Nothing Definite

"Emotions," says Abstractionist Josef Albers, "are usually prejudices. When peo ple say my paintings have no emotion I say, O.K., precision can make you crazy too. A locomotive is without emotion -- so is a mathematics book -- but they are exciting to me."

This week Albers' emotionless abstractions went on exhibition in two Manhattan galleries at once. They were composed mostly of straight lines and right angles, thinly painted in pure colors. Coming at a time when many abstractionists content themselves with syrup, tar, mustard, muscle and a soup spoon, Albers' reticent craftsmanship was a welcome change of diet--thin, but digestible.

Not one picture had been achieved spontaneously; Albers makes a point of waiting at least a year between the time of his first sketch and the time he begins painting, measures his color areas to give them precise geometrical proportions. ("My paintings are recitals; too many artists stop with the rehearsals.") Among the titles of his newest paintings were "Four Central Warm Colors Surrounded by Two Blues" and "Neutral Gray Margin and Center the Same."

Born 60 years ago in Westphalia, Albers was nicknamed "Dante" in his youth because he had a profile like the poet's. He began as an architect, turned to stained-glass windows which he made out of broken bottles salvaged from a junkyard. He spent ten years teaching at Germany's internationally famed school of functional architecture and abstract art, the Bauhaus, founded by Walter Gropius. When Hitler clamped down on the Bauhaus, Albers lit out for the U.S. and progressive Black Mountain College, in North Carolina, where he is today. A granitic perfectionist, he starts beginning students off by teaching them to draw straight lines and freehand letters.

"In the end," Albers admits, "I am concerned with emotion in spite of everything. Some of my things are sorrowful, some are jokes." His favorite stunt is no joke to Albers. At first glance his paintings look rigid and definite to the point of dullness, but there is nothing definite about them. Through tricks of contrast and perspective he makes the shapes in his painting shift and change as the looker looks, even makes the colors take on varying hues. "You see I want my inventions to act, to lose their identity. What I expect from my colors and forms is that they do something they don't want to do themselves. For instance, I want to push a green so it looks red." Isn't that a rather experimental approach? "Yes, all my work is experimental."

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