Some Show Favorites: Calder --- Day 9/320

Walk: 1. Presidio Pickleball  2. Sunday stroll

Distance: 1. 2.5 miles, 90 minutes pickle  2. 2.5 miles, yoga

Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Scarlet Digitals, 1945, sheet metal, wire, paint

detail

It's hard for Ciwt to settle on favorites in the visually alive and pleasing Calder-Picasso show currently at the de Young.  All Calder's mobiles float like gently captivating happy clouds.  This unexpected little flower or bird or playful fingers waving winked at her on the way by, so she is choosing it.   

The signage for Scarlet Digitals is also her choice to illustrate the ongoing (and unhelpful) 'art speak' throughout the show:  "...set in motion, this sculpture expands the implied spacial volumes encompassed by its projecting and rotating elements..." Did that excerpt help you to enjoy the work more?  Or did it detract, like it did for Ciwt?  Every piece in the show is very able to speak for itself.

Alexander Calder, La Grande vitesse (1:5 intermediate maquette), 1969, sheet metal, bolts, paint

At the end of his career Calder focused on large scale public sculpture.  You've probably seen several of them them.  They brighten up life in such places as Chicago, Montreal, M.I.T.,  JFK Airport and numerous other places around the world.  This one is one fifth the size of the final sculpture in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Ciwt thinks it is quite adorable at the end of the gallery where it is shown.

Many of Calder's sculptures are red.  She's never known why and enjoyed reading what Calder had to say about his use of the color: "...It's really just for differentiation, but I love red so much that I almost like to paint everything red."   (So the show signage isn't all bad; there are some great quotes by the artists themselves as well as other cultural luninaries).