Beschreibung:

Alexander Calder Polygones noirs 1953 stabile, standing mobile: painted sheet metal, rod, wire 37 1/2 x 39 x 15 in. (95.3 x 99.1 x 38.1 cm.)
Provenance Galerie Maeght, Paris Private Collection, Paris Kukje Gallery, Seoul Private Collection Exhibited Galerie Maeght, Paris, Aix, Saché, Roxbury 1953-54, November – December, 1954 Literature Aix, Saché, Roxbury 1953-54, exh. cat., Galerie Maeght, Paris, 1954, no. 15 Catalogue Essay A saintly poetry exists within Calder’s magnificent mobiles, a divine dance both captured and shaped. The viewer is made to think of nothing else but the elegant activity that lays before. Calder’s structures move through their own kinesis, a continuous melting pot of engineering brilliance, sensational rhythm and metaphysical eccentricity, not seen since Calder ceased to create. “Why must sculpture be static? You look at abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect but always still. The next step is sculpture in motion.” (A. Calder in M. Prather, Alexander Calder 1898-1976, Washington 1998, p. 57). Even though he explored a wide array of forms—colossal and slight, ground-mounted, adjourned and even a series of paintings—Calder’s first love as an artist was always the mutability of his subjects. Although during the post-war period, Calder concentrated on large-scale monuments for municipal plazas and corporate office centers, he continued to be absorbed by the possibilities that smaller-scale, more intimate works offered him. In the present lot, the viewer catches the artist at a pivotal point; the previous year he had represented the United States at the Venice Biennale where he secured the grand prize for sculpture. Polygones noirs, executed 1953, is a fragile piece, yet one at perfect ease. The gentle metal forms appear like an angel in preparation for flight, its feathered sheet metal pointing upwards towards the sky. Calder sets the work in place and then lets go. "Each element can move, shift or sway back and forth in a changing relation to each other and independently of other elements in the universe. Thus they reveal not only isolated moments, but a physical law of variation among the events of life. Not extractions, but abstractions: Abstractions which resemble no living thing, except in their manner of reacting." (A Calder, "Comment réaliser l'art?," Abstraction, Création, Art Non-Figuratif, no. 1, 1932, p. 6) In a contrapposto of rivaled weights, two groups of all black constellated shapes crane in opposition to one another, each allied in equal strength against its counterpart. Calder clutches these black silhouettes onto a series of adjacent abutments, which then link together through petite hangers. An open triangular base lies at the core of Polygones noirs, appearing to support itself effortlessly while the shaped elements hang in a dramatic fashion of tripled tension. Although the work could easily change orientation due to slight shifts in perspective, unassuming breezes in the wind or a slender touch as its trigger, the bold, all black graphic clarity of its dangling shapes provide a gentle compass to the piece’s dynamism. Titillated by the creative potentials of the polygon, Calder aspired to explore the possibilities of transfiguring this two-dimensional formula into a three-dimensional being. Polygones noirs not only shows Calder's respect for a multi-dimensional aesthetic, it also shows his interest in adverse perspective, a duality of concern that provides for rich interaction. Traditional, more formal concerns of observing a sculpture in its round are quickly met with more contemporary, unconventional views. The mobile's form appears strikingly different from various positions; from one angle it appears gracefully vertiginous, while from another, shapes appear to float beside one another on one horizontal plane. "It is a flower that fades when it ceases to move, a 'pure play of movement' in the sense that we speak of a pure play of light... [M]ost of Calder's constructions are not imitative of nature; I know no less deceptive art