SFX: A delightful little audio animation of the aquarium. Playful music & effects that punctuate these opening statements.

NARRATOR:

A hungry goldfish. A friendly snail. At the top, you can even see how much water this fishbowl holds.

SFX: Burble.

NARRATOR:

All made with the bend and the twist of a wire.

SFX: Water sloshing

SANDY ROWER:

No one did this before Calder.

NARRATOR:

That’s Alexander Calder’s grandson, Sandy Rower. He’s a leading expert on Calder’s work.

ROWER:

The Aquarium is a fascinating object because the fish itself has a mechanized component. There’s a little wand at the bottom, where you can wiggle it back and forth and make the fish have the apparency of life.

SFX: Little tinkle that animates the fish

NARRATOR:

Calder made his mother a similar sculpture for Christmas about two weeks after he finished this one. She wrote this in a letter:

VOICE:

… it is remarkable! The eyes and mouth are faultlessly placed. This is hard to describe, but the fishes bend as though swimming!

NARRATOR:

It seems so playful — using wire to draw — it’s hard to believe all the controversy it caused in the 1930’s.

ROWER:

I mean, there were literal fistfights about the fact that using a piece of wire to make a sculpture cannot be sculpture.

NARRATOR:

Fistfights!

ROWER:

Today it’s easy to see in the 21^st century that they’re sculptures. It’s an accepted medium. But when he invented the medium, it was thoroughly upsetting to turn sculpture on its ear from the 19th century, was very disturbing to people.