Small Blue Spot c. 1953

This is Alexander Calder's *Small Blue Spot*, made with paint on paper. I can almost see Calder in his studio, playfully arranging shapes and colors on the page, pushing and pulling the composition until it sings. There is a strong red band stretching across the upper part of the paper. It's like a horizon line, but also a bold, confident gesture. The black shapes feel like they're floating in space. A kind of cosmic dance, a symphony of forms. I wonder if he started with the blue spot and built the painting around it, or if it was the final touch, the little spark that brought everything together? Calder was of course famous for his mobiles. And so I can't help but see this painting as a frozen mobile, each shape carefully balanced in relation to the others. I think this piece is a conversation. Calder absorbed all the visual languages around him, like Miro, and made something so uniquely his own. And that’s what it’s all about – a conversation across time, each artist building on what came before, pushing the boundaries of what painting can be.