Three-part sculpture, made in Josef Albers’ preliminary course

Takehiko Mizutani, Three-part sculpture, made in Josef Albers' preliminary course, ca. 1928 (reconstruction from the 1960s)
Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Photo: Florian de Brün

Die goldfarbene Skulptur steht vor hellem Grund. Ein dünnes rundes Messingblech ist an der rechten Seite aufgeschnitten und bis zur Mitte geteilt. Die obere Hälfte ist nach links zu einem langen Trichter eingedreht. Entgegengesetzt ist die untere Hälfte zu einem weiteren Trichter geformt, der auch als Fuß der Skulptur dient. Zwischen die beiden Trichter sind zwei kleinere, gebogene Bleche aufgesteckt.

This work by Takehiko Mizutani was created around 1928 in Josef Albers’s preliminary course. Albers encouraged his students to intensively explore and experiment with different materials. According to Albers, you first have to understand a material in order to then become able to use it constructively. To this end, the preliminary course involved working with various materials, such as paper, cardboard and later metal as well. Mizutani, for example, joined together three round pieces of sheet brass, into which he had previously cut slits, bent apart and inserted into each other. This enabled him to transform the two-dimensional sheet metal into a three-dimensional, self-supporting form.