Cirque Calder
Alexander Calder Inspired By His Sculpted Wire Circus In A Suitcase
Combining sculpture, toys, engineering, whimsy, movement and performance, this miniature circus was a crucible for Calder's ideas and aesthetic, and inspired his mobiles.
Cirque Calder is a whimsical miniature circus of wire figures and creatures created by the celebrated American sculptor Alexander Calder (b. July 22, 1898 – d. November 11, 1976) between 1926 and 1931, during his time in Paris.
Best known as the inventor of the mobile and its static abstract counterpart, the stabile, much of Calder’s most original ideas and aesthetic were developed in the laboratory of his extensive, elaborate and functional Circus.
Calder’s fascination with the circus began in 1925 while he was still studying at the Art Students’ League in New York. He spent two weeks sketching at Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus on a freelance assignment for the National Police Gazette and in 1926 began creating the first few figures of wire and wood.
When he moved to Paris to continue his studies later that year, he took these figures with him, and in 1927 began giving improvised shows with his miniature circus. The shows were popular with the European avant-garde including Joan Miró (who became a life-long friend), Jean Arp (who first coined the term "stabile"), Jean Cocteau, Frederick Kiesler, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp (who first coined the term “mobile”), Piet Mondrian, Jules Pascin, Fernand Léger, Tsugouharu Foujita and Antoine Pevsner all of whom came to influence aspects of Calder’s style.
He also added considerably to the troupe over a period of 6 years, finally stopping in 1931. At its height, the Cirque Calder consisted of dozens of wire-frame acrobats, trapeze artists, exotic dancers, a knife-thrower, sword-swallower and performing animals which were rigged with thread, pulleys, cranks and springs to tumble, gallop, lift, gyrate and even catch each other in mid-air. These displayed Calder's early aptitude for mathematics and his training as a mechanical engineer. Even though Calder called it his circus in a suitcase, these creations eventually came to occupy an impressive 6 valises.
Calder was to spend the 1920’s and 1930’s travelling between North America and Europe giving performances for special audiences. In Paris, he would narrate his two hour shows in French. Click here to view the first of a series of 4 videos showing Calder giving an impressive performance later in his life. His wife, Louisa James, can be seen operating the gramaphone.
Accented with wood, bronze, cork, fabric scraps, beads and bits of jewellery, the figures and animals each possess a distinct personality. Made with precision, they walk the fine line between toys and sculpture with the most impressive ones being the:
- Weightlifter which can bend, pick up a set of weights, straighten up and put the weights down
- Exotic dancer gyrating by means of a hand-crank
- Trapeze artists which can swing and catch each other in mid-air with precision
- Ambulance unit which can walk when pulled by a thread
- Horses pulling chariots that mimic galloping while their charioteers bend back and forth in the act of whipping them
Although Calder eventually moved beyond the Cirque Calder, the aesthetics and qualities of the circus, mainly suspense, surprise, spontaneity, humour, gaiety, whimsy, wit, glee and playfulness, would form the foundation for his work over the next 50 years.
Elements of his miniature Circus, in abstracted form, endure in Calder’s love for animal sculpture, his use of circus subjects and in his work titles. Critics argue that his toys, wire, wood and bronze sculpture, jewellery, drawings, gouaches, the mobiles, stabiles and even the animobiles all evolved from his Cirque Calder.
This may well be true as Calder’s monumental mobiles combine engineering, tension, balance, grace and lively acrobatic motion – qualities found in the best circus performances.
Cirque Calder is on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York where it is on extended loan.
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