Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy

The first publication to explore Calder’s significance for artists who emerged in the mid-1990s and the early twenty-first century.

Alexander Calder, a legendary and beloved figure in American art, has not generally been considered a major influence on contemporary artists. Yet as the twenty-first century unfolds, many artists are taking cues from Calder’s hands-on investigations of form, balance, color, and movement as well as from his foresight in what we now refer to as the creative reuse of materials. These artists are returning to explorations of structure and balance, creating expressive artworks that celebrate the visual over the intellectual experience.

Drawn from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago’s in-depth holdings of Calder’s work and augmented by the artist’s classic mobiles, standing mobiles, and stabiles from private and public collections, this pioneering consideration of Calder’s influence includes works by some of today’s most interesting and engaging sculptors: Martin Boyce, Nathan Carter, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Aaron Curry, Kristi Lippire, Jason Meadows, and Jason Middlebrook.

The book features new scholarship on Calder’s creative reuse of materials by noted expert Brooke Kamin Rapaport. Scholar George Baker evaluates how the modern era in general and Calder in particular have influenced young sculptors. Exhibition organizer Lynne Warren contributes an overview of current sculptural practices in relation to Calder’s work.There are also contributions by Bryan Granger, Dominic Molon, Diana Nawi, and Julie Rodrigues Wildholm. 113 color and 21 black-and-white photographs