AUDIO GUIDE TRANSCRIPT

NARRATOR:

Calder was at the center of avant-garde artistic movements during the 1930s. This work was included in a landmark exhibition in Paris in 1936, organized by the founder of the Surrealist movement, André Breton. The exhibition placed European Surrealist work alongside indigenous work from the Americas and Oceania.

ALEXANDER S.C. ROWER:

So Calder had this work in the exhibition. It's little shards of glass and little bits and shards of mirror and a few little shell buttons and little brass wires and little strings. It's a very, very delicate little thing but, nonetheless, it had tremendous impact. It was the most unusual sculpture: it didn't describe Calder's emotional state or anything Surrealistic at all. It was just really in and of itself.

NARRATOR:

Calder never fully aligned himself with Surrealism – or any other movement. He remained an individualist. His influence continues to this day – as you’ll discover as you move out of the exhibition and into the museum’s modern and contemporary galleries. Curator José Diaz. 

JOSÉ CARLOS DIAZ:

Calder’s important because he never stopped exploring the possibilities of what art could be. 

This was an artist who had a grasp for all elements of creativity; it’s someone who can’t really be defined as just a sculptor. He is performative. He is painterly. He is collaborative. And so this is something I think audiences today will really find inspiration from. And for us at the Seattle Art Museum, this is an artist that really relates to artists of today.