The second exhibition in Black Mountain College: An Exhibition Series explored the College’s emphasis on experimentation and the ways in which that experimental spirit led artists to explore new materials and forms and to forge entirely new directions in their work. A spirit of experimentation was at the very core of the College’s educational philosophy. In the 1937 bulletin, faculty member Anni Albers encouraged artists to “leave the safe ground of accepted conventions.” Both she and Josef Albers produced some of their most experimental work at Black Mountain College and many other artists were encouraged to find a new way of working, free from previous restrictions and expectations.

The curriculum that Josef Albers developed for Black Mountain College offered an alternative to the traditional academic model. The core of the curriculum was a study of the elements of form; its method one of discovery and invention; its goal “a constant and accurate ‘seeing and perceiving.’” Albers noted that “in art, as in all communication, precision — as to the effect wanted — and discipline — as to the means used — are decisive. Both can be achieved through experience, through continuous and repeated experimentation.”

The Alberses, Buckminster Fuller, Ray Johnson and Robert Rauschenberg were among the artists at Black Mountain College who embraced experimentation, each using their media in a different way, or abandoning their primary artistic direction in order to follow newer interests.

Ray Johnson, Untitled (Dear Josef Albers), 1993, mixed media collage, 7.3 x 7.8 inches. The estate of Ray Johnson - courtesy of Richard L. Feigen & Co.