'Alexander Calder - The Great Discovery'

The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag will present the first major Dutch retrospective of Alexander Calder since 1969. The museum received the prestigious Turing Art Grant for its exhibition concept for 'Alexander Calder - The Great Discovery' from 11 February to 28 May 2012.

Alexander Calder, Untitled, ca. 1960

The relative neglect of Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976) is surprising since he used to be regarded in the Netherlands as the most important American artist of the post-war period. Early on, Calder redefined sculpture by drawing three-dimensional figures and portraits with wire in space.

Then, in 1930, he visited Mondrian’s studio in Paris, which was to be a turning point in his career. Calder admired Mondrian’s use of space and converted it into his own artistic expression grounded in gesture and immateriality. That realisation and the way it radically changed his work is the key focus of this exhibition.

Between 1926 and 1933 Calder lived in Paris, then the heart of the modern art movement. At this stage, Calder redefined sculpture by drawing three-dimensional figures and portraits with wire in space. He was famous for the regular performances he gave with the complete and complex miniature circus ‘Cirque Calder’ concocted from everyday materials like wire, wood, leather, cork and scraps of cloth.

The central feature of the forthcoming exhibition is a complete reconstruction of Mondrian’s studio in the Rue du Départ. This exhibit marks Calder’s transition from figurative to abstract art: it was his visit to this studio in 1930 that triggered a radical change in his artistic practice.

Abandoning his figurative sculptures, he became an abstract artist. He began to add red, black or white discs to his wire and to produce mobiles of increasing size, in which he constantly sought to combine equilibrium and movement.

For more information, visit the website of Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.