Josef Albers: art, education and democracy

Abstract

Throughout his career as an art teacher, Josef Albers made clear his vision of a methodology of education that put the arts at its core, with the aim of teaching people to see and to understand the world through its visual and material aspects. He believed that experimentation and direct experience with reality would ultimately generate real knowledge and that it was only in this way that a conscious understanding of the world was possible: a requirement for the development of free and democratic people. This paper will analyse how Albers intertwined the ideas of art, education and democracy, and how he understood these relations within his contemporary world.