Alexander Calder, Calder’s Circus, 1926-31
Imagine a Circus.
calder's Circus consists of an elaborate troupe of over seventy diminutive figures and animals, nearly one hundred accessories such as carpets and lamps, and over thirty musical instruments, phonographic records, and noisemakers. The audience would sit on a low bed or crates, munching peanuts and using Alexander calder's noisemakers while he choreographed, directed, and performed calder's Circus act by act, each a complete narrative scene. Accompanied by music and lighting, performances could last as long as two hours while trapeze artists flew through the air, a strongman slowly lifted a barbell, and acrobats catapulted through space.
Divide your students into small groups. Ask each group to come up with a list of possible characters, performers, and animals they might find at a circus. As a class, collect their ideas. Ask them to reflect further on what the circus might look like, or where it might take place. What sights, sounds, and smells might they expect? What might be surprising about a circus performance?
Alexander Calder, Calder’s Circus, 1926–31. Wire, wood, metal, cloth, yarn, paper, cardboard, leather, string, rubber tubing, corks, buttons, rhinestones, pipe cleaners, and bottle caps, 54 × 94 1/4 × 94 1/4 in. (137.2 × 239.4 × 239.4 cm) overall, dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from a public fundraising campaign in May 1982. One half the funds were contributed by the Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Charitable Trust. Additional major donations were given by The Lauder Foundation, the Robert Lehman Foundation Inc., the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation Inc., an anonymous donor, The T. M. Evans Foundation Inc., MacAndrews & Forbes Group Incorporated, the DeWitt Wallace Fund Inc., Martin and Agneta Gruss, Anne Phillips, Mr. and Mrs. Laurance S. Rockefeller, the Simon Foundation Inc., Marylou Whitney, Bankers Trust Company, Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth N. Dayton, Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz, Irvin and Kenneth Feld, Flora Whitney Miller. More than 500 individuals from 26 states and abroad also contributed to the campaign 83.36.1-95
© 2009 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; photograph © Whitney Museum of American Art.