What we now see hanging above the beds of toddlers, entrancing young children everywhere, started as an avant-garde art undertaking. Calder was raised by a sculptor father and painter mother. He attended school for Mechanical Engineering before finally becoming a full-time artist. Both his personal and educational backgrounds set him up for his foray into kinetic sculpture. Throughout his childhood, Calder was always constructing toys.
He was fascinated with using objects to create multiple dimensions, and upon receiving his degree in mechanical engineering in , Calder decided to apply his passion and formal training to a career as a professional artist. He attended art classes in New York, and in moved to Paris, where he received acclaim for putting on small-scale circus performances known as Cirque Calder.
Calder created a series of metal figures that would move around a circus tent. He performed the show for small groups of friends with his wife, Louisa. Alexander Calder. Cascading Flowers, A mobile in motion leaves an invisible wake behind it, or rather, each element leaves an individual wake behind its individual self … In setting them in motion by a touch of the hand, consideration should be had for the direction in which the object is designed to move, and for the inertia of the mass involved.
A slow gentle impulse, as though one were moving a barge, is almost infallible. In any case, gentle is the word. He maintained a sharp eye with respect to the engineering balance of the sculptures and utilized these to develop the kinetic sculptures.
This lead to his first truly kinetic sculptures, manipulated by means of cranks and pulleys. By suspending the works in mid-air, Calder discovered that he could add life to the otherwise static sculpture. It enabled him to experiment and put movement into figures that could fly through the air with the greatest of ease. The circus crossed the Atlantic in five suitcases, with customs officers never quite sure whether what they passed was art or scrap metal.
Sometimes the hat was passed but, more important, Calder met and learned from the trailblazers of the French art world. Calder installed the circus at the Whitney Museum in New York on an indefinite loan in He was pleased by the motion that Calder had introduced into his pieces—some cranked by hand, others motor-driven.
Their ideas blended. His work had names: Calderberry Bush, Goldfish Bowl his first free-floating, wind-operated mobile , Steel Fish, Whale, Constellations stabiles and mobiles with organic shapes of painted or polished wood , Whirligig, Southern Cross, Black Widow, Jousting Knight, Snow Plow —all of which required applied imagination of the beholder. But this notion of viewer or reader involvement cuts across arts and letters.
It is the bridge between souls. Robert Osborn once asked him how the increase in the scale of his work started. He had hundred-foot-high jets of water rising and falling at different speeds. Some of them rotated in different patterns. His large metal constructions began to grow when he was working with architects on problem sites and commemorative locations. He pierced the sky with his foot-high stabile in Spoleto in In the winter of Calder had a show of fairly large stabiles at Perls.
Museums continue to vie for Calder stabiles and mobiles. The City , a large stabile with a small mobile element in its center, was brought by Carlos Villaneuva for the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas.
Between his two houses in Roxbury, Conn. Calder warms up these days by starting work in a one-room house he calls La Gouacherie, turning out gouaches that use only five colors—black, white, blue, red, yellow. Then he gets down to the heavy work in his metal shop, designing models for stabiles and mobiles. As we talked at Perls, I reached out to touch a small Calder insect, about two feet high, its antennae balanced on a delicate body and legs.
I asked Calder what he called it. You named it yourself— La Cucaracha! I inquired if it had any political connotations. Would he invent some new form? At the age of 75, he has done what many artists have been unable to do—to maintain a fresh and liberating outlook, without abridgment.
All Rights reserved. December 19, am. Powered by WordPress. Our Sites. Close the menu Menu. ARTnews Expand the sub menu. Following on from this exhibition, Calder came to be regarded as a serious contender in the world of abstract art.
The War Years brought with them a shortage of sheet metal. This posed a problem for Calder who relied on this material to create his masterpieces. Usually he would cut sheet metal into pieces that he would then assemble into his mobiles. However, this did not phase Calder. Instead the shortage brought with it a new era for Calder who turned to more natural materials.
Wood and wire became his new tools. With this new medium, Calder created his Constellations series in the s, so called because the sculptures resembled the Cosmos. Later in his career Calder was often commissioned to create giant structures. In order to create these structures he would first make models of them, then they would come to fruition in one of his studios. One of the largest of these sculptures was Man which was installed in Montreal and stood at 65 feet.
In , Calder was commissioned to design the outside of an aeroplane in his typical bright style by Braniff International Airways.
This project came to be known as Flying Colours, primarily flying to South America. In , he was commissioned to decorate another plane, which came to be known as Flying Colours of the United States. Although mingling with the abstract artists of the day, Calder never sought to be defined by a particular artistic movement.
In fact he was specifically anti this concept. He was of the opinion that when an artist defined themselves, this was when they became limited. Instead he believed that when an artist was attempting to explain their work, they should in fact be challenging their ideas.
To conclude, Alexander Calder truly underwent an evolution throughout his career. He drew on inspiration from everyone and everything he encountered throughout his life. However, he managed to maintain his true to his values and beliefs throughout his life, allowing him to create truly forward thinking sculptures.
Ultimately, these qualities meant he completely transformed sculpture as we knew it into a lighter and more playful art form. He came from an artistic background Photo credit: Thomas Powell Imaging, Dog and Duck Coming from an artistic family, it is not hard to see how Calder ended up being such a pillar of the art world, although it was not his parents who pushed him into this career.
The War Years altered the materials he used for his sculptures Constellation Mobile , made from wood, wire, string, paint, The War Years brought with them a shortage of sheet metal.
He once collaborated with an airline Collaboration with Braniff International Airways, In , Calder was commissioned to design the outside of an aeroplane in his typical bright style by Braniff International Airways.
0コメント