal hts phYSical consistency), Texrur corresponded 10 the material's outward appear-
a'1ce [the VISible surfacel. and FakWf or "surface aspect " was the perceptible result or
effect of man's treatment of a matenal (the mak.er's manipulation and markings) Among
the categones, the laner was most significant as It related to how one would use mate-
rei to achieve a desired sensory result See Laszlo MohofyNagy, The New VISion (New
l'i>rk' George Wittenborn. Inc., 1947). Albers, however, claimed that MOholy-Nagy failed 10
a:knowtedge hiS rote In establishing thiS categorizati on system, whlen the latter claimed as
Ils OWrj See HorOWitz and Dallilowitz, Josef Albers, 255, note 69.
41 J)sef Albers. HWerkhcher Formuntemcht,H Bauhaus 2, no 2/3 (1928): 3-7, m Hans Marta
VJingler, The Bauhaus. Weimar. Oessau, Berlm, Chicago, ed. Joseph Stein, trans. Wolfgang
Jabs and BaSil Gllben /Cambridge. MA. MIT Press, 1976), 142.
42 ''Nerklehre Albers" (1927). Albers claarly lays out the theme Ithemal of the course, hiS
method (methode) to achieve ,t, and hiS course goals 1/'1 this document.
43 Albers presented a lecture at the Sixth Intemational Congress for Drawing, Art Education,
a1d Applied Art In Prague, 1928 See note 41.
44 Albers. ':Art as Expenence." 391.
45 "JuallfYlng Examination, First Day, Mard1 4, 1948, 8:30 am. to 5:30 p.m." The Josef and
Anni Albers FoundaTion, Bethany, CT
46 ":Abstract Art: Speech made in AsheVille, NC, by J. Albel's, August 1935" Josef Albers
f1pers Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library, New Haven, CT.
47 Itld
t18 ''Art Courses." undated typescriPt for 1948-1949 courses at Black Mountain College The
Josef and AnI'l! Albers Foundation. Bethany, CT At Yate University Albers tau9ht only a color
and a drawing course
49 ttld
101