Calder on Film

Floor Three, Susan and John Hess Family Theater

This screening program brings together four historical films that dramatize Alexander Calder's sculptures in motion and explore the artist's relationship to cinema. The program will be introduced by curator and film scholar Victoria Brooks.

Mobile Rushes (1933). 35 mm, black-and-white, silent; 1:51 min. Cinematography by Jean Painlevé.
Newly-restored Jean Painlevé film showing Calder’s works in motion, including activations by the artist outside of his Paris studio, 14 rue de la Colonie.

Works of Calder (1950). Produced by New World Film Productions for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. 16mm, color, sound (English); 19:43 min. Directed and cinematography by Herbert Matter; produced and narrated by Burgess Meredith; music by John Cage. 
A lyrical film by Swiss-born photographer Herbert Matter that investigates the work of Calder.

Alexander Calder: From the Circus to the Moon (1963). 16mm, color, sound (English); 11:54 min. Produced and directed by Hans Richter; cinematography by Arnold Eagle.
An experimental film by acclaimed director Hans Richter, one of several made in collaboration with Calder.

Work in Progress (1968). 16mm, color reversal film original, silent; 14:40 min. Cinematography by Giulio Gianini. 
Rarely seen documentation of Calder’s seminal theatrical performance at Teatro dell’Opera, Rome.

Victoria Brooks is the curator of time-based visual art at EMPAC / Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, chair of the Contemporary Curatorial Workshop at the Williams Graduate Program in the History of Art, and makes films with Evan Calder Williams and Lucy Raven as Thirteen Black Cats. 

Free with Museum admission—skip the line and buy your admission ticket online in advance!