The Art of Meditation installation view, courtesy of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, foto di Michele Alberto Sereni
At Villa and Collezione Panza an extraordinary exhibition opened Josef Albers: Meditations – running until January 10, 2027 – that is indeed constructed like a visual composition, where rhythm, repetition, and variation become tools to train the eye. At its core is the research of Josef Albers: rigorous, systematic, seemingly minimal, yet capable of generating an infinity of possibilities. «Every great artist experiments with and deepens their own language through a series of works that are very often multiple ‘variations on a theme’», notes Marco Magnifico, President of FAI. It is a principle that, in Albers’ works, comes surprisingly close to the structure of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations: a sequence in which each variation is born from the preceding one, modifying and deepening it, without ever interrupting the flow. As in music, here too, time makes the difference. The exhibition does not impose itself; it does not yield to a quick glance. It demands duration, attention, and listening. In this regard, it dialogues almost naturally with the vision of Giuseppe Panza di Biumo: a space where art is not an object, but a perceptual experience, a mental process, an immersion.
«I have been involved with Josef’s work for fifty-five years,» says Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation and curator of the exhibition, «and for Meditations I wanted to present a selection of paintings unique in its intimacy […] to the point of making each work unspeakably sublime.» He adds: «Working with Villa Panza offered the rare opportunity to make Josef’s work ‘sing’ thanks to the air that surrounds it.»
And “sing” is the right verb. The Variant/Adobe and Homage to the Square series function as variations on a given theme: the square. A primary, reiterated shape that becomes a field of experimentation. Colors shift, influence, and transform one another mutually. Like notes, they create chords, dissonances, and resonances.
«Bringing his works here means confronting an art that has left a profound mark on the investigation of light and color,» emphasizes Gabriella Belli. And at Villa Panza, this confrontation is amplified: the rooms, the natural light, and the silence construct a true perceptual sounding board. The exhibition path thus unfolds like a musical composition: from the lighter and more rarefied tones – almost an introduction – it moves through moments of greater chromatic tension, down to deeper and more absorbing registers. It is not a linear sequence, but a sensitive progression made of returns, variations, and micro-differences. The exhibition, which displays 29 works, also proposes a dialogue between the artworks and the spaces of Villa Panza, giving substance to Albers’ very idea that works of art and objects resulting from original research and excellent technical quality—regardless of the time or place in which they were created—can enrich each other through their comparison. The result is an evocative layout, capable of offering a renewed perspective on Josef Albers’ research, while remaining essential and meditative, much like the spirit that has always animated the research of Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, and which still characterizes the visitor experience at Villa and Collezione Panza.
