Anni Albers: Touching Vision

This exhibition offers a focused survey of the work of Anni Albers (b. 1899, Berlin; d. 1994, Orange, CT, USA), an artist distinguished by the originality of her practice, pictorial and textile, and by her profound knowledge of the materials and techniques of weaving—a craft that is nearly as old as humanity. Paying special attention to the connections between different periods and series, and emphasizing recurrent motifs and ideas in contrast with experimental creations, Anni Albers: Touching Vision aims to reflect the strength of an artist whose thinking, humane and essential, had a direct influence on her time as well as on future generations of artists.

Organized in collaboration with The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, this exhibition underscores Albers’s pioneering contribution to the modern rebirth of Fiber Art. The artist drew her inspiration from both pre-Columbian cultures and the modern industry, but she far transcended the notions of craftsmanship and gender-specific labor. Alongside her innovations in the treatment of weaves, and her constant quest for textile motifs and functions, Albers managed to offset the dominant role of painting by means of weaving and engraving, both practices having been relegated to the condition of ‘minor genres’ despite their deep significance in human history. In her pursuit for a true contact with the object, Albers also contributed to the redefinition of a work of art as reproducible design, thus offering the public greater access to art works. Anni Albers: Touching Vision is a tribute to the tactile and emotive gaze of this artist, and to her search for conceptual purity and clarity in the execution.