America 250 in the Planetarium – The Universe as Model: Alexander Calder’s Mobile Sculptures in American Art History
Celebrate American discovery, innovation, and values through topics in astronomy, history, art, music, and more in this special nine-part series in the BGSU Planetarium. The America 250 in the Planetarium series of programs will take place on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays starting at 7:30 p.m. July 13 – 31. All America 250 in the Planetarium programs are free and open to the public.
This eighth talk in the series, “The Universe as Model: Alexander Calder’s Mobile Sculptures in American Art History”, will be presented by Andrew Hershberger, Professor, BGSU School of Art.
Starting in the early 1930s and continuing throughout his life, the American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976) created a remarkable body of sculptures that he called “mobiles.” Unlike most, if not all, earlier sculptures in art history, Calder’s mobiles actually moved and often rotated on a variety of axes. Perhaps the innovative and mechanical aspects of these mobile sculptures caused the French artist Fernand Leger (1881-1955) to describe them as “100 percent American” (in Miller, et al, 2018, p. 432). Calder himself proclaimed of the mobiles that the “underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe” (in Fineberg 2022, p. 52). With those words, Calder shared the inspiration he received from the way planets revolve around stars, and the way moons revolve around planets, etc. Calder restated his main inspiration this way: “I felt there was no better model for me to choose than the Universe” (as quoted by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum).
Connecting to the theme of innovation in this America 250 lecture series, Calder has often been hailed as the inventor of moving sculptures. Indeed, Calder’s mobile sculptures have been described as a “radical innovation” that transformed the ancient definition of sculpture to its very roots (Fineberg 2022, pp. 53-55). Thus, Calder’s mobiles fit the theme of American discovery and innovation while also connecting to the discipline of astronomy.
The talk will be followed by the planetarium show NAVIGATING WITH LEWIS & CLARK at 8:45 p.m.