The Sacred Modernist: Josef Albers as a Catholic Artist
Until 8 July 2012
Lewis Glucksman Gallery
University College
Cork, Ireland
Curated by Nicholas Fox Weber, Director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, The Sacred Modernist: Josef Albers as a Catholic Artist presents the work of the great Bauhaus-trained modernist in a way that has never before been considered in any depth. Josef Albers was born and raised a Catholic and at the end of his life he regularly attended Sunday mass and went to confession. This exhibition explores the influence of this religious upbringing as well as his admiration for the masters of early Christian art and architecture.
The Sacred Modernist: Josef Albers as a Catholic Artist brings together works from all phases of Albers’s life. It presents his earliest sketches of cathedrals in Germany, includes pieces from his time at the Bauhaus and North Carolina’s Black Mountain College, and culminates in his final 1976 Homage to the Square.
Included in the exhibition is a reconstruction of the stained glass window Rosa Mystica which was designed by Josef Albers for St. Michael’s Church in Bottrop, Germany, and which was destroyed during WWII. Through the determined fieldwork and archival resources of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, the Lewis Glucksman Gallery is honoured to present a full-scale reconstruction of Albers’s design for the Rosa Mystica. This is the first time the recommissioned window has been presented in public.
A full-colour catalogue documents all the works selected for exhibition and features insights into Josef Albers’s work by Julie Agoos, Oliver Barker, Leland de la Durantaye, Mark Patrick Hederman, Fiona Kearney, and Colm Tóibín. The catalogue is available from the Lewis Glucksman Gallery. Please email exhibitions [at] glucksman.org to order and for further information.
The catalogue and exhibition are generously supported by The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.
*Image above:
Installation view, courtesy of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery.
