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ISRAEL / Tel Aviv: Calder: Great Yellow Sun
by Modem
© Modem

until Sunday August 15 2021

Tel Aviv Museum of Art
T : +972 (0)3 607 7020
27 Shaul Hamelech Blvd
64239 Tel Aviv
Israel


www.tamuseum.com/en/exhibition/calder-great-yellow-sun/


Calder: Great Yellow Sun

23/2/21​-​15/8/21

American-born artist Alexander Calder (1898- 1976), one of the most fascinating figures of modern art in the twentieth century, developed his artistic language in New York and Paris in the interwar period. His work emerged alongside the avant-garde notions of Surrealism, Dada, and abstraction – and yet he developed a unique style of his own.

The exhibition offers a glimpse into Calder's world through works that he created in diverse media, spanning over five decades of his career – from early pencil drawings, produced in 1925, to one of his very last mobiles, created in 1976, the year of his demise. The title of the exhibition, Great Yellow Sun (taken from one of his gouaches), reflects three significant elements of his abstractions: scale, color, and form. The reference to the sun also suggests another, thought-provoking reading of the artist's output: Calder's work may be seen as an exploration of energetic forces that combine aesthetics and the fourth dimension with scientific knowledge of physics, mathematics, and mechanics. Asked how art is realized, Calder replied, "Out of volumes, motion, spaces bounded by the great space, the universe".

The exhibition focuses on a lesser-known part of Calder's output: his gouache paintings. Gouaches – a medium he began exploring in the 1940s – became one of his most prolific bodies of work. They were rarely a complement to his sculptural works and were not preparatory drawings or exercises in color or iconography. Rather, they were an independent practice within Calder's oeuvre which, throughout his career, was marked by constant transitions from two-dimensional forms to three-dimensional ones – and back again.


Location: Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Pavilion, Main building

Picture: Alexander Calder, Great Yellow Sun, 1973
Gouache and ink on paper, 74.6×109.5 cm
© 2021 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

© Modem