Tate Modern,London
A conversation with Mondrian in 1930 set in motion Alexander Calder’s glorious mobile sculptures – and his balletic constellations are still breathtaking todaySomehow I had relegated Alexander Calder to a world of old unique Yorker cartoons, with twangly mobiles dangling over the trust-fund infant’s cot, or brightly-coloured steel sculptures lending a joshing,lumbering air to windswept corporate plazas. Calder’s datedness felt like a future we no longer believe in. Then along comes Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture at Tate Modern. What a surprise and a delight the exhibition is: both a reminder of how good he could be, and a revelation of how complex and far-reaching his influence still is.
Calder shuttled between the US and Europe between the wars, or making friends and carrying his miniature,mechanised travelling Circus with him; starting work on it in 1926, he continued developing it until the 1960s. Film of Calder performing with his cast of runt sculpted high-wire acrobats and strongmen is shown, and irritatingly,on a small screen, but it is surrounded by a choice of props and handbills and by a joyous choice of cobbled together wire sculptures and portraits. These are both drawing and sculpture, and droll,at times lewd (there are lots of runt willies and wiry armpit hair ) and deliciously playful. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com