Crinkly Taureau 1970

Here's Calder’s Crinkly Taureau, made with painted metal – a material he loved to bend and shape. Imagine him, wrestling with the metal, coaxing it into this bull form. I can almost feel Calder thinking, ‘How can I make something solid feel light, almost weightless? How can I make a bull that's both strong and delicate?’ The black and white play off each other like a dance, each shape defined by the other. It’s so simple, so reduced, and yet it captures the essence of a bull – its power, its grace, its slightly goofy stance. I wonder if Calder was thinking about Picasso's bulls when he made this? Or maybe he was just playing, letting the material guide him, one bend at a time. It’s like he's saying, ‘Let’s see what happens if I push this a little further, simplify it even more.’ And in that simplicity, we find something really profound.