On the subject of the
circle:
I remember that my father, who
would be 101 if he were alive now, had been able to draw a perfect circle
freehand. It was part of his art school training in Budapest.
So it was a surprise to
visit the Black Mountain School (California) exhibition currently on at the Staatliche Museen (SMB) in
Berlin. The exhibition as a whole focusses on the historical period when the
Californian school invited many artists over from Germany following the Nazi closure
of the Bauhaus.
A
short film shows Josef Albers slowly rotating a large disc in his hand. His
mesmerised students trace circles and ovoids in the air.
(You
can view the footage here:
http://albersfoundation.org/teaching/josef-albers/introduction/)
Of
course, Albers' most famous works focus on the purity of the circle and the square. My father was
a neo-classicist: the circle never became his subject-matter; the human form retained supremacy in his work.
But I did a double take
whilst reading one of Albers' philosophical treatises: this was the reflection,
the tone, the discourse I sometimes read in my fathers' notes. With a jolt I
suddenly realise he could have been a student of Albers for a short time in
Germany just prior to 1933. But like a duster on a blackboard, he had erased
that part of his life—in fact, of most of his experiences before the war and his
stint at the Russian front--from what he brought to conversation. Except for
the story about the perfect circle, which he always executed to perfection.
Berlin has wide streets and
a slower pace than London. My friends Heather and Graham live in a
commune, a hangover from the squats of the 1980s, which eventually received
government assistance for maintenance. There are still original squatters who
live there.
Following dinner, Heather and Graham asked if I'd like to go to the "Bowlo". They took me here, beneath a small bar near Reicherstrasse:
photo: Graham Anderson
Photo: Heather Boyer
Two strikes in one.
c. Z Soboslay 2015.
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