Never Finished paired two seemingly disparate modern masters

quietly resonant color and stringent asymmetry, on view through January 17

an exhibition at the intersections of craft, gender and modernism

Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper at the Morgan Library & Museum

After being run through the pressure chamber of Conceptual Art, geometric forms for many artists working today are not indicative of a strict allegiance to any kind of school of non-objective thought or practice. From the storied history laid out in the rooms of “Geo/Metric” it seems that geometry in art has indeed reached its highest accomplishment: the freedom of eternal fresh starts.

We think there is a clue in Oursler’s work that provides us with a deeper insight into the nature of the relationship involved in the Albers-Judd pairings. This is a rather surprising state of affairs given that Oursler’s grotesque sculptures are hardly known for their imaginative use of color.

“Josef and Anni Albers: Design for Living” at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum is a tour de force of what I’ll call ‘restrained intimacy’. Both were students at the Bauhaus where they took the best their teachers had to offer, and through their intense dialogue with one another created something no artistic movement could contrive: actual love of material form.

Imagine an art school that functioned like no other. Located far from the bustling art scene of New York, it was nestled remote North Carolina, miles away from anything. Here, the student decided what classes to take and how long his course of study would last. A school that could not afford to pay its … Continued