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Tate Modern Exhibition

Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture

11 November 2015 – 3 April 2016
Alexander Calder Performing Sculpture web banner
  • Watch a short film on Calder
  • Related events
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  • Find out more

A radical American sculptor who pioneered kinetic sculpture, bringing movement to static objects

Alexander Calder Red and Yellow Vane 1934, Tate Modern Alexander Calder Performing Sculpture exhibition 2015

Alexander Calder Red and Yellow Vane 1934

Alexander Calder
Antennae with Red and Blue Dots (c.1953)
Tate

© 2025 Calder Foundation, New York / DACS, London 

Alexander Calder Vertical Foliage 1941, Tate Modern Alexander Calder Performing Sculpture exhibition 2015

Alexander Calder Vertical Foliage 1941

Black and white photograph of Alexander Calder standing in his studio with one of his mobiles hanging above it

Alexander Calder in his Roxbury studio, 1941

Alexander Calder, Hi c 1928, Tate Modern Alexander Calder Performing Sculpture exhibition 2015

Alexander Calder Hi c 1928

Alexander Calder Goldfish Bowl 1929, Tate Modern Alexander Calder Performing Sculpture exhibition 2015

Alexander Calder Goldfish Bowl 1929

Calder travelled to Paris in the 1920s, having originally trained as an engineer, and by 1931 he had invented the mobile, a term coined by Duchamp to describe Calder’s sculptures which moved of their own accord.

His dynamic works brought to life the avant-garde’s fascination with movement, and brought sculpture into the fourth dimension.

Continuing Tate Modern’s acclaimed reassessments of key figures in modernism, Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture will reveal how motion, performance and theatricality underpinned his practice. It will bring together major works from museums around the world, as well as showcasing his collaborative projects in the fields of film, theatre, music and dance.

Watch a short film on Calder

Calder’s work created a sensation in the 1930s, he took sculpture and liberated it, and set it in motion.
Dara Ó Briain 

In this short film, comedian and Theoretical Physics graduate Dara Ó Briain talks about his love of the cosmos and its connection with Alexander Calder’s mobiles:

Tate Modern

Bankside
London SE1 9TG
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Dates

11 November 2015 – 3 April 2016

Supported by

Terra Foundation for American Art

With additional support from

The Performing Sculpture Supporters Circle

Lydia and Manfred Gorvy
Tate International Council and Tate Patrons

In partnership with

Times Newspapers Ltd

Times Newspapers Ltd

*****

[Calder] … forced the public to rethink what sculpture was

Evening Standard

A surprise and a delight

The Guardian

Exhilarating novelty

The Daily Telegraph

Entrancing

The Times

Calder’s aerial sculptures are unquestionably beautiful: delicately balanced arrangements of forms like fluttering leaves, subatomic particles or celestial bodies, suspended from the lightest possible cat’s cradle of wire

The Spectator

His fusion of sculpture with performance art was ahead of its time

Mail Online

Britain’s 'happiest exhibition'

Financial Times

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Find out more

  • Kinetic art

    Kinetic art is art that depends on motion for its effects

  • Artist

    Alexander Calder

    1898–1976
  • Mobile

    A mobile is a type of sculpture that is formed of delicate components which are suspended in the air and move in response to air currents or motor power

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