Writing functions not only as language, but also as a visual and even tactile form. Famed artist and educator Josef Albers imparted this idea to his students at Black Mountain College, a former liberal arts school in North Carolina, where artist Ray Johnson studied from 1945 to 1948. In an exercise called \u201ctypofacture,\u201d Albers asked students in his design course to create drawings mimicking printed or handwritten text. After observing textures on surfaces \u2014 like speckles on a wall or patterns in a raked garden path \u2014 they applied the concept to printed text, which bears the imprint of its production, whether by hand or machine. This activity left a lasting impression on Johnson, a future collage and correspondence artist, whose works (like Paul Klee\u2019s) frequently combine text and representations.<\/p>\n
Klee\u2019s merging of myth, symbol, figuration, and expression resonated with many at Black Mountain College and shaped Johnson\u2019s approach. In a 1947 letter to a peer, Johnson enclosed an image of Klee\u2019s Actor\u2019s Mask<\/i> (1924) with the postscript, \u201cI send a Klee with cracks.\u201d His admiration deepened into a recurring influence, visible in his expressive line work and iconic motifs like arrows and spirals. Whereas Klee\u2019s imagery builds dreamlike worlds, Johnson\u2019s marks accumulate like field notes across a creative terrain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Writing functions not only as language, but also as a visual and even tactile form. Famed artist and educator Josef Albers imparted this idea to his students at Black Mountain College, a former liberal arts school in North Carolina, where artist Ray Johnson studied from 1945 to 1948. In an exercise called \u201ctypofacture,\u201d Albers asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":792301,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"department":[5],"class_list":["post-792292","exhibition","type-exhibition","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","department-painting-and-sculpture","wpautop"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition\/792292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/exhibition"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition\/792292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845102,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exhibition\/792292\/revisions\/845102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=792292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}