The text speaks with complexity and nuance on black and white as colors-that white is not just white, nor is black only black. Interaction of Color addresses black and white in terms of value, as well as hue.

In the face of all of these things, it might seem perplexing to ask questions of art, and yet I cannot think of anything more applicable at this time to help us understand what we are experiencing.

A debate has intensified over social distancing and the need to wear masks: Does one have the right to tell another person what to wear? Does one have the right to make another person sick? The problem worsens still with the volatile and misdirecting rhetoric coming from the White House. This is compounded with news that more people are getting sick on a daily basis, and at record numbers. New tensions are rising in America due to the reopening of our economy, which now seems to have been too rapid in execution. As a result, I have come to recognize the power of group effort to work through problems of perception. Interaction of Color has taught me so much about understanding the benefit of interconnectedness within communities. In engaging Albers’s vision of tolerance, I see a way of addressing the social change needed to heal us from the pain of racial conflict and social misunderstanding. With the federal government’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, and the ensuing race and class inequities that have come with it, what becomes increasingly apparent is that something else is needed to create greater equanimity amongst ourselves in this time of crisis. He strives for a community of others to voice their collective truth as they work through a series of color problems. In the process, Albers eschews a “master narrative,” and instead allows for other voices to speak and be heard. Each chapter reads as a simple, step-by-step process of instruction and exercises to convey the interrelatedness of color. Albers does this open-mindedly, and with an astonishing sense of tolerance for error in one’s judgment and perception. The ease with which the book addresses color theory in art, consecutively with race and class, is nothing short of remarkable.

Josef Albers’s 1963 book Interaction of Color has not only changed my life, it has also affected my worldview.

Out today on Elephant is Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett on Franco Vaccari’s Photomatic d’Italia. Together, our publications want to celebrate the personal and transformative power of art. A new piece will be published every two weeks on both Elephant and Artsy. Elephant and Artsy have come together to present This Artwork Changed My Life, a creative collaboration that shares the stories of life-changing encounters with art.

Interaction of Color by Josef Albers