Cog Wheels 1971

Alexander Calder made this painting, Cog Wheels, with paint on paper, and what strikes me is how he’s embracing the pure joy of artmaking as a process. The surface is alive with these bright, unmodulated colors—red, yellow, blue—laid down with an immediacy that's totally disarming. It’s like he's saying, "Here's color, here's form, let's not overthink it." The shapes, like playful, oversized amoebas, are outlined in black, giving them a graphic punch, a kind of visual oomph. I love the way the yellow one overlaps the blue, creating this kind of dynamic tension that makes the whole image vibrate. The materiality of the paint is so straightforward, so unpretentious. You can see the brushstrokes, the way the pigment sits on the paper, not trying to be anything it isn't. Calder reminds me of Miró, both sharing a language of signs, a love of play, and a willingness to let the hand lead the way, reminding us that art is, above all, a conversation, a back-and-forth, and open to endless possibilities.