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The
mobile is immediately and indelibly associated with the American
sculptor Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976). This show at the Whitney
is playful and fun and traces Calder's evolution as an artist
through his years in Paris, from 1926 to 1933, and his eventual
shift towards the mobile. Calder's father and grandfather were
both famous sculptors and Calder tried very hard to not be an
artist. He first trained as a mechanical engineer but eventually
gave in and enrolled at the Art Students League in New York in
1925. His relocation to Paris the following year was catalytic to his
development; it was the Roaring Twenties and Paris
was the place to be and he stayed there for seven formative years.
What is
fascinating is that he moved to Europe to become a
painter and instead began working in three dimensions, using wire to draw in space.
In the
early Paris years Calder began making wire sculptures, using
industrial strength steel wire as if it were ink with which he
limned caricatures. There are several portraits of Josephine Baker
in the show and it is quite marvelous to see how with a subtle
twist of wire he is able to convey the particularities of a person
as if he were sketching with pen-and-ink. He was then known to
always carry a pair of pliers and a roll of wire, and like a
magician manipulated metal by twisting, braiding, and forming
shapes out of thin air. The French called him affectionately 'the
king of wire'. Also on show is the famous Calder's Circus (and a
part of the Whitney's permanent collection) - tiny wire figures that
can be manipulated. One sees here the influence of his training
in mechanical engineering and the moving toys he had made since
childhood
A Mondrian studio visit in 1930 was instrumental in his
move towards the abstract, his eventual move to his iconic mobiles retaining the use of wire and adding
circles and shapes that carve space. Cone d'Ebene
(1933) is an early such abstract work. There are hints of the
paintings of Miro (who he also met in Paris) in his mobiles and
Marcel Duchamp is said to have suggested the name
mobile. Paris marked him, indelibly.
Calder
returned to America in 1933. Despite the French
influence, as Fernand Léger said, Calder was "a hundred percent
American."
Visit:
Alexander
Calder: The Paris Years, 1926—1933 on view through February
15, 2009
Tags:
art
design sculpture
paris
france
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