Calder — Unfolding — Almine Rech Gallery, Matignon — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 13 → November 12, 2022

Almine Rech is delighted to present Calder Unfolding, a survey of work by Alexander Calder, from October 13 — November 12, 2022. Known internationally as a titan of twentieth-century art, Calder (1898–1976) deftly worked across a range of media throughout his career. Highlighting examples of gouache, jewelry, and sculpture, the exhibition offers a rare opportunity to behold a broad scope of the artist’s work.

Unique among his contemporaries, Calder devised a number of new mediums during his lifetime, none more famous than the mobile. Giving form to something as ephemeral as currents of air, he astonished the world with his creation of kinetic sculpture in 1931. As philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once wrote of his work, “A passing glance is not enough; you must live with it, be bewitched by it […] The movements of Calder’s mobiles have a life of their own.” Featured in the Rech presentation is an untitled hanging mobile from 1963 composed of delicate sheet metal elements affixed to cascading wire tendrils. Made at the height of Calder’s career, the mobile’s expansive scope of movement ensures that its audience will never experience it the same way twice.

— Jessica Holmes, writer and critic