What Alexander Calder Understood About Joy
Calder: The Conquest of Space: The Later Years: 1940–1976 KNOPTHIS ONE IS THE SECOND OF AN "exhaustive two-volume biography, Calder, which now concludes with The Conquest of Space: The Later Years: 1940–1976.
(The Conquest of Time: The Early Years: 1898–1940 came out in 2017.)
A contributing art critic for The New York Review of Books, Perl offers a sweeping dismissal of previous assessments of Calder, particularly those that emphasized the lighthearted and derivative dimensions of his work. “All the critics of Calder’s art, from the philistines to the intellectuals, missed the point,” he announces, a dose of hyperbole that might prompt some readers to ask just how clear-eyed this reverent guide can be about his subject . . "
"Perl situates Calder in the lineage of modern-art pioneers such as Auguste Rodin, Paul Cézanne, Constantin Brancusi, and Pablo Picasso, “who reconsidered what it meant to create life.” They weren’t, as Perl sees it, simply upending academic conventions and representational techniques. They were intent on transforming “the life of the work of art itself” and unlocking new sources of aesthetic vitality. “For Calder, this meant that the object had to take on a life of its own. Calder’s objects began to move.” A modern master, he enlisted science—in particular, physics—in the service of a spatial and kinetic leap forward in art. . ."
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