JOSEPH ALBERS, c.1929

Joseph Albers’ untitled photograph, typically referred to as “Laundry on a Clothesline”, is approximately 11cm by 17cm, forming a part of the Guggenheim’s photography collection.

Assumed to have been created in 1929, the piece conforms to the Bauhaus focus on material and object – the entire composition pivoting around the clothes hanging on the line. Here the mundane is transformed, the dress given new shape and ‘life’ through a gust of wind. The clothes on the line appear almost sculptural, their structured forms evoking the white marbles of classical antiquity. By merging domesticity with the world of art, the piece challenges traditional expectations of what art ‘should be’.

Yet the impermanence of these forms is clear. The moment Albers presents is fleeting, the photograph being the only remaining record of its existence. In this light, the forms could perhaps be interpreted as spectral; the absence of the clothes’ wearers introducing a profound emptiness to the scene. As a viewer we are left to speculate who these clothes may belong to, projecting our own lives and experiences into the piece.

Overall, “Laundry on a Clothesline” presents something of a modern Vanitas in its take on form and impermanence. Simultaneously imposing yet domestic, the piece blurs the boundaries between fine art and the mundane. Ultimately drawing into question the validity of traditional hierarchical perspectives on subject matter in its transformation and subsequent elevation of household objects.