Posts Tagged ‘Alexander Calder’
Come one, come all
Last weekend, during a short trip to New York City, I visited the Whitney Museum of American Art. The highlight of my afternoon at the Whitney was seeing Calder’s Circus. When you reach the fifth floor of the museum, the elevator doors open and at the center of the dimly lit center gallery is an enormous glass case, filled with tons of trinkets and dolls around a circus ring–all created by Alexander Calder for his whimsical performance.
Calder Commute: Win free tickets!
Find one of our three Calder buses and win a free ticket to “Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art”!
Build Your Own Mobile Contest
With the opening of the new Alexander Calder exhibition at the Nasher Museum this week, form, balance and joy seem to be on everyone’s minds at Duke right now. Even Lilly Library is jumping on board with its own mobile building contest.
Corporate Sponsor Night!
Science and art belong together. Alexander Calder, after all, was a trained mechanical engineer.
We are excited to welcome a lot of sciencey types for Corporate Sponsor Night on Thursday, February 23, from 5-9 PM. Free admission goes to all Research Triangle Park employees, all Calder company sponsor employees, and members of Sigma Xi, for “Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy.”
Calder memories
Our Alexander Calder exhibition finally opens tomorrow, and visitors are already sharing their own Calder memories and experiences. Recently we heard from Jack Gartner, who wrote down his own Calder story from the 1950s. Back then, Jack was the building manager of Idlewild Airport, now known as JFK Airport in New York.
Caught off guard by Calder
We walked into a gallery at the Nasher Museum the other day and our feet began to lift out of our shoes.
The familiar walls, floor and ceiling felt like some sort of anti-gravity chamber. Bright spots of color. A gentle bouncing and swaying. We found ourselves wondering: Which way is up? Our two main pavilions for traveling exhibitions have been transformed with the installation of “Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy.” The show opens February 16.
Preview: Jason Middlebrook
Artforum gave Jason Middlebrook’s show at Dodge gallery, NY, a very nice nod among current “critic’s picks”: “Shimmering artifice embraces natural wonder in Jason Middlebrook ‘s new wooden-plank paintings, inscribing nature with the abstract patterns it inspires, in an act of closeness akin to tracing, gilding, gifting.”
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder. The name may not be too well-known outside of art circles, but if you remember those spinning objects above your crib or you have seen colorful objects connected by wires moving kinetically from ceilings, you surely know of this man’s work. Calder was a celebrated American sculptor and artist who was also the inventor of the mobile, which was his favorite artistic medium.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing one of his famous “stabiles” (a term used to describe his stationary sculptures) constructed right in front of me in the Nasher Museum’s great hall. Large pieces of sculpted black steel were wheeled in before a pulley system was used to put them in their respective positions. And as you can see from my photo below, the result is a masterpiece!