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Exhibition

Alexander Calder

Motion Lab
May 14, 2016–October 1, 2017

Alexander Calder revolutionized art in the early 1930s by introducing actual movement into his sculptural and pictorial compositions. Animated as if by a life force, these works quickly came to be known as “mobiles,” a word that still brings to mind aerial, wind-activated sculptures today. Yet the range of creative possibilities envisioned by Calder far surpassed this familiar hanging form. Comprising a selection of artworks drawn almost exclusively from the Donald and Doris Fisher Collection and displayed both indoors and on adjacent terraces, this exhibition traces Calder’s explorations of motion from the late 1920s to the late 1960s. Alexander Calder: Motion Lab is the inaugural presentation in SFMOMA’s Calder gallery and marks the first in a series of annual exhibitions about his work.


Exhibition Preview

Artwork image, Alexander Calder, Double Gong
Artwork image, Calder Tower with Painting
Artwork image, Alexander Calder

Alexander Calder, Double Gong, 1953; The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © 2016 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Alexander Calder, Tower with Painting, 1951; The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © 2016 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo: Ian Reeves

Alexander Calder, Untitled, ca. 1940; The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © 2016 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photo: Ben Blackwell


Installation of the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at SFMOMA is supported in part by the Henry Luce Foundation and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.