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A Salute to Alexander Calder Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings, Prints, Illustrated Books, and Jewelry in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art

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A Salute to Alexander Calder Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings, Prints, Illustrated Books, and Jewelry in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art A salute to Alexander Calder sculpture, watercolors and drawings, prints, illustrated books, and jewelry in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Introductory essay by Bernice Rose Author Calder, Alexander, 1898-1976 Date 1969 Publisher The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition URL www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1931 The Museum of Modern Art's exhibition history— from our founding in 1929 to the present—is available online. It includes exhibition catalogues, primary documents, installation views, and an index of participating artists. MoMA © 2017 The Museum of Modern Art A SALUTE TO ALEXANDER CALDER I A SALUTE TO ALEXANDER CALDER SCULPTURE WATERCOLORSAND DRAWINGS PRINTS ILLUSTRATEDBOOKS AND JEWELRY IN THE COLLECTION OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART INTRODUCTORYESSAY BY BERNICEROSE THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK 0HA r( The quotation from Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again Oio is reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Quotations from Calder-. An Autobiography with Pictures are reprinted by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-1 10987 The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53 Street New York, N.Y. 10019 © 1969 by The Museum of Modern Art. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America OP I ART J on the cover MODEL FOR "TEODELAPIO." (1962) opposite Alexander Calder, Roxbury, Conn., 1959 (photo Alexander Liberman) A SALUTE TO ALEXANDER CALDER Throughout his long career as one of the pioneering sculptors of the twentieth century, Alexander Calder has been unusually reticent, making very few statements about his work and theorizing as little as possible when he could be persuaded to speak. "When an artist ex plains what he is doing," he wrote in 1937, "he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make subsequent work fit in with the ex planation. Theories may be all very well for the artist himself, but they shouldn't be broadcast to other people." Calder remains reticent to this day. But, while he has left to others to theorize about his sculpture, the sculp ture itself has generated its own definitions. In the Addenda Section of the Second Edition of Webster's New International Dictionary published in 1954 there are two definitions that had not appeared in earlier editions: mobile n. Art. A delicately balanced construction or sculpture of a type developed by Alexander Calder since 1930, usually with movable parts, which can be set in motion by currents of air or mechanically propelled, stabile n. Art. An abstract sculpture or construction typi cally made of sheet metal, wire, and wood. Cf. MOBILE In subsequent editions the definitions no longer make direct reference to Calder, indicating that his work had generated a whole new genre of objects, so integrated that they were classified as part of the general vocabu lary. These are definitions that can be applied only to sculpture made in the twentieth century and only to sculpture set within a fairly specific context, and with certain definite roots. The roots most meaningful here are Constructivism, an art movement based on the ana lytic structure of Picasso's Cubist collages; Futurist ideas that demanded that art portray space through dynamic movement and use industrial materials appropriate to an age of speed; and Malevich's rejection of the portrayal of objects as necessary to art. Calder was, perhaps, peculiarly qualified to realize the ideas of the Constructivists and at the same time synthesize them with Surrealism. Son and grandson of sculptors, he himself had been trained as a mechanical engineer. He was thus familiar with both technology and art when he arrived in Paris in the late twenties, and was on the scene during a major revival of interest in non- objective art, Constructivism, and Dada. above LOBSTERTRAP AND FISH TAIL. (1939) Calder's first fame came from his performance of his miniature circus before the avant-garde. The impact the opposite WHALE II. (1964) circus had on these intellectual and social circles is per- 4 haps best indicated by the circumstance that years later Thomas Wolfe, in his novel You Can't Go Home Again, would use a performance of the circus as a focus for his stinging comment on a social milieu that used art and artists as a diversion. "Yes, Mr. Piggy Logan was the rage that year. He was the creator of a puppet circus of wire dolls, and the applause with which this curious entertainment had been greeted was astonishing. Not to be able to discuss him and his little dolls intelligently was, in smart circles, akin to never having heard of Jean Cocteau or Surrealism; it was like being completely at a loss when such names as Picasso and Brancusi and Utrillo and Gertrude Stein were mentioned. Mr. Piggy Logan and his art were spoken of with the same animated reverence that the knowing used when they spoke of one of these— "The highest intelligences of the time—the very subtlest of the chosen few —were bored by many things— They were bored with living, they were bored with dy ing, but— they were not bored that year with Mr. Piggy Logan and his circus of wire dolls.... "...There were miniature circus rings made of rounded strips of tin or copper which fitted neatly together. There were trapezes and flying swings. And there was an astonishing variety of figures made of wire to represent all the animals and performers. There were clowns and trapeze artists, acrobats and tumblers, horses and bare back lady riders. There was almost everything that one could think of to make a circus complete, and all of it was constructed of wire — "It started, as all circuses should, with a grand pro cession of the performers and the animals in the me nagerie. Mr. Logan accomplished this by taking each wire figure in his thick hand and walking it around the ring and then solemnly out again. ... "Then came an exhibition of bareback riders. Mr. Logan galloped his wire horses into the ring and round and round with movements of his hand. Then he put the riders on top of the wire horses, and, holding them firmly in place, he galloped these around too. Then there was an interlude of clowns, and he made the wire figures tumble about by manipulating them with his hands. After this came a procession of wire elephants. .. ." above THE HORSE. (1928) These performances provided Calder not only with The Horse is an early combination carved-and-constructed piece-, it money to eat but with introductions to the most ad prefigures the structure of the later metal stabiles. vanced artists of the time. In Paris he met Miro (although "Metal is more flexible for shapes, shapes in wood are limited by the he did not immediately assimilate the significance of grain." (Conversation) Miro's work), and ultimately Arp, Leger, and other mem bers of Abstraction-Creation, the exhibiting group of below COW. (1929) the Neo-Plasticists and Constructivists in Paris. Gradually "The form isn't very elegant." (Conversation) he turned the emphasis away from the circus and began 6 SODA FOUNTAIN. (1928) THE HOSTESS.(1928) 7 to construct and exhibit large wire figures. Josephine Baker was the first subject to be treated in this large format. Though many of the wire sculptures are carica tures, they are—the portraits in particular— the first sculp tures in which Calder makes use of multiple views, constructs a sculpture in which all sides can be seen at once, and modulates space as if it were a palpable volume. It cannot be claimed that Calder was pursuing any radically new, original course in sculpture at this time. Open-form sculpture was under constant discussion dur ing these years; with the collaboration of Gonzalez, Picasso was also working with wire. But, whereas he was soldering and using wire as a stiff, sticklike element, Calder, who has always preferred mechanical construc tions, was creating in the manner that has remained characteristic for him. He has always found it easier to think with his hands, to think in terms of specific mate rials. He bends and twists wire to outline planes and volume and follow features as if wire were a fluid line drawn in space. The flexibility of these wire figures shows that from the first Calder displayed a propensity for mov ing form. He had become so facile with wire representa tions that he could make a piece like Sow on demand in fifteen minutes. But, by 1930, he was ready for new chal lenges. An earlier piece of 1928, Elephant Chair with Lamp, already shows elements of much later standing mobiles: a fixed organic form for a base, a wire arm extended from the apex, with mobile elements suspended from it. Calder quickly began to move into new areas. It is at this time that Constructivist ideas seem to have provided him with a new context for open-form sculp ture. Constructivism had originated in Russia during the Revolution with the brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner, who spread its ideas first to Germany and then to Paris during the twenties. In both countries it had significant effects, becoming a focus for plastic innova tions. In 1920 Gabo had written the Realistic Manifesto in which he announced the Constructivist break with the plastic tradition that had dominated Western art for "1000 years." Among his pronouncements are several that seem appropriate to Calder: "The realization of our perceptions of the world in the forms of space and time is the only aim of our pic torial and plastic art...
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  • Calder and Sound
    Gryphon Rue Rower-Upjohn Calderand Sound Herbert Matter, Alexander Calder, Tentacles (cf. Works section, fig. 50), 1947 “Noise is another whole dimension.” Alexander Calder 1 A mobile carves its habitat. Alternately seductive, stealthy, ostentatious, it dilates and retracts, eternally redefining space. A noise-mobile produces harmonic wakes – metallic collisions punctuating visual rhythms. 2 For Alexander Calder, silence is not merely the absence of sound – silence gen- erates anticipation, a bedrock feature of musical experience. The cessation of sound suggests the outline of a melody. 3 A new narrative of Calder’s relationship to sound is essential to a rigorous portrayal and a greater comprehension of his genius. In the scope of Calder’s immense œuvre (thousands of sculptures, more than 22,000 documented works in all media), I have identified nearly four dozen intentionally sound-producing mobiles. 4 Calder’s first employment of sound can be traced to the late 1920s with Cirque Calder (1926–31), an event rife with extemporised noises, bells, harmonicas and cymbals. 5 His incorporation of gongs into his sculpture followed, beginning in the early 1930s and continuing through the mid-1970s. Nowadays preservation and monetary value mandate that exhibitions of Calder’s work be in static, controlled environments. Without a histor- ical imagination, it is easy to disregard the sound component as a mere appendage to the striking visual mien of mobiles. As an additional obstacle, our contemporary consciousness is clogged with bric-a-brac associations, such as wind chimes and baby crib bibelots. As if sequestered from this trail of mainstream bastardi- sations, the element of sound in certain works remains ulterior.
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