The FAI – Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano ETS and the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation present the exhibition Josef Albers: Meditations

The FAI – Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano ETS and the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation present the exhibition Josef Albers: Meditations at Villa and Panza Collection in Varese, running from 9 April 2026 to 10 January 2027. The exhibition features a selection of twenty-nine works by the German artist, including several masterpieces rarely shown to the public, from the Variant/Adobe and Homage to the Square series, on loan from major public and private collections in Europe and the United States.

The project originated from an invitation by Gabriella Belli, Curator of the Scientific Programme of Villa and Panza Collection, to Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation and curator of the exhibition. Although Josef Albers was not among the artists collected by Giuseppe Panza di Biumo, he was certainly among those Panza closely observed and studied—as evidenced by two Albers catalogues in the collector’s personal library. The exhibition is therefore deeply connected to the identity of the site and to the history of the Panza Collection. Albers’ work can today be seen as one of the most significant precedents for many artistic investigations—into light, colour and perception—that Panza later pursued through the artists who define his historic collection.

The exhibition establishes a dialogue between the artworks and the spaces of Villa Panza, giving form to Albers’ own idea that works of art and objects born from original research and outstanding technical quality—regardless of when or where they were created—can be mutually enriched through comparison. The result is an original and evocative installation that offers a renewed perspective on Josef Albers’ research, while remaining essential, rarefied and meditative in spirit—mirroring the approach that always guided Giuseppe Panza di Biumo’s vision and continues to characterise the visitor experience at Villa Panza.

A pioneer of abstract painting, as well as a designer and educator, Josef Albers (1888–1976) believed in the power of art to “open eyes” and devoted a fundamental part of his artistic and pedagogical practice to the study of colour and its interactions. The Variant/Adobe (1946–1966) and Homage to the Square (1950–1976) series represent the most complete outcome of this research, showcasing his extraordinary ability to explore the perceptual effects of colour interaction. Begun in 1946, the Variant/Adobe series was inspired by the art, architecture and landscapes Albers encountered in Mexico and during his many travels throughout Latin America. By adopting a simple, repeatable structure, Albers was able to experiment with colour juxtapositions and their optical effects.

In 1950, he further developed this exploration with Homage to the Square, his most ambitious project, which he pursued until his death in 1976, producing more than two thousand paintings and prints. By using the square as the primary unit, Albers demonstrated how the perception of a colour changes in relation to adjacent colours. The slight downward shift of the centre of each square introduces a subtle tension, creating a sense of movement perceived by the eye.

This research profoundly influenced American minimalist and environmental artists such as Dan Flavin, James Turrell and Robert Irwin, as well as the American monochrome explorations of the 1980s, represented at Villa Panza by artists including David Sims, Phil Sims and Anne Ruth Freedenthal. It is therefore unsurprising that Panza paid close attention to Albers’ work, recognising in his systematic exploration of colour—through minimal forms and perceptual effects—a sensibility fully aligned with his own.

Installed on the first floor, across the eight rooms overlooking the villa’s park, the works were selected by Weber to evoke the slow, gentle and “meditative” effects that Albers believed essential to understanding art—effects that Giuseppe Panza sought in the arrangement of his home-museum. The exhibition is not conceived as a chronological retrospective, but as a perceptual journey, designed as an “exercise in seeing,” in which the artworks become tools of investigation.

Visitors move through environments built on chromatic consonances and dissonances: from the harmonies of the first room, featuring the whites and acid yellows of Lone Whites (1963), Dimly Reflected (1963), Ascending (1962) and Polar (1963), where variations of the same colour gradually reveal themselves, to rooms of heightened chromatic tension, where oranges and pinks counterbalance cooler, darker tones. The journey culminates in the denser gradations of greys, browns and blacks in works such as Night Sound (1968), Dark (1947) and Profundo (1965).

Exceptional loans include Orange Front from the Guggenheim Museum in Venice and Homage to the Square from the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, alongside rarely exhibited works such as Dark, from the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, selected by Weber for its remarkable intensity. A final section featuring video contributions further illustrates the methodology of an artist who profoundly transformed twentieth-century painting.

Marco Magnifico, President of FAI – Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano ETS, stated:
“Every great artist develops their language through a series of works that are often multiple ‘variations on a theme’. Each variation is a unique and original reflection which—when brought together as in this exhibition—allows for a deeper understanding and appreciation, over time and with the necessary calm, of a complex and sometimes not immediately accessible poetics such as Albers’. Bringing together 29 works by an artist of this stature in Giuseppe Panza di Biumo’s home was a bold endeavour, strongly desired by FAI and made possible only thanks to the perseverance of Gabriella Belli and the extraordinary generosity of the Albers Foundation. This is the first inauguration without Maria Giuseppina Panza di Biumo, to whose dear memory the exhibition is dedicated, in gratitude for her generous commitment to Villa Panza.”

Nicholas Fox Weber, Executive Director of the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation and curator of the exhibition, commented:
“I have been involved with Josef’s work for fifty-five years and have curated major exhibitions, including the centenary retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1988. With Meditations, I wanted to present a selection of paintings of exceptional intimacy that, to my eyes, fully realise Josef’s vision of colour interaction, rendering each work ineffably sublime, with a luminosity that emerges at the very best moments of his practice. Working with Villa and Panza Collection offered the rare opportunity to let Josef’s work ‘sing’ thanks to the air surrounding it.”

In conjunction with the exhibition, a bilingual Italian–English catalogue published by Magonza Editore is released, featuring essays by Gabriella Belli, Marta Spanevello and Nicholas Fox Weber.

Josef Albers: Meditations is organised by FAI – Fondo per l’Ambiente Italiano ETS and the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, with the patronage of Regione Lombardia. The FAI thanks the Municipality of Varese for its collaboration. Special thanks go to Bancomat for supporting the FAI for the second consecutive year in the care and maintenance of Villa and Panza Collection and for strengthening its commitment as exhibition sponsor in 2026. Thanks are also extended to Seda International Packaging Group, which confirms its support through exhibition sponsorship.

Photo by Lorenzo Cicconi Massi

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