Alexander Calder; Gouaches, Gagosian Davies Street

At a new exhibition of gouaches by Alexander Calder, Gagosian Gallery (Davies Street) unlock a new view on his practice beyond the sculptures and mobiles.  

The Backstory…

It was Marcel Duchamp that first dubbed Alexander Calder's finely balanced hanging sculptures 'mobiles'. This method of 'drawing' three-dimensional forms in space by bending and twisting wire, and his restricted palette of black, white and primary colours, is Calder's unmistakable calling card. 

Calder developed the technique in the early 1930s. As Calder's fame grew, so did the scale of his mobiles, some of which are constructed on a monumental scale. The largest of Calder's mobiles, created for Washington DC's National Gallery of Art, is some 23 metres long. By the late 1940s Calder's sculptures were no-longer delicate assemblies of counterbalanced forms, but complex 'towers'. 

The Exhibition…

Calder did, however, work on a more humble scale and now Gagosian is offering an opportunity to see this other side to the artist's practice. His sculptural works having become immense undertakings in terms of the amount of preparation and planning involved. Calder sought a method of working spontaneously and quickly, resisting the slow arduous work of building his huge mobiles. The paintings in this show were all executed during a year-long stay in Aix-en-Provence in 1953. They display a playfulness and freedom that can only be the product of an artist on holiday.

Calder had, in fact, worked with illustration and brush drawing throughout his career. These paintings do not exist in isolation from his sculpture, but they capture much of the kineticism of his mobiles. They also demonstrate the breadth of Calder's artistic concerns; a blend of the abstract forms seen in his sculptural work, with more figurative subject matter. 

For diehard Calder fans, this is an excellent glimpse at the inner workings of the artist's mind.