Variant/Adobe 1948

This is Josef Albers’ *Variant/Adobe*, one of many paintings he made, playing with squares in different hues of grey and black. You can just see him there, can’t you? Methodically mixing his blacks to create subtle shifts in tone, then carefully painting them one inside the other. Did he start with the outside edges and work in? Or the other way round? I'd guess outside in, making a frame. Those vertical bars – are they like standing figures, or architectural details? They anchor the composition, adding a touch of play. Albers was obsessed with color and geometry, and his work became very influential to generations of artists. He's related to all kinds of painters, including Agnes Martin. What Albers gives us is that it’s not only about what you see, but how you see it. Every artist is in conversation with what's been made before, responding to it in their own unique way. And so we stand, looking, responding, and interpreting through our own experience of seeing.