Mobile 1

Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, 1939 Alexander Clader

As a class you are going to be exploring the world of kinetic energy and making your own Calder-like mobile. Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976) was an American sculptor and artist who is credited with inventing the mobile. He discovered a way to create a sculpture that was in constant movement and therefore always changing, making it a dynamic and exciting art form.

A mobile is a type of sculpture that is made up of carefully balanced parts that move. They move, are kinetic, because they respond to the energy in air currents. When your mobiles are completed you will be able to watch them shift from one form to another.

In class we also discussed and compared how Calder and Joan Miró's work share some similarities. You made comments about the geometric shapes found in Cat Encircled by The Flight of a Bird and how even though Miró's work is a painting it has a lot of movement in it. It looks like it could be one of Calder's mobiles in painting form.

Cat Encircled by the Flight of a Bird, 1941, Joan Miró