CALDER'S MONUMENTAL MOBILES IN MAJOR ROME RETROSPECTIVE
CALDER'S MONUMENTAL MOBILES IN MAJOR ROME RETROSPECTIVE
(ANSA) - Rome, October 23 - An extensive selection of the colourful mobiles, installations, sculptures and toys that made 20th-century American artist Alexander Calder famous opened in Rome on Friday.
The retrospective at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni features more than 150 works by Calder (1898-1976) spanning his entire career.
Curated by Calder's grandson, Alexander Rower, who heads up the New York-based Calder Foundation, the exhibition is the largest showing of the artist's work in Italy for three decades.
It covers a broad range of work, from rarely displayed bronzes to some of his most celebrated creations, such as the massive, eight-metre-high aluminium and iron mobile that normally hangs in Pittsburgh airport.
''We have tried to create a show about Calder that is suitable both for those who know nothing about him and for those who think they know him to perfection,'' said Rower at the event's opening.
The exhibition follows a chronological route through Calder's work, starting with his earliest ventures into art in the 1920s.
This section is home to some of his fabulous wire sculptures, created during a long stay in Paris, depicting acrobats, circus figures and a variety of animals.
Less well known, is a series of small bronze sculptures of contortionists and acrobats from 1930, offering a taste of Calder's fascination with movement and his efforts to capture this through different mediums.
Calder's conversion to abstract art, following a trip to Piet Mondrian's Paris studio that same year, is documented with a significant selection of works.
The 1930s masterpieces on display chart his fascination with biomorphic forms and his flirtation with surrealism. 'Tightrope', 'Yellow Panel', 'Gibraltar' and 'Orange Panel', all from 1936, are among these works.
Unsurprisingly, the artist's world-renowned mobiles are the centrepiece of the exhibit.
Calder produced mobiles throughout his career, drawing on his engineering background to create perfectly balanced, delicate works of kinetic art.
The Rome exhibit offers visitors an array of mobiles from different stages of his life, including 'Arc of Petals' (1941), 'Cascading Flowers' (1949), 'Le 31 Janvier' (1950) and 'The Y' (1960).
The counterpoint to Calder's mobiles were his so-called ''stabiles'', static works of earthbound art given their name by German-French sculptor Hans Arp.
From the late 1930s come 'Black Beast' and 'Hollow Egg', while later works include 'Cactus' (1959) and 'La Grande Vitesse' (1969).
The exhibition also includes a selection of his less well-known paintings.
Entitled simply 'Calder', the show runs at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni from October 23 until February 14.
