April 24, 2006 – October 14, 2007

City Hall Park

Alexander Calder in New York is the first-ever multi-work exhibition of the artist's sculptures in New York City's public spaces. Calder (1898-1976) was an engineer by training, and the works on view epitomize his technical mastery of industrial materials. But they also demonstrate his joyful imagination, his sense of harmony and balance, and his lifelong interest in color, abstraction, scale and anthropomorphism.

"Stabile" is the term that Calder used throughout his life to describe his freestanding, nonmoving sculptures, from the delicate stand-alone geometric abstractions he made in the early 1930s to his monumental multi-story constructions of the 1960s and 1970s. Artist Jean Arp coined the term in 1932 to describe those works in comparison to Calder's mobiles. The stabiles on view throughout City Hall Park were made between 1957 and 1976, a period when Calder had devoted himself to making outdoor sculpture on a grand scale from bolted sheet steel. In delicate counterpoint to these large outdoor works, Untitled (1976), one of the last mobiles the artist made before his death, hangs in the rotunda stairwell of City Hall.

Artist Bio
Born in Philadelphia in 1898, Alexander Calder was the second child of artist parents. He studied to become an engineer, but in his early twenties decided to pursue a career as an artist. He began by developing a new method of sculpting: by bending and twisting wire, he essentially "drew" three-dimensional figures in space. He lived in Paris from 1926 to 1933, where he created his famous Cirque Calder (1926-30) and had his first solo gallery shows. In 1933, Calder and his wife, Louisa, moved to Roxbury, Connecticut, where he continued to live and work for the rest of his life. Calder's many permanent public sculptures--in Chicago, Paris, Mexico City, Montreal, Jerusalem, and other cities all over the world--are some of the most beloved and important works of the 20th century.

Sponsorship
Alexander Calder in New York is sponsored by .

This exhibition is made possible through the cooperation of the City of New York, Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor; Patricia E. Harris, First Deputy Mayor; Department of Parks & Recreation, Adrian Benepe, Commissioner; and Department of Cultural Affairs, Kate D. Levin, Commissioner.

The works in the exhibition are lent courtesy of the Calder Foundation, New York, and by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Location
City Hall Park is located in Lower Manhattan, and is bordered by Broadway, Chambers Street, Centre Street, and Park Row. Tours of City Hall are available; for reservations and more information please call 311 or visit www.nyc.gov. The nearest subway stations are A, C, E to Chambers Street; 4, 5, 6, J, M, Z to Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall; R, W to City Hall; 2, 3 to Park Place.