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Lot Essay
How can art be realized? Out of volumes, motion, spaces bounded by the great space, the universe. Out of different masses, tight, heavy, middling—indicated by variations of size or color—directional lines—vectors which represent speeds, velocities, accelerations, forces, etc. . . .—these directions making between them meaningful angles, and senses, together defining one big conclusion or many. Spaces, volumes, suggested by the smallest means in contrast to their mass, or even including them, juxtaposed, pierced by vectors, crossed by speeds. Nothing at all of this is fixed. Each element able to move, to stir, to oscillate, to come and go in its relationships with the other elements in its universe. It must not be just a “fleeting” moment, but a physical bond between the varying events in life. Not extractions, but abstractions. Abstractions that are like nothing in life except in their manner of reacting.” (Alexander Calder, “Comment réaliser l’art ?” Abstraction-Création, Art Non Figuratif, no. 1, 1932; Republished in: Alexander Calder, A. S. C. Rower, Ugo Mulas, Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, Palazzo delle esposizioni (Rome, Italy) Calder: Sculptor of Air, Motta, 2009. p. 111 & p. 222.)
Alexander Calder’s Arrows in Flight is a definitive example of the artist’s renowned mobiles. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative modern sculptors, Calder reimagined the role and function of sculpture, freeing it from millennia of relative stasis and ushering in a new era of artistic freedom and inventiveness. Although trained as an engineer, Calder relied on intuitive principles of balance, weight distribution and aerodynamics to create his suspended mobiles. A committed modernist, Calder visited Piet Mondrian’s Paris studio in 1930. Here, his experience of the studio environment galvanized his interest in wholly abstract art and set him on the path to creating mobile sculptures.
In the ensuing decades, Calder would actualize this idea, producing an extensive body of mobile and stabile sculpture employing Modernism’s purity of form. Consistent with other great modernists of his day like his lifelong friends Joan Miró and Jean Arp, Calder used soft-edged, organic shapes. Although entirely abstract, the present work sees Calder entering a more figurative sculptural mode, with the upward-pointing arrows sporting angular, black tips and red tails. An appendage attached to the middle of one of the arrows’ shaft splits downward in two directions, balancing on one side a possible third arrow, this one blunt-tipped and white tailed. On the other side hangs a heavier cluster of horizontal circles that cascade downward, resting parallel to the ground. Making use of nine supporting pieces of wire (excluding connecting joints) and ten painted elements, this is a spare and focused sculpture, forgoing the expansiveness of some of Calder’s larger mobile efforts.
Credited with expanding views of modernist sculpture, Calder’s mobiles are often counted among the great artistic achievements in the medium’s history. Using just wire and cut, often painted sheet-metal, Calder’s mobiles arrived like an asteroid into a sculptural landscape where cast bronze was the dominant medium. By setting sculpture in motion, Calder upturned nearly every notion of sculpture, making even the most committed modern sculptors appear prudish by comparison. In a move that would prove influential to subsequent generations of artists, Calder chose to employ household materials, expanding not only definitions of sculpture’s function but also its means. Arte Povera, among others, drew on Calder’s radical material simplicity, turning to raw canvas, unstained wood and steel nails in their work. The raw, simple efficacy of Arrows in Flight and its antecedent mobiles served as powerful incitements to other would-be creatives that modernist sculpture is attainable and democratic.
Operating on several planar axes, Arrows in Flight reflects Calder’s dual ability to choregraph his sculptures’ movements while simultaneously affording them a degree of autonomy. The multidirectional movement of the present work suggests a pursuit, or a chase after a prey. Notable is the sculpture’s approximation of a real, observable event: the motion of an arrow through space. Like an actual archer, Calder can plan an arrow’s flight-path, but is ultimately forced to rely on gravity and wind currents to achieve his goal. Thus, Arrows in Flight acts as a useful microcosmic metaphor for Calder’s mobiles more broadly. In addition to meticulous planning and precise execution, Calder’s mobiles also rely on environmental externalities for their full activation.
Using little more than the suggestive, soft forms of a pointed tip and a flouted tail, Calder gives permanent flight to his sculptural arrows. The sculptor draws on a connection between an observable occurrence and his own sculpture, anchoring it to the physical world in a way he rarely does. Typically described in celestial, dynamic terms, Calder’s mobiles usually draw on those infinite systems for compositional cues. To see the sculptor work in a more earthly, figurative mode is to see the full scope of his talents. Arrows in Flight, like so much of Calder’s work, beautifies the once-mundane and transforms the humblest of materials into powerful works of kinetic sculpture.
Operating on several planar axes, Arrows in Flight reflects Calder’s dual ability to choregraph his sculptures’ movements while simultaneously affording them a degree of autonomy. The multidirectional movement of the present work suggests a pursuit, or a chase after a prey. Notable is the sculpture’s approximation of a real, observable event: the motion of an arrow through space. Like an actual archer, Calder can plan an arrow’s flight-path, but is ultimately forced to rely on gravity and wind currents to achieve his goal. Thus, Arrows in Flight acts as a useful microcosmic metaphor for Calder’s mobiles more broadly. In addition to meticulous planning and precise execution, Calder’s mobiles also rely on environmental externalities for their full activation.
Using little more than the suggestive, soft forms of a pointed tip and a flouted tail, Calder gives permanent flight to his sculptural arrows. The sculptor draws on a connection between an observable occurrence and his own sculpture, anchoring it to the physical world in a way he rarely does. Typically described in celestial, dynamic terms, Calder’s mobiles usually draw on those infinite systems for compositional cues. To see the sculptor work in a more earthly, figurative mode is to see the full scope of his talents. Arrows in Flight, like so much of Calder’s work, beautifies the once-mundane and transforms the humblest of materials into powerful works of kinetic sculpture.
Alexander Calder’s Arrows in Flight is a definitive example of the artist’s renowned mobiles. Widely regarded as one of the most innovative modern sculptors, Calder reimagined the role and function of sculpture, freeing it from millennia of relative stasis and ushering in a new era of artistic freedom and inventiveness. Although trained as an engineer, Calder relied on intuitive principles of balance, weight distribution and aerodynamics to create his suspended mobiles. A committed modernist, Calder visited Piet Mondrian’s Paris studio in 1930. Here, his experience of the studio environment galvanized his interest in wholly abstract art and set him on the path to creating mobile sculptures.
In the ensuing decades, Calder would actualize this idea, producing an extensive body of mobile and stabile sculpture employing Modernism’s purity of form. Consistent with other great modernists of his day like his lifelong friends Joan Miró and Jean Arp, Calder used soft-edged, organic shapes. Although entirely abstract, the present work sees Calder entering a more figurative sculptural mode, with the upward-pointing arrows sporting angular, black tips and red tails. An appendage attached to the middle of one of the arrows’ shaft splits downward in two directions, balancing on one side a possible third arrow, this one blunt-tipped and white tailed. On the other side hangs a heavier cluster of horizontal circles that cascade downward, resting parallel to the ground. Making use of nine supporting pieces of wire (excluding connecting joints) and ten painted elements, this is a spare and focused sculpture, forgoing the expansiveness of some of Calder’s larger mobile efforts.
Credited with expanding views of modernist sculpture, Calder’s mobiles are often counted among the great artistic achievements in the medium’s history. Using just wire and cut, often painted sheet-metal, Calder’s mobiles arrived like an asteroid into a sculptural landscape where cast bronze was the dominant medium. By setting sculpture in motion, Calder upturned nearly every notion of sculpture, making even the most committed modern sculptors appear prudish by comparison. In a move that would prove influential to subsequent generations of artists, Calder chose to employ household materials, expanding not only definitions of sculpture’s function but also its means. Arte Povera, among others, drew on Calder’s radical material simplicity, turning to raw canvas, unstained wood and steel nails in their work. The raw, simple efficacy of Arrows in Flight and its antecedent mobiles served as powerful incitements to other would-be creatives that modernist sculpture is attainable and democratic.
Operating on several planar axes, Arrows in Flight reflects Calder’s dual ability to choregraph his sculptures’ movements while simultaneously affording them a degree of autonomy. The multidirectional movement of the present work suggests a pursuit, or a chase after a prey. Notable is the sculpture’s approximation of a real, observable event: the motion of an arrow through space. Like an actual archer, Calder can plan an arrow’s flight-path, but is ultimately forced to rely on gravity and wind currents to achieve his goal. Thus, Arrows in Flight acts as a useful microcosmic metaphor for Calder’s mobiles more broadly. In addition to meticulous planning and precise execution, Calder’s mobiles also rely on environmental externalities for their full activation.
Using little more than the suggestive, soft forms of a pointed tip and a flouted tail, Calder gives permanent flight to his sculptural arrows. The sculptor draws on a connection between an observable occurrence and his own sculpture, anchoring it to the physical world in a way he rarely does. Typically described in celestial, dynamic terms, Calder’s mobiles usually draw on those infinite systems for compositional cues. To see the sculptor work in a more earthly, figurative mode is to see the full scope of his talents. Arrows in Flight, like so much of Calder’s work, beautifies the once-mundane and transforms the humblest of materials into powerful works of kinetic sculpture.
Operating on several planar axes, Arrows in Flight reflects Calder’s dual ability to choregraph his sculptures’ movements while simultaneously affording them a degree of autonomy. The multidirectional movement of the present work suggests a pursuit, or a chase after a prey. Notable is the sculpture’s approximation of a real, observable event: the motion of an arrow through space. Like an actual archer, Calder can plan an arrow’s flight-path, but is ultimately forced to rely on gravity and wind currents to achieve his goal. Thus, Arrows in Flight acts as a useful microcosmic metaphor for Calder’s mobiles more broadly. In addition to meticulous planning and precise execution, Calder’s mobiles also rely on environmental externalities for their full activation.
Using little more than the suggestive, soft forms of a pointed tip and a flouted tail, Calder gives permanent flight to his sculptural arrows. The sculptor draws on a connection between an observable occurrence and his own sculpture, anchoring it to the physical world in a way he rarely does. Typically described in celestial, dynamic terms, Calder’s mobiles usually draw on those infinite systems for compositional cues. To see the sculptor work in a more earthly, figurative mode is to see the full scope of his talents. Arrows in Flight, like so much of Calder’s work, beautifies the once-mundane and transforms the humblest of materials into powerful works of kinetic sculpture.