Art Institute of Chicago
August 2019
September 6, 2019–January 12, 2020
The works of Anni Albers, Ruth Asawa, Clara Porset, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Cynthia Sargent, and Sheila Hicks have never been shown together before. While some of the artists and designers in this exhibition knew one another and collaborated together, they are from different generations, and their individual work encompasses a range of media varying from furniture and interior design to sculpture, textiles, photography, and prints. They all, however, share one defining aspect: Mexico, a country in which they all lived or worked between the 1940s and 1970s. During this period they all realized projects that breached disciplinary boundaries and national divides.
Encouraged to visit Mexico by friend and fellow artist Clara Porset, Anni Albers first traveled to the country in 1935 and made thirteen subsequent trips. Mexico’s landscape and architecture became a vital source of inspiration and remained so throughout her career, providing an abstract visual language for her designs. The triangle motif, for instance, that she used repeatedly in textiles and screenprints was drawn from archaeological Zapotec sites such as Monte Albán.