'Alexander Calder: The Paris Years 1926-1933' Whitney Museum of American Art October 16, 2008 - February 15, 2009

(originally published on artslant.com 12/2/08)

Alexander Calder’s transitions—he went from making large, dense paintings, to constructing visages out of nothing but wire and an otherworldly grasp of gesture, to ecstatically embracing abstraction—are all marked in Alexander Calder: The Paris Years, 1926-1933, an exhibition that allows the viewer to step over each threshold with the artist.

The works in Paris Years are well-known, especially Calder’s Circus (1926-31), which has long been a beloved part of the Whitney’s collection, and his wire figures of celebrities like Josephine Baker. What makes the show great are the supplementary material and artifacts—the five black suitcases that Calder transported Circus in, covered in stamps and tags from all over the world; André Kertész and Brassaï’s black & white photographs of Calder with Circus; and Jean Painlevé’s film, Le Grand Cirque Calder 1927 (1955), shown here for the first time in a New York museum (and attended by a huge, enthralled crowd).

Calder’s abstract works are in a long room at the rear of the exhibition, just off another filled with representational sculptures. To enter the former after taking in wire figures of animals and ball players feels like crossing the same line Calder did in 1931 after visiting Piet Mondrian’s studio. Here also, the supplementary material is inspired; next to the mechanized sculpture Pantograph (1931) is a film in which the piece performs its halting, elegant dance. Viewers can study the hidden gears behind the black and white construction Two Spheres (1931), while, just beyond it, Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere (1932-33), though its glass bottles, tiny gong, and hanging orbs lie still, seems like it could easily spring into action, like something out of Fischli & Weiss’ 1987 film The Way Things Go.

Consistent throughout is Calder’s beguiling hand; whether it’s a humble toy lion or an ethereal mobile, Calder’s uncomplicated style is always his signature, and both the anthropomorphized and the abstract evoke delight.