Standing Man
Alexander Calder
ALEXANDER CALDER, WATERCOLOR ON PAPER.
A mechanical engineer who applied the mathematics of movement to art making and created a revolution of sculpture. Alexander Calder stands alone in the history of 20th century art, with his dynamic mobiles and wire sculptures finding a remarkable balance between play and theory, at once rigorous in their creation and ideation and open to the whims of his wild experimentation. Calder’s obsession was the circus, and the movement of acrobats, performers, dancers, and animals who populated the big top. In everything he did, whether directly or indirectly, the kinetic, joyous exuberance of the circus is present, and his artworks capture the fantastical feeling of a day spent watching the show. This playfulness is clear here, in Calder’s Standing Man - a quick sketch on paper that nonetheless shows his mastery of balance in two dimensions as well as three. A naive figure emerges from abstract shapes that feel at once primal and reminiscent of a delicately made musical instrument, and in few brushstrokes Calder creates a work of happy harmony.