Abstraction and Andean Textiles, from Anni Albers to the Fiber Arts Movement Iria Candela In August 1953, while visiting Peru for the 昀椀rst time, Anni In 1965, Albers dedicated her compendium of criti- and Josef Albers went to what is now the Museo Nacional cal writing On Weaving to “the weavers of ancient Peru,” de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú in the whom she referred to as “my great teachers.”4 Both On country’s capital. One may only speculate about how Anni Weaving and On Designing, Albers’s earlier volume of Albers felt while walking through the museum, viewing essays, describe her theoretical approach to the medium exquisite examples of ancient Andean textiles and con- by crediting the signi昀椀cance of the Peruvian legacy. “Of templating the endless array of design patterns and in昀椀nite phantasy within the world of threads,” she wrote, weaving techniques that had fueled her imagination for “conveying strength or playfulness, mystery or the reality 1 years. These galleries probably brought Albers back to her of their surroundings, endlessly varied in presentation and teenage years in Berlin, where the Königliches Museum construction, even though bound to a code of basic con- für Völkerkunde’s extensive collection of Peruvian tex- cepts, these textiles set a standard of achievement that is 5 tiles provided her 昀椀rst encounter with this material that unsurpassed.” While the in昀氀uence of Andean techniques she immediately loved. The architect Alfredo Linder, who on her weavings has been studied relatively recently by 6 guided the Alberses on that visit, recalls hearing them say Virginia Gardner Troy, the degree to which these played 2 to each other: “See, we are not alone after all.” a crucial role in her artistic philosophy remains to be fully That spontaneous, rather existential comment at the comprehended. Albers’s essays not only offer clues to her museum in Lima may be read as a statement of af昀椀rma- practice, but also outline her vision for the medium and its tion that speaks to Anni Albers’s position as an outcast future, forming a textile manifesto of sorts. Her meticulous in twentieth-century art history—a position that de昀椀ned written analyses of interlocking grid constructions, many her pioneering contribution to modern art. Her productive of them Peruvian, alongside her insightful ideas on topics decades of learning, teaching, collecting, and practicing such as structural transparency and the tactile sensibil - the art of threads must have all converged in that moment ity of 昀椀bers, came to provide a theoretical framework for of reassurance. Driven to work with textiles because, a new generation of practitioners that emerged during although egalitarian in its inception, the Bauhaus ended the 昀椀ber arts movement. Artists like Sheila Hicks, Lenore 3 Tawney, and Olga de Amaral would, like Albers, 昀椀nd res up directing all female students to the weaving workshop, - Albers went on to successfully situate textile technology onance in the transformational lessons of the weavers of at the core of the modernist project. Fibers allowed her ancient Peru. to master an abstract constructive method that aligned But let’s go back to the beginning—before On Weaving with some of the avant-garde aspirations of her contem- and On Designing were published, before the long-awaited poraries from De Stijl, Constructivism, and the Bauhaus: trip to Lima in 1953—to Anni Albers’s upbringing amid that is, to achieve a unity of the arts through the universal the artistic debates held in Europe in the early decades vocabulary of abstraction and to commit to a utilitarian of the twentieth century. Within the artistic community, drive amid an increasingly industrial society. there was a shared concern that the 昀椀gurative tradition 27