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Lot Essay
‘A mobile is a feisty thing, and seldom stays tranquilly in one place to be measured. Even the most dormant of mobiles seldom rests quiet when the yard stick is applied to it’ (A. Calder, quoted in M. Prather (ed.), Alexander Calder 1898-1976, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998, p. 62).
With its five delicately balanced circles suspended on fine wire armatures, Alexander Calder’s Untitled of 1960 is a magnificent example of his iconic standing mobiles. Combining bold geometric forms with precisely-engineered structural dynamics, it is an extraordinary example of the intimately detailed works that Calder continued to create in a period which became increasingly dominated by gigantically-scaled sculptural commissions. At the height of his international acclaim, Calder never lost the lively ingenuity that inspired his earliest standing mobiles: the organic, floating forms that seemed to spring into life at the slightest gust of air. Currently the subject of a major exhibition at Tate Modern, London, Calder’s exquisite kinetic objects were among the most pioneering developments in twentieth-century sculpture, combining colour, form and movement into unique pieces of visual poetry. As Marcel Duchamp once wrote, ‘A light breeze [starts] in motion weights, counter-weights, levers which design in mid-air their unpredictable arabesques and introduce an element of lasting surprise. The symphony is complete when color and sound join in and call on all our senses to follow the unwritten score. Pure joie de vivre. The art of Calder is the sublimation of a tree in the wind’ (M. Duchamp, quoted in G. Braziller,The Sculpture of the Century, New York 1959, p. 85). With its elegant visual harmony and subtle kinetic orchestration, Untitled perfectly exemplifies this claim.
Calder’s shift to abstraction began with his now-legendary visit to Mondrian’s Parisian studio in 1930. Mondrian’s re-arranging of brightly coloured cardboard rectangular shapes against the wall opened Calder’s eyes to the potential of movable solid shapes of colour. His sculptural sensibilities and ability to see and think in three dimensions made him critical of the limitations that hold static shapes firmly to a flat wall. For Calder, colour was not a representational force but rather a disparate one, much in the same vein as artists such as Henri Matisse and André Derain who pioneered a non-literal approach to chromaticism. An intuitive engineer since childhood, Calder combined this newfound abstract sensibility with highly-calibrated technical precision that allowed his geometric forms to take flight of their own accord. The individual constituents of Untitled are united through a series of intricate, interconnected mechanisms that allow them to move both independently of, and in tandem with, one another. Though its structure conjures myriad formal associations, Untitled is unfettered by any direct notion of representation. Instead, it interacts with its environment and its viewer, functioning as an object in its own right. Capturing kinetic energy in the autonomous proportions of his elegant creations, Calder’s mobiles direct their own passage with effortless grace. In the artist’s words, ‘When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprises’ (A. Calder, quoted in E. Hutton and O. Wick (eds.), Calder, London, 2004, p. 261).
With its five delicately balanced circles suspended on fine wire armatures, Alexander Calder’s Untitled of 1960 is a magnificent example of his iconic standing mobiles. Combining bold geometric forms with precisely-engineered structural dynamics, it is an extraordinary example of the intimately detailed works that Calder continued to create in a period which became increasingly dominated by gigantically-scaled sculptural commissions. At the height of his international acclaim, Calder never lost the lively ingenuity that inspired his earliest standing mobiles: the organic, floating forms that seemed to spring into life at the slightest gust of air. Currently the subject of a major exhibition at Tate Modern, London, Calder’s exquisite kinetic objects were among the most pioneering developments in twentieth-century sculpture, combining colour, form and movement into unique pieces of visual poetry. As Marcel Duchamp once wrote, ‘A light breeze [starts] in motion weights, counter-weights, levers which design in mid-air their unpredictable arabesques and introduce an element of lasting surprise. The symphony is complete when color and sound join in and call on all our senses to follow the unwritten score. Pure joie de vivre. The art of Calder is the sublimation of a tree in the wind’ (M. Duchamp, quoted in G. Braziller,The Sculpture of the Century, New York 1959, p. 85). With its elegant visual harmony and subtle kinetic orchestration, Untitled perfectly exemplifies this claim.
Calder’s shift to abstraction began with his now-legendary visit to Mondrian’s Parisian studio in 1930. Mondrian’s re-arranging of brightly coloured cardboard rectangular shapes against the wall opened Calder’s eyes to the potential of movable solid shapes of colour. His sculptural sensibilities and ability to see and think in three dimensions made him critical of the limitations that hold static shapes firmly to a flat wall. For Calder, colour was not a representational force but rather a disparate one, much in the same vein as artists such as Henri Matisse and André Derain who pioneered a non-literal approach to chromaticism. An intuitive engineer since childhood, Calder combined this newfound abstract sensibility with highly-calibrated technical precision that allowed his geometric forms to take flight of their own accord. The individual constituents of Untitled are united through a series of intricate, interconnected mechanisms that allow them to move both independently of, and in tandem with, one another. Though its structure conjures myriad formal associations, Untitled is unfettered by any direct notion of representation. Instead, it interacts with its environment and its viewer, functioning as an object in its own right. Capturing kinetic energy in the autonomous proportions of his elegant creations, Calder’s mobiles direct their own passage with effortless grace. In the artist’s words, ‘When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprises’ (A. Calder, quoted in E. Hutton and O. Wick (eds.), Calder, London, 2004, p. 261).