Alexander Calder, Fanni, the Belly Dancer, from Calder’s Circus, 1926–31
I went to see the Singular Visions Exhibit at The Whitney Museum and highly recommend it. From what I understand the curator chose 12 pieces from the museum’s permanent collection, and placed each in its own space, “in order to create intimate and compelling encounters with a single work of art.” I found it intimate and compelling so I guess he succeeded.
“The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition.”
~Alexander Calder
At the moment the exhibit includes the following artists: Jonathan Borofsky, Alexander Calder, Eva Hesse, Matthew Day Jackson, Jasper Johns, Lee Krasner, Len Lye, Agnes Martin, Josephine Meckseper, and Fred Wilson. (I believe the curator rotates pieces by adding new ones while removing some of the existing periodically.)
Calder’s “Circus” 1926-31 and “Indian Feathers” 1969
Listen to the audio guide for Alexander Calder’s “Circus” here.
Being an Alexander Calder fan I certainly wasn’t going to miss this one. What’s not to like about the artist who invented the mobile? As the story goes, when Calder visited Piet Mondrian at his studio he was very inspired by what he was currently working on. Thinking that all the brightly colored abstract shapes in Mondrian’s work would look even better in motion, he cut some brightly colored abstract shapes out of sheet metal, connected them with wire, like a balance scale, and voila! The concept for the “Mobile” was born. In 1931 Marcel Duchamp in an effort to describe Calder’s free-hanging sculptures referred to them as “Mobiles” and coined the term so familiar to all of us today. Isn’t that a great story? I can’t imagine life without mobiles.
Singular Visions is organized by Dana Miller, curator, permanent collection and curator Scott Rothkopf.
Keep our museums in business. Go see some art!
Jane Marvel
