“The man said: “That was what they were supposed to do… ” He said: “Everybody saw something different after all depending on the way they looked at the mobiles… only the mobiles were exactly what they were, and nothing else…”
from “Works of Calder” by Herbert Matter
Calder loved all kind of experiments… with music… with dance… He was looking all through his life for opportunities to collaborate and knew how to connect to people, leading to a lifelong fascination with movement and form… and creating his own ballets, choreographies, theatre.. Through his mobiles, and stabiles. Which are all, in some sense, a kind of theatre. These moving through space objects that take a life on their own. Beside his imagination, and with degree in mechanical engineering, Calder would also take his mathematical mind to his studio, where he made all his pieces using simple hand tools.
“The notion that you could stand in front of something and wait to see if it moves, how it moves.. Just automatically slows you down. It means you have to take time to look carefully… He really felt like if he could make large outdoor sculpture that could engage peoples appreciation of space and place and architecture, that that could enhance their lives.” – L.R. Hartigan
“I think what you have here is a modern, mid-20th century version of this old dream to expand the powers of art by bringing together different art forms in unexpected ways.” – J. Perl
“The really key thing that Brown is know for now is his idea of open form, and that is very similar to a Calder mobile. If you could imagine discrete, fixed elements.. little musical fragments or tunes or sound configurations.. And each of them is fixed, but their interrelationship with each other, the structure, isn’t predicted. That they can rotate around each other, that they can be played in alternation or at the will of the performer, rather like free jazz.. And that was the thing that Brown discovered inspired by Calder.” – R.Bernas
Happy Birthday Calder!