Alexander Calder

http://calder.org/work/category/hangingmobile.html

“My whole theory about art is the disparity (difference) that exists between form, masses and movement.”

Alexander Calder, born in 1898, began his career as anengineer before realising his passion for design and enrolling in the Art Students League in New York.

His work was heavily influenced by the abstract styleand after being invited to join Abstract-creation, aninfluencial group of artists, he discovered his ability in sculpture which he practised by making animals and props that were moveable for use in his own miniturecircus.

In 1931 he began work on his first suspended movingsculptures, originally moved by a system of cranks and motors, which were called mobiles (meaning both motionand motive). Later these mobiles would be powered by thewind.

Alexander Calder's hanging mobiles were mostly made of aluminum sheet metal, and steel wire. He used hand tools such as wire cutters, snips, pliers, files, and other metal working tools to make them. Sometimes he would join pieces together by using metal rivets, a type of bolt or pin.

Calder constructed his mobiles by first cutting out random abstract shapes from the sheet metal, filing the edges to smooth them, and then laying out and arranging the pieces in different patterns until he found one that he liked. Then he would connect the pieces together with wire, starting with the bottom pieces first, and then moving upwards adding new "branches", carefully balancing each new piece as he went along.

Think about what shapes can you recognize in the work of Calder and which feelings, emotions or sensation you get from his art/design.