RADIO JOSEF ALBERS 

IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES

PAINTINGS FROM THE MILTON FRIEDMAN COLLECTION (2026)

(TEST ROOM)

Milton Friedman, advocate of neoliberalism, proclaimed a liberal vocabulary that, in principle, could also be applied to a free art. This overlap makes one uneasy. His liberal capitalist ideas can, in principle, only be implemented through force and demonstrably lead to greater inequality. To my knowledge, he was not interested in art.

Josef Albers, artist, Homage to the Square, 1950–1971. Each color points to another, making it perceptible, making it experienceable. And it is not the painting but the act of recognition, the experience itself, that is the work of art.

“Ideas Have Consequences” (after Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, 1948; a philosophical essay on the substance of the so-called True. It essentially argues against modern terminology and its effects. Nevertheless, it is cited primarily by conservatives, which is contradictory. This is also connected to Friedrich Hayek’s notion of the “power of ideas,” the founding father of neoliberalism.) “Ideas Have Consequences” should not be left to the wrong people.

Green, Red, Black, White.