— was
fluent in the language of geometry, achieved this effect
an underlying modular structure
in her fabric design;
panel bears the same pattern, the fabric the repeat the spare
on the center
or,
mounted
at different points in
down. This way,
panels, simply turned upside
of fabric that Albers supplied to the temple could be used
roll
any one of the eight panels
to replace
is
by setting out
even though each
damage were ever to occur. economy transformed
if
Alberss rigorous aesthetic and practical
the synagogue's ark covering into a splendid architectural element.
The
panels are such a focal point in the sanctuary that the temple's building
committee Kepes
objected to them, even though they had approved
initially
the design several
months
November
In
earlier.
1956 the committee asked
Albers could produce a fabric pattern with "softened transitions"
if
had
to replace the fabric she
made
just
—
in time for the synagogue's
January dedication." Albers informed Kepes that
would be impossible
it
to
meet that deadline, so the committee was forced
as
they were. But no one complained after the February 1957 issue of
magazine came out, with the
Life
to accept the panels
glowing sanctuary reproduced
vast,
in
glorious color.'
Four years
Rhode work
Modern
that
had made studio
Congregation B'nai
is
building by Samuel Glaser. Albers responded with
entirely different
weaving
in Dallas,
(fig.
164).
of Woonsocket,
Israel
an ark covering for their new temple,
Island, invited Albers to create
a baroque a
later the
As
from the
six
sleek,
machine-woven piece she
on
textured tapestries
in Dallas, she
mounted
loom
a
the textiles
in her
on wooden panels
designed to slide apart during services. Measured amounts of gold Lurex in the tapestries lend luster to the other,
—and make
and
jute
entirely of gold.
—which
weft
On
much
quieter, materials
the textiles appear from a distance to be closer inspection the black
Albers referred to
as
"thread hieroglyphs"
of the general luminosity.^ The B'nai temple's sanctuary with a
and white
Israel panels,
shimmering radiance,
—cotton
woven
lines
of floating
—emerge out
which dominate the
are
somewhat
calligraphic,
symbolic of the sacred scriptures they protect and adorn. In an unpublished statement about this commission, Albers wrote
which she described
that an earlier weaving,
as "linear in design,
vaguely
suggesting written ciphers," was her point of departure.' (The earlier is
presumably ^/rtc^-W/^/r^-G'o/^/
relates to
[1950,
fig.
42].)
work
This reference to "ciphers"
an ongoing theme in Albers's work: the implicit relationship
between language and weaving. Albers's preoccupation with
this idea
grew
out of a lifelong admiration for the weavings produced in pre-Conquest Peru, a culture that
left
behind extraordinary
textiles
but no written
language. Albers believed that the "expressive directness" of the
Andean
weavers was possible precisely because they did not communicate through writing."
But Albers was
that language can take.
also interested in the variety
Among
Anni Albers Foundation)
are
of visual forms
her papers (now held at the Josef and
magazine clippings from the 1960s of various
scripts,
including Japanese calligraphy, musical notation, cuneiform, and
Arabic,
among
others.
She enjoyed the graphic
qualities
of these written
languages and the mystery of their abstraction. In the cipherlike design of the interest in the written
of Judaism
—
the study of
Albers's
the biblical injunction against iconography in favor of
Hebrew
texts.
Six Prayers, for the Jewish
120
Woonsocket commission,
form intersected compellingly with a basic tenet
The same
Museum
is
in
true of her subsequent commission.
New
York
(fig.
60).
The Jewish