Page 46 of LUX.4 by Foscarini

088 el corcovado 1951 joan mirÒ foundation new york arte_art bifurcated tower 1950 whitney museum of american art new york behind them tons of rhetorical and heroic bronze forged into the shape of eagles horses and other american allegories of freedom alexander decided to move to france the right character and disposition in the right place from that moment on his eyes watch over everything that is avant-garde experimentation and abstract research jovial apparently churlish and volcanic calder s character is contained within a leonine hearty hot-headed and magnetic body attracted by classical abstraction in paris where he is simultaneously able to socialize with people such as picasso delaunay brancusi and all the exponents of the abstraction-création group the young artist interrogates himself on the static nature of sculpture that remains too static monumental and weighty and that apart from issues of style and shape maintains a close enduring relationship with the physical sense of classical sculpture two fundamental encounters with two masters of thought and the contemporary art of the time would radically change his work and consequently his life piet mondrian marcel duchamp calder recalls mondrian lived at number 26 rue de départ i loved that house light came in both from the right and the left and in the continuous section of wall between the two windows there was an experimental montage of cardboard rectangles tacked to it everything in that house had been painted including the phonograph which was originally a dark color and was now painted red i suggested to mondrian that it would be nice one time to make those rectangles oscillate and move slightly with a very serious expression he replied `my painting is already very quick that visit impressed me and it proved decisive for the dialectic of the position of the colored shapes the de-composition and re-composition of the space as a place defined by the weight and the sound of colors and lines from that moment calder began to work on a new form of sculpture lightweight and complex built with wire and parts made of found materials that were painted over or used as they were but from the lightness that was paradoxically inherent to the metal he soon had another and we don t believe casual revelation it was in guatemala as the moon was rising a moon that was so bright he recalled as to seem as light as the wind and as solid as a silver coin those were the years he produced the first kinetic works small sculptures that moved thanks to a simple automatic and manual mechanism to wed the antithesis of sculpture mobility to weightlessness seemed to constitute his search and at the same time his construction of a continuously changing space drawn by the lines and the elements of the sculpture itself the famous godfather of these new sculptures was marcel duchamp one night duchamp came into my studio while i was finishing painting one of my `artifacts with three elements set in motion by a motor marcel said `do you mind when he put his hands on it he seemed to like the object so much so that he organized an exhibition of my works in a gallery i was the one who asked him what name i could give these things he created the word `mobiles to describe them which apart from the indication that they can move in french means `motif too it would be in the mobile and imaginative placement of these motifs that all the light and infinite magic of the mobiles would reside those uninterrupted compositions of space variable and varied by the line and the colored sign of the iron it is the acute lightness of these articulated parts that creates the hybrid which has captured us all a painting and drawing that move through the air suspended as if by mechanical magic thus at each segment at each colored element hook and eye of these objects that one is hard-pressed to call sculpture that would be a betrayal wrote sartre we recall the words of calder when he said who knows people think that monuments must rise from the ground never from the roof luca massimo barbero nato a torino nel 1963 è associate curator della collezione guggenheim organizzatore di mostre d arte contemporanea è scrittore d arte e docente alla scuola holden di torino ha curato tra le altre mostre di lucio fontana arte minimal arte americana informale e per anni ha collaborato con peter greenaway con cui ha ideato la mostra di palazzo fortuny per la vl biennale di venezia born in turin italy in 1963 he is an associate curator at the guggenheim collection he organizes contemporary art exhibits writes about art and teaches at the scuola holden in turin he has been the curator for the exhibitions on lucio fontana minimal art american art and informal art for several years he collaborated with peter greenaway with whom he conceived the exhibition at palazzo fortuny for the 45 biennale di venezia 089

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