Halloween Circus Costumes Inspired by Alexander Calder
Sat, Oct 31, 2020
11–11:40 am
Alexander Calder, Little Clown, the Trumpeteer, 1926–1931, from Calder's Circus. Wire, cloth, paint, yarn, thread, and rhinestone buttons, overall: 8 3/4 × 3 1/2 × 3 1/4 in. (22.2 × 8.9 × 8.3 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from a public fundraising campaign in May 1982. One half of 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 De Witt Wallace Fund, Incorporated; 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. 83.36.8.1. © 2020 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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Online, via Zoom
Families with kids of all ages
You are invited to Open Studio From Home, free weekly online art classes with Whitney educators! Participants will experiment, create, and learn together with at-home art materials.
Alexander Calder created Calder’s Circus in Paris beginning in 1926, after weeks of illustrating real circus performances back in the U.S. Using everyday materials, he built his own miniature multi-act artwork, equipped with dozens of performer figurines. Calder carried his circus in suitcases and performed it for friends as well as the cultural avant-garde in Europe and the U.S.
Let’s join the circus! Together we will learn about Calder’s Circus and create our own fabulous character costumes, just in time for Halloween.
Materials:
- Plastic headband
- Fabric or old clothes
- Big pieces of paper or cardboard
- Aluminium foil
- Tape
- Sharpies
- Any fun dress-up materials or props
- Optional: glue gun