MONTREAL.-The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presents the first Canadian retrospective of Alexander Calder (1898-1976), showcasing the full scope of the career of the American who set art in motion. The fruit of in-depth research, this major exhibition sheds new light on Calder’s work, as seen through the perspective of innovation.

Developed, organized and circulated by the MMFA, the exhibition Alexander Calder: Radical Inventor brings together over 150 works (paintings, sculptures, jewellery and other graphic works) to give the public an appreciation of the true extent of Calder’s extraordinarily innovative multidisciplinary practice: from his wire portraits to his paintings, and from his invention of the mobile to his monumental sculptures. Over the course of an international career that spanned half a century, this artist exhibited on five continents and worked in an astonishing array of fields, including drawing, sculpture, painting, design and performance.

Loans from prestigious institutions

Among the 150 objects on display are numerous works and documents that have rarely or never been presented and have been specially restored for the exhibition: the sculptures The Brass Family (1929), on loan from the Whitney Museum of American Art; Kiki de Montparnasse (II) (1930), on loan from the Centre Pompidou, Paris; White Panel (1936), on loan from the Calder Foundation; and the mobile Red Gongs (1950), on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, to name but a few. Alexander Calder: Radical Inventor also reveals little-known sculptures made by the artist in his childhood.

Other than those from the Calder Foundation, the exhibition has benefitted from major loans from museums in the United States and France, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington), the National Gallery of Art (Washington) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; as well as from loans from American, Canadian and French private collectors.

Nathalie Bondil, Director General and Chief Curator, MMFA, explains: “Montreal is home to the most important work of public art in Canada: the monumental sculpture Trois disques, or as Montrealers affectionately call it, Man, remembering ‘Man and His World.’ Evoking humanism as did Expo 67 – an exhibition that looked toward the future – this sculpture alludes to humanity’s technical progress and efforts, and its aspiration toward a collective harmony. And yet, the life and work of this modern art giant remain underappreciated in Canada. That is why I initiated this retrospective. As Sartre wrote, ‘These movements that intend only to please, to enchant our eyes, have nonetheless a profound and, as it were, metaphysical meaning.’ Calder moved in the cosmopolitan modernist avant-garde circles with figures such as Arp, Cocteau, Le Corbusier, Léger, Miró, Mondrian, Man Ray, Prévert and many others. His art, joyful and serious at the same time, attracted crowds from the very start of his career in the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, with his miniature circus. Today, in Montreal, world capital of the circus arts, Calder’s talents as a storyteller, inventor, painter and sculptor are revealed, thanks to this fresh perspective and research done by the curators, with the support of the Calder Foundation.”

Montreal, a Calder city

The last section of the exhibition is devoted to the sculpture Trois disques, commonly called Calder’s Man, a monumental work that has become an icon of Canadian heritage. This 22-metre stainless steel stabile installed on the Île Sainte-Hélène belvedere in Parc Jean-Drapeau (currently under reconstruction), is Calder’s second-tallest stabile, after that in Mexico. It was commissioned for Montreal’s Expo 67 and was gifted to the city at the end of the exhibition. This is the first time that the two original maquettes of the work have been brought together in the same location – one of them being the maquette that is installed front of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, on loan from York University, in Toronto, which was recently restored. This retrospective will give the public a chance to discover the artist behind this masterpiece of public art.

“The work is a testament to both the innovation and ambition of Calder, and the dynamism and openness of the Ville de Montréal, which, by hosting the world, aspired to ‘contribute greatly to understanding between peoples.’ Such values of inclusion live on in our city,” adds Valérie Plante, Mayor of Montreal, on the subject of Trois disques.

Alexander Calder: Radical Inventor

The exhibition presents an original reading of the uniqueness of the artist’s work and contribution to art history. A radical inventor, Calder not only introduced a new dimension to sculpture but changed the way we experience art in the modern world, based on a series of novel concepts. Beyond the actual objects on display, the exhibition draws attention to the space they occupy.

Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Guest Curator and co-curator of the exhibition, explains of Calder’s incredibly innovative work: “A true radical inventor, Calder showed us that something else was entirely possible in Art. That Art could be something more than earth bound. Travelling with Calder, following the physics of Calder’s creative process, experiencing the alternate perspective of Calder’s work, one arrives filled with elation and sense of boundless possibilities for poetry and beauty.”