Highway 1973

This is Alexander Calder’s ‘Highway’, a painting made in 1973, of all things. Calder, he's not just mobiles, you know! I find the playfulness here really comes across, that willingness to just go for it and see what happens. The colors are so direct, and the surface is like, unapologetically flat. It's paint on canvas, and that's that. Look how he uses the black lines to divide the space, but then those circles just float right over them, doing their own thing. There's this one red circle nestled inside a yellow one towards the bottom, like a target, but softened, made friendly. It reminds me a bit of Joan Miro, but with a Calder twist – that sense of movement, even in a still image. It's like he's taken the energy of his mobiles and flattened it out onto a canvas. For me, this piece is a reminder that art is all about conversation, how one artist speaks to another across time and space, and how even the simplest forms can hold so much joy and possibility.