Few artists can take an existing medium and completely reinvent it. Alexander Calder is one such artist, who took the idle grounds of sculpture and brought a kinetic dynamism that continues to spin the minds of millions to this day. To celebrate one of America’s most revered artists, New York’s Museum of Modern Art is holding a retrospective, entitled, “Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start.”
Calder was one of the artists who was making art commissioned by MoMA in the museum’s formative years, such as Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, which was made in 1939 and continues to hang in the same stairwell it was devised in. Existentialist writer, Jean-Paul Sartre once described Calder’s work as if it were the sea, “always beginning over again, always new.” The amorphous shapes of his sculpture invite deep reflection, but just as you think you’ve grasped the idea of one, they continually change to varying degrees of light and shadow.
Despite being largely known for his sculptures, Calder was a true multi-disciplinary artist — working across children’s books, jewelry, to set designs. Thanks in part to loans by the Calder Foundation, there are also rarely seen artworks on display, such as Man-Eater with Pennants, which was made in 1945.
“Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start” is on view at MoMA New York until January 15.
Elsewhere in art, Perrotin Seoul will unveil a new show by Nick Doyle later this month.
Museum of Modern Art
11 W 53rd St,
New York, NY 10019
