“The show brings the public closer to the fruitful relationship of Anni and Josef Albers and to the permanent exchange brought about by their living together throughout their artistic life. The two artists managed to break the stereotypes of design and art understood as independents spheres; even the roles between the two, as husband and wife, were affected at a time, the nineteen-twenties, and in a place, the Bauhaus, where everything was possible,” added Tamarit.
On the one hand, Josef Albers (1888-1976), painter, designer and teacher; on the other, Anni Albers (1899-1994), textile artist, printmaker, designer and art theorist. Although they worked independently, it was the intimacy and complicity of their relationship that enabled them, throughout their careers, to support and encourage each other mutually after meeting in 1922 at the Bauhaus School in Weimar.
In the words of the director of the IVAM, Nuria Enguita, “the exhibition pays special attention to the connections between the two artists in the different periods of their careers, highlighting both their recurring motifs and ideas and their experimental creations.”
Xavi Calvo (director of World Design Capital Valencia 2022) has valued the fact that the exhibition is a great conversation between art and design. “It represents the best illustration of how design was able to change an era, how it arose to make life easier for us, how the relationship of a couple wove connections between their works and how the Bauhaus generated foundations for us which are still valid today. It is a luxury to have this collection in Valencia. To be able to see it and admire it and find connections between our designs and those of a century ago.”