ALEXIUS HUBER and his shining metals and transparent glass membranes
by Oscar Reutersvärd

Alexius Huber belongs to the faithful heirs in Sweden of the great European constructivism. He keeps rigidly to the guidelines in this movement; to create an agreeable independent world as an important supplement to our everyday life.

That is why the constructivists regard themselves as a special group within the field of discoverers. With their designs they want to extend our sphere of experience and enrich it with artistic innovations.

Here Alexius Huber has over the years been able to patent a large number of new creations in the illustrative arts. Driven by a strong and real inspiration, he has worked in his experimental workshop along scientific lines. Since 1960 he has methodically approached the problem world at depth to materialize his desirable picture ideas. He has mainly acted as an explorer of sight and, with the help of metals and glass materials, transparent to light, he has carried out long series of experiments. In these experiments he has succeeded in exposing performances to the sight which have never been seen before, for instance in the form of light glimmering mirror effects from mobile composition elements worked by electric motors. Sometimes these have also been accompanied by sound effects. Parallel with this creative activity, he also carries out psychological experiments, that is, observations of the effect that his own constructions has on the viewers. He considers this as a logical part of the profession of an artist. This is where he checks that the effective power in his works is transplanted to the viewers and that it imposes an influence on them.

Alexius Huber shares with the majority of the constructivists the conviction that their activity is of social importance. He sees his work from the point of view of social importance and regards himself as participating in a progressive change in our world. The aim is a future society where the way of life is guided by humane principles and where constructivistical art is represented as an obvious spiritual asset. From this point of view constructivism will get its right character illustrated. This has often been misinterpreted as an indifferent division of engineers in 20th century art. In reality it is a sensible and spiritual focusation in painting and sculpturing which through its works wishes to guide people out of our physical existence and into the sublime world of pure art. Their ways of experimenting have been aimed at finding constellations of shape which excite and fascinate the viewers and with some hypnotic ability keep their eyes on the picture.

Thus the most correct way to regard Alexius Huber's compositions is as a sort of subject of meditation. In the correct contact with his works the viewer can fall into a calm, pure and enjoyable experience of shape.

Oscar Reutersvärd Ph.D., Prof. of Art History University of Lund LUND 1980