Alexander Calder (United States, 1898-1976) instigated many revolutionary artistic innovations. In his quest to move beyond the three spatial dimensions—making the fourth dimension of time a prominent and indispensable element of his work—Calder succeeded in transforming the contemporary understanding of sculpture. He was the first to remove sculpture from its pedestal, suspending it in mid-air. With his dynamic mobiles that were able to move freely in space, he was one of the initiators—alongside artists such as Marcel Duchamp and László Moholy-Nagy—of the kinetic art movement that revolutionized the static nature of art at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The exhibition focuses on a career-spanning selection of Calder’s works, from early motorized works such as Dancers and Sphere (1938) to hanging mobiles, standing mobiles such as Blue Feather (ca. 1948) and monumental sculptures. Artists from our own era presented in Calder Now resonate important themes in Calder’s oeuvre: light and reflection, humble materials, the senses, sound, activation, architecture, ephemera, gravity, performance, and positive and negative space.

These groundbreaking artists show pieces that could not have existed without the precedence of various innovative aspects from Calder’s visionary body of work. Their work invites new conversations and interpretations of his oeuvre.