NARRATOR: Josef Albers made more than a thousand arrangements like the ones you see here. Four differently colored squares, one nested inside of another.  Each of these works is part of a twenty-five year-long experiment he called “Homage to the Square.” 

JOSEPH ALBERS: They have a square within a square. I think one form demands, if you really deal with it, 1000 performances. 

SFX: Music  

ALBERS: I am interested in the interaction of color – that means, how does one change the other color? I want to have my colors act.  

SFX: Music 

ALBERS: I believe that art looks at us. You see, this, that has an eye. That I tried to do by very clean colors. I have hundreds of tones, but I do not mix them myself. They come out of the tube and I smear them on like butter on my pumpernickel.   

SFX: Music  

ALBERS: Color is always deceiving us. We almost never see what a color really is, what a color physically is.  There is a discrepancy between the physical fact somewhere in front of us, and the psychic effect.