Josef Albers, Growing, 1940 (oil on masonite; shown at the 1988 Albers exhibition at the Guggenheim).
Michael Palmer’s “Autobiography 4 (Idem)” (from The Promises of Glass):
Voice: Do you see that purple tint the sky has taken on?
Other Voice: I’d say mauve, it’s more a mauve.
V.: Is there any difference?
O.V.: One has more pink.
V.: Which?
O.V.: Which what?
V.: Which has more pink?
O.V.: I don’t really know.
V.: Then how can you…
O.V.: It sounds right for that.
V.: Do you always go by the sound?
O.V.: Sound?
V.: The sound, the…
O.V.: What does that mean, “Go by the sound”?
V.: I mean sometimes it begins with sounds—nothing else. You follow, you…
O.V.: Musical sounds?
V.: No, less organized.
O.V.: Like the sounds around us now?
V.: No, like the sounds not around us now.
O.V.: Sounds you can’t hear?
V.: Sounds you can’t hear.
O.V.: You listen to sounds you can’t hear?
V.: No.
O.V.: No?
V.: It’s before listening.
O.V.: Before listening?
V.: Listening is attention. Before attention.
O.V.: Mauve: “A delicate purple, violet or lilac color.”
V.: Purple: “A color of a hue between blue and red; one of the colors commonly called violet, lilac, mauve, etc.”
O.V.: Same and not.
V.: Same or not.
O.V. Same as not.
V.: Not same.
O.V.: Same not same.
V.: The form is fulfilled at thirty-six.
O.V.: Magenta.
