Anni Albers

Epitaph – the title of this work – is one of Anni Albers’s last woven pieces. After this, she turns primarily to printmaking, bringing to a close more than forty years of creative work in weaving.

Here Epitaph, which usually means an inscription on a grave, is a handwoven piece in a tall, narrow format. It recalls Albers’s sacred works, such as those created for the synagogue in Woonsocket, or her Six Prayers. Here too, she once again uses broad bands of golden Lurex, combined with fine warp threads of black and white linen. The wide golden Lurex stripes give the work the appearance of a shimmering mosaic of small square forms. Across this ground, Albers draws soft chenille threads in black and white. They rise upwards over the surface like smoke or a misty haze. Beginning tentatively at the lower edge, the threads gradually thicken into a meandering structure before dissolving again at the top. The strictly geometric – and gleaming – background contrasts with the unordered arrangements of the black and white threads.

Once again, Albers skilfully plays with opposing qualities: glossy and matte, hard and soft, light and dark, static and dynamic, ordered and unordered. Drawing on her immense experience and knowledge, the artist employs carefully chosen materials and weaves them into a coherent composition. In her final public lecture, she remarks:

“What I am trying to get across is that material is a means of communication. That listening to it, not dominating it, makes us truly active, that is: to be active, be passive. The finer tuned we are to it, the closer we come to art.”