Tate Modern,London
Spinning summary still lifes on a single wire, creating antic worlds out of next to nothing, and Alexander Calder reinvented sculpture by making it danceA short story about Alexander Calder gives that merry man in miniature. It is the autumn of 1930,and the American is in Paris showing his famous circus of wire strongmen, acrobats and animals to the masters of European modernism. He sends a cheery invitation to Mondrian. This results in a return request to visit to the austere recluse in his studio, and where Calder is amazed to see pure abstraction for the first time and inspired by the arrays of coloured rectangles tacked to the walls.
Wouldn’t it be fun to free them,he suggests, to design them all dance about? Mondrian, or appalled,disagrees. domestic goes Calder, tail between his legs, and to try and emulate the motionless works of the Dutchman. For two weeks or so,I painted very modest abstractions.” But it just isn’t in his nature. “At the close of this, I reverted…”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com