ART-PRESENTATION:Alexander Calder-Stories
Alexander Calder is widely regarded as the artist who made sculpture move, forging a practice in dialogue with the world in motion and the motion in things. His radical and pioneering methods of making art – understood both technically and conceptually – changed the course of modern art. Born into a family of celebrated, though more classically trained artists, Calder developed a new method of sculpting: by bending and twisting wire, he essentially “drew” three-dimensional figures in space.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Centro Botín Archive
Alexander Calder is renowned for the invention of the mobile, whose suspended, abstract elements move and balance in changing harmony. Coined by Marcel Duchamp in 1931, the word mobile refers to both “motion” and “motive” in French. Some of the earliest mobiles moved by a system of motors, although these mechanics were virtually abandoned as Calder developed mobiles that responded to air currents, light, humidity, and human interaction. He also created stationary abstract works that Jean Arp dubbed stabiles. The major exhibition “Calder Stories” spanning five decades of Alexander Calder’s career, is comprised of approximately 80 works, consider little known stories within Calder’s oeuvre, from the development of major public commissions to groundbreaking performances. Calder’s collaborations with leading architects, choreographers and composers of his time resulted in some of his most recognised works, and yet their backstories remain largely unexamined. A number of these important projects went unrealised, including collaborations from the 1930 and 1940s with such luminaries as Wallace K. Harrison, Harrison Kerr and Percival Goodman. The exhibition traces Calder’s creative process in the execution of these projects, from his maquettes for sculpture competitions and world’s fairs to his proposals for choreographed objects and performances and including rare sketches and related ephemera. Among the unrealised projects shown in the exhibition will be a series of six maquettes made by Calder in 1939 to accompany Percival Goodman’s submission for a proposed Smithsonian Gallery of Art in Washington; and a group of nearly two-dozen bronzes from 1944, made at the suggestion of Wallace K. Harrison for an International Style building and envisioned to stand some 10-12 metres tall in cast concrete. Drawings relating to what Calder termed ‘ballet objects’, including set designs for a proposed ballet with music by Harrison Kerr will be presented and digital animations of several compositions have been specially commissioned for the exhibition. From the 1950s onward, Calder turned his attention to international commissions and increasingly devoted himself to making outdoor sculpture on a grand scale from bolted steel plate. Some of these major commissions include: “125” for the New York Port Authority in John F. Kennedy Airport (1957); “Spirale” for UNESCO in Paris (1958); “Teodelapio” for the city of Spoleto, Italy (1962); “Trois disques” for the Expo in Montreal (1967); “El Sol Rojo” for the Olympic Games in Mexico City (1968); “La Grande Vitesse” which was the first public art work to be funded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), for the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan (1969); and “Flamingo” for the General Services Administration in Chicago (1973).
Info: Curator: Hans Ulrich Obrist, Centro Botín, Muelle de Albareda s/n, Jardines de Pereda, Santander, Duration: 29/6-3/11/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-21:00, www.centrobotin.org
