X Marks The Spot 1968

Alexander Calder painted 'X Marks The Spot' in 1968. It has these striking black ovals floating above an orange circle with the titular black lines over the top. I can imagine Calder making this. He’s got his black paint and he’s just laying down these perfect, almost cartoonish blobs. They have a real presence. They’re solid, heavy, but they are also weightless, floating above an imaginary horizon line. There is an intimacy in the way the circle sits on the canvas like it is beckoning us into the painting. The orange and yellow palette, combined with those floating black ovals, evokes a sense of playfulness, like a mobile for grown-ups. It's like Calder is continuing a conversation that Joan Miró started. Painting is, at its heart, a conversation, an exchange of ideas across time. Calder's piece reminds us that the best art embraces ambiguity. It invites us to see, think, and feel, without needing all the answers.