A Universe 1934

With wire and paint, Alexander Calder crafted a cosmos right here in MoMA. He coaxes metal into a dance of lines and curves, the black rod snaking through space, balanced by colored spheres. I can imagine Calder in his studio, a playful engineer, bending and tweaking, letting his intuition guide the arrangement of each element. There’s something so joyful about how the red and white spheres float. It makes you feel like you are a planet circling a sun, a tiny world held in perfect tension. Calder’s use of line is so economical but it describes an entire solar system. Artists like Calder are connected by an invisible web of influence, each pushing against the boundaries of what art can be, always challenging us to see the world anew.