Calder: Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere

In October 1930, Calder visited Piet Mondrian's studio in Paris, where the totality of the environment-as-installation shocked him.

In Calder's own words:

"It was hard to see the 'art' because everything partook of the art...It was all one big decor, and the things in the foreground were lost against the things behind. But behind all was the wall running from one window to the other and at a certain spot Mondrian had tacked on it rectangles of the primary colors, and black, gray, + white. In fact, there were several whites, some shiny some matte. This caught my attention, and somehow I thought it would be nice if these rectangles oscillated—not much, but a little. I said so to Mondrian—and he said, 'Oh no, it's very fast as it is.' Later, when I had made some 'mobiles' he still maintained that he held the speed record. But I was much impressed by the simplicity and exactitude, and I went home and for 1 1/2 weeks I tried to paint."

Mondrian didn't necessarily intend his environmental installation as a work of art; for him this was the space in which he made his paintings and contemplated the possibilities of what he called “pure plastic art.” As for Calder, although he clearly responded to Mondrian’s paintings, it was his reaction to the experience of Mondrian’s studio that pushed him to embrace a completely abstract language of form. His first nonobjective works, which were oil paintings, are distillations not only of Calder's European influences—scholars often reference works by Mondrian, Malevich, and Kandinsky—but also of the work of a number of American abstractionists, especially Arthur Dove.

Two Spheres Within a Sphere

1931
Wire, wood, and paint
Calder Foundation, New York; Mary Calder Rower Bequest, 2011

Two Spheres Within a Sphere zeroes in on the interdependency of three spatial forms. By means of a hand-driven crank, much like the one in Goldfish Bowl, two small orbs—one red, one black—circulate within a void-space defined by two intersecting wire circles. “When I use two circles of wire intersecting at right angles,” wrote Calder, “this to me is a sphere—and when I use two or more sheets of metal cut into shapes and mounted at angles to each other, I feel that there is a solid form, perhaps concave, perhaps convex, filling in the dihedral angles between them. I do not have a definite idea of what this would be like, I merely sense it and occupy myself with the shapes one actually sees.” Calder’s art defines a place that exists parallel to nature. The building blocks of the natural world—pure geometry and freewheeling energetic forces—are what interested him. He had little concern for the things we know—a human body or a landscape, for example—and twisting them into images that express emotions. His sculptures cut sensual lines through our environment with ephemeral motions. They actualize the potential of energy.

Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere

1932 / 1933
Cast iron, rod, wire, wood, cord, thread, paint, and impedimenta
Calder Foundation, New York; Mary Calder Rower Bequest, 2011

Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere was the very first mobile that Calder suspended from the ceiling, reaching for a new synthesis of visual, kinetic, and aural experience. He was engaging the audience in an activation of the object that promised to give avant-garde sculpture a musical dimension. The work is composed of what Calder called "impedimenta"—seven repurposed objects (a wooden crate, a tin can, and five glass bottles of various types) plus a gong that he made. Today, these objects are fetishized, but they could actually be replaced with any number of contemporary elements in an extraordinary conceptual ensemble. The heavy cast-iron sphere, acting as a reservoir of potential energy, is a found object, a four-pound counterweight from some unknown device; the small sphere is made of wood. The arrangements of the objects is not fixed. Calder wanted viewers to intervene and freely organize the impedimenta themselves, thereby removing the artist''s control of the final composition.

When the heavy red sphere is pushed, the small white sphere is thrust into a series of engagements and near misses with the impedimenta. The movements of the small sphere precipitate unpredictable impressions, often provoking unsettling emotions. Viewers can't help but try to anticipate a pattern where in fact none exists. The result is a tantalizing performance with periods of expectation and tension followed by moments of surprise and emotional release. Calder intended Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere to exist as an idea—one that can be freshly realized over and over again—with the idea being the only fixed aspect of the composition. As for the aural experience, the music is instigated by the viewer's direct contributions. In fact, it's the performance and only the performance that completes the work. With Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere, art becomes something to experience in a perpetual present—a present that is always unfolding. As with all of Calder's work, the genius of Small Sphere and Heavy Sphere has everything to do with the intersection of the material and the immaterial.