Josef Albers: Duets

David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Josef Albers (1888–1976) opening at the gallery’s 606 N Western Avenue location in Los Angeles. Organized in collaboration with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, this exhibition is an iteration of Josef Albers: Duets, which opened at David Zwirner Paris in January 2026 and featured paired compositions wherein two related forms are played against one another. The presentation in Los Angeles will further explore the concept of dualities, a prevailing fascination for the artist. As Nicholas Fox Weber, executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, notes: “Albers delighted in pointing out that ‘in math and science, one plus one is two; in art, one plus one is two and also many more.’ Lifelong, he would periodically play two related forms against one another to demonstrate the multiple events, exciting and mysterious, that occur as a result of dualities. To juxtapose closely related forms enabled Albers to give you, the audience whom he cherished, a visual feast.”

This will be the first significant exhibition in Los Angeles devoted to Albers’s work in several decades and will offer an opportunity to celebrate the artist’s history with prominent institutions in the city. The last major solo presentation in Los Angeles of Albers’s work was at Margo Leavin Gallery in 1985, following a 1966 exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and three solo shows at the iconic Ferus Gallery in the early 1960s. Also in the early 1960s, Albers was a visiting artist and a fellow at Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, where he established what would become a productive, yearslong working relationship with master printer Kenneth Tyler and produced important series of lithographs.