hyperallergic:

The Square in the Raw: Josef Albers’ Unguarded Moments

Josef Albers’ paintings and prints have always left me cold. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been that much of a color guy. I instinctively side with Florentine disegni over Venetian colori (though I routinely melt in front of a Titian or Tintoretto), and I would take an Analytical Cubist Braque or Picasso over a Fauvist Matisse or Derain, a Frank Stella pinstripe over a Frank Stella protractor, any day.

And so for me the intensive investigations into color that Albers (1888-1976) undertook with such diligence never stood much of a chance. It’s not that they weren’t nice to look at, or interesting in a formal way, but to invent a format (the progressively expanding square — or progressively contracting, depending on your point of view) that concentrates solely on color is not unlike inventing a form of performance art that focuses solely on the handshake, but devoid of its implications of propriety, affection, seduction or betrayal. Albers’ trademark “Homage to the Square” paintings seem to exist on a rarified plane where complexity and contradiction are pressed out and wrinkle-free, like a dry-cleaned suit.