Original subtitles

they call me sandy France is my adoptive

country in the little village of sachet

in the PEI to the war I had a big studio

built up on the hill and I spent most of

my time there I've never been able to

stop myself chiseling bending filing

assembling and painting of course

I was born in 1898 into a family of

artists I used to model for my father

when I was little he was an academic

sculptor he is to call me the garbage

man my pockets were always stuffed full

of petals it's a wooden glass bits of

string feathers - my sister Peggy gave

me a pair of pliers for Christmas once

so I started making jewelry for her

dolls I was such a handyman that my

parents let me turn the cellar into a

workshop I studied engineering and I

became first a lawnmower salesman then

an industrial designer but I didn't like

all those little calculations I wanted

to be a painter

I spent two whole weeks going to Barnum

circus I could tell just from the music

what the next act was gonna be I knew

all the best sight lines

New York 1923 the young sandy is

studying drawing at the Art Students

League he has no studio so works in the

open air making sketches of everyday

life to earn a living he becomes a

newspaper artist at the National police

Gazette a political and social satire

paper Central Park Coney Island the

Brooklyn zoo

he's got the whole of New York for his

subject his sister Peggy tells their

parents I had animal sketching published

a book of sketches of animal life what I

really wanted was to capture movement

and just draw things as I saw them but

my father had serious doubts about my

ability to make a living as an artist

that is in 1926 I was 28 years old and I

had to strike out on my own

I got myself a job on the Galileo an

English cargo ship they just had me

slaving away at painting the boat by

then a lot of American artists across

the Atlantic from what I'd heard Paris

was the dream destination for folks like

us Mullin mass is the land of Liberty

people there have big ideas it is a

meeting point for artists from all over

the world this avant-garde of the

Roaring Twenties is an inspiration to

him at first he survives by sketching

cartoons and caricatures from the

streets and in the cafes I used to make

little models out of wire in my hotel

room the first character I made was

Josephine Baker she'd become world

famous for the wild Charleston she did

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

Coulter starts adding pieces of wood to

make little articulated animals a few

months later on the advice of a friend

he exhibits some of them at the Salon de

Zoomer East it was around this time I

perfected my miniature circus I did a

horseman a clown he moved with strings a

weightlifter I put on the very first

show for my friends in my hotel room one

day one of them brought along with Luger

on Shabri a well-known circus critic he

insisted I had to put a safety net under

the trapeze so I just found a bit of old

curtain it was him wrote the first

newspaper article on me

the circus remains his passion forty

years later called her still enjoys

playing with it in his barn that's a

shame

[Music]

they are Monsieur yuppies are the

circular

[Music]

desperado art thou ready Oh

[Music]

Bango

[Music]

clowns tightrope walkers trapeze artists

musical animals the smallest show on

earth is born Calder has moved into show

business

Serkis at the time is very alamode

people have fun at the circus

it's convivial you come across all types

there from the smart set to working

families artists and intellectuals to

are all part of the crowd I went to

Medrano place a lot to see the frat

aleni brothers Paul had come to see my

show and he was mad about my little

rubber dog he asked me if I'd make a big

one to replace the one albear always

dragged around with him my one could

trot and wag his tail my dear friend

your dog is very well he did for a while

look a bit unwell and was not eating

perhaps it was because he knew his

master was in America I gave him a

little whisky and what do you know he

perked up considerably I wasn't living

very well in Paris with just the $75 a

month that my mother was sending me I

really had to rely on my ingenuity

on his return from New York and

industrial this places in order with him

for 10 prototype wooden toys that he

makes out of offcuts from doors the gold

company promotes them as almost lifelike

in their movement

for a while I thought those toys could

finance my art but actually they took up

too much of my time

from around then on my time would be

divided between America and France these

days in terrain I have a very calm life

I get up early every morning and go to

the painting studio I've always found

that to be a direct link between drawing

and wire

[Music]

February 1928 and the time has come for

Calder to show his work in New York

Carl's a grocer who's portrayed he

paints puts on his first exhibition at

the Veii gallery I gave him 15 of my

little things for ten or twenty dollars

each there was a star

[Music]

Calder stylized as reality his figures

are always close to caricature it is not

yet consider them part more a

celebration of humor one critic writes

he's a clever boy all right but what

does his daddy have to say about it all

I know he was amused by my stuff but he

missed being able to stroke it like he

could his own bronzes a journalist

friend of mine mentioned me in a

fashionable magazine and I thanked her

in wire it was the first time they

filmed me

I've always liked to sketch the people I

meet finding the truth of a face is not

a question of realistic likeness but one

of vision of transposition

according to kaulder the line of the

contour is above all a commentary on the

space occupied by the mass which

interests him more than its volume

[Music]

back in bomb horn ass it's the bohemian

life the cafe's are a crossroads of

ideas where people meet to set the world

to rights especially the world of forms

and of concepts it's here the culture

gets to know the painter jules Baskin a

friend of his father and a prince of the

night always surrounded by his retinue

the way he drew his line was kind of in

the same manner as my wire pieces or

maybe it was the other way round he

represented us both as horsemen him with

his mistress and me as a sculptor when

he gave me this drawing I made a

Josephine for him it was him who found

me a gallery for my first Paris

exhibition he even scribbled a little

introduction for me at some cafe table I

don't want to brag but I think Fujita

and there's Nasser there too I've met

sandy Calder when I look at his work I

know that he will very soon be making a

great and resoundingly successful name

for himself and will be exhibiting

alongside his father and other great

artists like me pass keen and I know

what I'm talking about shortly before

his death he wrote me a little note dear

Calder I'm falling apart maybe you could

remake me in wire Calder of the American

has decided to mock us was he entirely

sober when he started playing around

with his zigzags in space Calder is

wrong to abuse the illustrative style

sculpture is too serious an art for one

to indulge in gratuitous games of humor

and parody exhibition of the gallery baa

goes farther than one could ever imagine

into the realm of emptiness it didn't go

very well

I didn't sell either the springtime all

the romulus and remus being suckled by a

nine-foot wolf with teats made out of

coat hooks

my father wrote a little word to me

today his first ever compliment

perfectly balanced and perfectly

realized superb in the spring of 1929

Calder was offered a big exhibition in

Berlin to keep his object safe during

his voyage in third-class he builds a

huge conical framework a filmmaker

Hans Corliss comes to film him at work

Calder discovers a city in full

flowering a hub of the avant-garde or

all the artistic disciplines are

represented it's up to him to find his

place

observers are struck by the way he

transforms everyday materials into human

figures that could almost have a soul

a critic writes Alexander Calder takes a

piece of wire that a plumber has

rejected his magicians fingers bring it

to life so evocatively

that began only marvel that this humble

material has for so long been banished

from art

[Music]

hardly anybody came to the opening no

doubt because it took place on April the

first following his failure at the

gallery PA the critics are now talking

about drawing in space and situating his

work closer to graphics than to

sculpture the Paris Montparnasse

newspaper calls him the Daumier of wire

I really feel like I've made it and it'd

be good if they got a bit of all this

publicity over in America so I could

find myself a market there

it hasn't really gotten going here yet I

reckon it won't be long though on his

return to Paris called her asks Kiki the

Queen of Montparnasse to come and pose

for him she'd just finished filming a 12

de mer a man rave film based on a poem

by des knows man had put gelatin on his

lens so she was unrecognizable she was

furious about that I absolutely adored

her nose it seemed to just launch off

into space

[Music]

the filmmakers went round all the

artists studios they were over at

Fujita's him he just moved in with Yuki

so I put on a show for their

housewarming he took care of the

lighting and the drum and the gramophone

music Calder's little circus becomes a

curiosity that is not to be missed

suddenly everyone's talking about this

young American Colossus who's turning

out Lilliputians

[Applause]

[Laughter]

[Music]

the artists and intellectuals are all

clamoring to get into one of these shows

by the new toast of the town

Jean Cocteau Edgar Juarez juanio

phonology Marcel Duchamp the Corbusier

man-ray Kiki they all pack into his

studio to laugh at his comical sometimes

tragical fables there was some rivalry

between the different groups and

sometimes I had to avoid mixing them I

never did understand these squabbles

between artists I always stayed out of

all that

[Music]

it's just friends that come here to

Sashi I always reply to my mail in the

morning I get a lot of letters from fans

and most of them are under 10 while I'm

doing that Luiza weaves rugs for my

designs we met at the end of the roaring

20s on the ship I was returning to

America on the de Grasse I passed this

man on the bridge with a young woman

with him I was just turning around to

get a good look at her and I heard him

say there's another one of them

this was Louisa her father had taken her

to Europe so she could be around the

intellectual elite but all she'd met

were Porter's waiters taxi drivers and

then finally me

[Music]

in spite of the economic crisis New York

is growing fast the Empire State

Building is going up in Manhattan and is

soon to be the tallest building in the

world 400 meters of metal framework

erected at the rate of four storeys a

week by Mohawk Indians real trapeze

artists with no fear of heights

[Music]

[Applause]

whenever he visits Calder unpacks his

circus in the apartments of New York

[Applause]

[Music]

by now it is grown from 50 to 200

figurines

and now takes not two but five suitcases

to transport it sandy returns to mom

porn ass and decides to stay there since

I was pretty broke my friends suggested

I should make people pay to get in I

could seat 30 people a night by now my

landlord didn't sleep anymore but at

least I could pay the rent at best

one night Mero happened to drop by

during a show I think he enjoyed it what

I like most he told me are the little

bits of paper the were actually in my

circus a few pieces of white paper with

a little hole in the middle

they had weights on them that I'd hung

on wires so it was like butterflies

landing on the shoulders of a beautiful

lady covered in jewels Mero he lived in

Montmartre and a kind of pre fabricated

metal tunnel he didn't have any

paintings there just assembled objects

and it wasn't really hard in my opinion

we were both iconoclasts so he got out

and right away he was a big influence on

me he used to say that I was a burly man

with the soul of a nightingale

Mondrian asked me round to his studio

was light and spacious like a real-life

version of one of his paintings there

was this high white wall with colored

cardboard rectangles pinned on it that

he'd move around every day he used to

paint his furniture and stuff too he

said that his works were just a small

part of a much larger whole it was this

wall that touched me more than all the

rest I remember I said to him that it

would be nice if they could be swung

round in different directions and in

different arcs he replied in this very

serious voice no that's not necessary my

painting already moves very fast

this visit was a great shock to me I was

familiar with the term modern but I

wasn't really aware of the term abstract

for two whole weeks I never left my

studio I just kept painting these rather

modest canvases

this interest in painting didn't last

his new exhibition at the gallery PLC a

paid for out of his own pocket is called

volumes vectors densities stationery

sculpture is based on the curves and

arcs of the circle takes shape in his

mind Calder is convinced that he can see

new frontiers opening faster and more

complex than those of figurative art

which now seems to him very limiting

forget about the portraits it was the

gallery that insisted I put them in

except the one of Kiki that I read it in

the abstract style

[Music]

Ferno lege writes the preface looking at

these new works transparent objective

exact I think of sati Mondrian marcel

duchamp those uncontested masters of an

expressive silent beauty Calder is in

their lineage now at the age of 32 I

wanted to do abstract work

[Music]

I believe it was from this period on

that the direction of my work took the

universe as its model what I wanted to

express was the idea of celestial bodies

floating in space and dissolving into

different forms and volumes it was about

ten years previously as I remember I was

at sea off the coast of Guatemala it was

about 10:00 in the morning and the Sun

was rising over the decks this red ball

the crescent of the moon over on the

other side it was just like a great

cosmic mobile I never had it again that

vision that revelation later on in Paris

I went to the planetarium to study those

great volumes of gravity just floating

in the dark then I started working on

objects that moved a bit some of them

quite a lot and there was some that you

cranked up and some that had a little

electric motor I had all these things

that just kept spinning round Marcel

Duchamp came round to my studio he was a

profane er of art where we were both

part of more or less the same family the

dabblers the junkman the scrap metal

guys he'd been studying movement for a

long time like fair knowledge a with his

mechanical ballet

[Music]

he was the first one to use the word

mobile I reckon he made a gift of it to

me

he straightaway urge me to exhibit

[Music]

around this time shall L ask Calder to

join in in the abstraction creation

group along with ARP Delon a Mondrian

and PES nur their work is all purely

plastic with no anecdotal element to it

in the space of less than three years

Calder has given shape to his longtime

dream of an art in movement

the critics speak of a new genre kinetic

art his friends are all enthusiastic

lazy Picasso Cocteau Mondrian alone is

of the opinions of Sandy's sculptures do

not move with enough speed following his

beam new exhibition called Hurley's

mechanisms behind to concentrate on

mobiles governed by the laws of gravity

but when an artist explains what he's

doing he has either to then challenge

his own pronouncements or else confine

his work within those explanations

theories are all very well for the

artist that if you ask me one should

keep them to himself a master of irony

he may be but his artistic vision

remains as clear as ever

I now believe that movement has its own

Beauty one that has nothing to do with

any mechanization whether I've ever

actually achieved it is another question

I've at least shown that it's possible

though

the challenge now is to give shape to

the chromatic intuitions gained in the

studio of Mondrian and to rethink his

art in terms of painting black and white

first then red now after that I'm not so

sure but I'd like to paint everything

red I like it so much

in 1933 the climate in Europe is getting

darker Louisa and Sandi decide to leave

France and go back to America

[Music]

I bought this old farm that we'd visited

with my parents

painter Hill Road in Roxbury Connecticut

[Music]

it's where our daughters sandra and

marie grew up

[Music]

I've always built everything myself

and I've done a lot of things here at

Roxbury with my own hands

there were several barns that I turned

into workshops I made a lot of objects

and utensils - when we first bought this

place there were only two trees one old

apple tree and a maple

[Music]

after my little studios in Paris I

needed to have space in this new

building that dominates the whole Valley

I could at last start doing some larger

scale work when I work on something I

have two things in mind the first is to

make it more alive

the second is always to bear in mind the

balance of it the main thing is it has

to catch the wind

it has to move in 1934 steel fish and

outdoor piece is his first big mobile a

four meter steel rod planted in the

earth it's the first of the large-scale

exterior works that he will produce

throughout his life and announces an art

that is open to space and to the nature

that surrounds it this is completely

useless and meaningless it's just

beautiful that's all it can make you

very emotional if you understand it of

course if it had some meaning it would

be easier to understand but it's too

late for that

from this time on Calder tends to avoid

explaining his work

[Music]

when people come to visit I always ask

them to respect my on tidiness

I start by cutting out a lot of sheets

of different thicknesses so that some

heavier than others then I sort them out

and classify them

[Music]

to get my mobile balanced ride I

arranged them like a collage and then I

paint them

I sometimes plan them out with drawings

but I never know beforehand what I'm

gonna do

[Music]

1935 new ideas new forms Calder is now

living in New York and there he meets

Pierre Matisse who's to be his new

dealer for the next ten years he creates

for him a series of flat sculptures

which he calls frames this is his way of

creating painting and movement

[Music]

just as one can compose colors or forms

one can use natural movements and

different speeds as an element of the

whole composition

[Music]

during his frequent stays at Roxbury his

work is inspired by nature things that

he finds on his country walks give rise

to Akana clastic assemblages of oj too

vague

organic forms take him away from

geometry for a while with primitive

disturbing creatures that are close to

the universe of his surrealist friends

kaulder soon finds himself confronted

with a problem with his outdoor Mobile's

that of support he creates the mobile

stabile a hybrid creature of both air

and earth its base becomes an integral

part of the whole form

I hadn't been back to France for four

years Miro helped me get my first public

Commission for the Spanish pavilion of

the International Exhibition in Paris

mercury fountain a fountain of mercury

made up of steel sheets coated with tar

to avoid abrasion this was in 37 it was

the middle of the Spanish Civil War

along with me Rose Reaper and Picasso's

Guernica I found him became a symbol of

resistance to Franco's dictatorship the

shortage of metal during the war leads

Calder to explore new possibilities his

constellations small stables with

organic forms are composed of pieces of

wood joined together by steel rods

[Music]

despite their name these strange

fossilized looking structures represent

neither atoms nor stars

[Music]

many of the Surrealists have already

left France for New York to escape the

barbarity of the Nazis in March 1942

Pierre Matisse presents in his gallery

of the historic artists in exile

exhibition featuring brittle Chagall

Ernst Lachey Messel Mehta Mondrian tanky

and Zabka the ones who wanted to change

the world have come to realize that the

world has changed without their help

[Music]

along with some of his friends Calder

prepares for his retrospective

Piet Mondrian was still somewhat

circumspect about my machines

marcel duchamp was the most American of

them all so he was always ready for

fresh experimentation

[Music]

and Eve tongue he had become a close

friend and his work was close in nature

to my own it was like a kind of

consecration orchestrated by my longtime

champion the art critic James Sweeney

and then Herbert matterr was preparing a

film on the exhibition at 45 he's the

youngest American artist to whom the

Museum of Modern Art has ever recorded

this privilege

the exhibition enjoys enormous success

with the public sandy Calder is on the

way to becoming one of the most

revolutionary the most exuberant and the

most acclaimed artists of his day the

[Music]

inventor of kinetic art he will always

be the man who introduced a living

movement into abstract art my father has

just died I'm glad he lived to see this

people were enjoying making my pieces

move and the guard started yelling no

touching well I was right there in the

room so I started yelling - no go ahead

you're all allowed to touch them

[Music]

just after the war an architect

commissioned some tiny Mobile's for the

maquette of one of his projects they

were along the lines of the ones I was

doing at the time with these so-called

clumsy hands I showed a few of them to

Duchamp who gave me the idea of sending

them to Louis Kerry in Paris I made them

all to measure to the format permitted

by the post office boxes and I send them

off in pieces with assembly instructions

for each one when there were enough of

them to do an exhibition I took a plane

to France

[Music]

jean-paul Sartre writes in the catalogue

if it is true that the purpose of

sculpture is to carve movement into what

is immobile we would be wrong to call

the art of Calder sculpture he does not

suggest movement it captures it his

Mobile's mean nothing and refer to

nothing but themselves

they simply are nothing more

in 1950 kaulder shows his Mobile's of

the gallery mag on avenue des machine in

paris it is an exhibition that marks the

beginning of a long association with MA

mag dealer to great artists like Bona

Matisse Giacometti Brock and Miro

[Music]

symmetry doesn't interest me what

interests me is the visible breaking

down of the composition and what creates

the composition is its disparities

here's a Sebastian's red line

[Music]

they're all sharing hand me the crumb

Bianca's a perfed of all out there

kick off the bouncy cuz nobody goes

together

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

my friend Han SARP had said to me one

day what are those things you did last

year

Stables so after that I pinched the term

and applied it to the steel monsters I'm

still making to this day my stables of

monuments made of metal sheets assembled

without soldiering they stand directly

on the ground on several feet they're

balanced and stable but to the opposite

of the mobiles it's the viewer that

makes them change shape by changing his

own point of view

[Music]

in the 50s I had quite a few

construction workshops working for me

both in France and the United States

driving around from one to the other and

I felt like some sort of big businessman

[Music]

my objects all tend to find their own

size some of them demand to stay small

others to be bigger I have to make a

model first of every one of them it

takes a lot of perseverance to get on a

large scale the final lines of the

original shape the guys know more or

less what I want now but when it comes

to the final positioning it's me who

decides in actual fact it's me who works

under their direction Calder enjoys

greater and greater success this

engineer that never was now finds

himself working in the world of industry

it is a return to the source people are

now commissioning gigantic pieces from

him a rare occurrence at the time he

creates man 23 meters high and weighing

60 tons for the Montreal Universal

exhibition of 1967 gigantism science

fiction Calder just keeps on enjoying

himself on a grand scale his monumental

work for spreading from continent to

continent the red spider and spiral in

Paris

[Music]

Terral appeal in Italy

else oh ho ho in Mexico

flamingos in Chicago

Calder's works hot our cities they watch

over our countryside dragons frozen into

menacing shapes troubled scarecrows or

troubling totems prehistoric sentinels

forever watching the skies

[Music]

in 1968 the Rome Opera invites him to

direct a ballet works-in-progress

retraces the origins of his avila in 19

minutes it is an opportunity for him to

evoke the great cycle of life the birth

of the earth and the stars and the first

stirrings of life

[Music]

when I started out everyone was talking

about movement in painting and sculpture

but in fact there wasn't much of it at

all what the was were gestures in my

Mobile's the forces are placed in

relation to each other not unlike those

of human beings really there are big

ones and little ones heavy ones of light

ones round ones and pointy ones that

come and go observe each other circle

each other avoid each other

destabilize each other or lean on each

other my poetry used to be found perhaps

in the coming together of these opposing

elements that always end up getting

along with each other

[Music]

for most people they're nothing more

than the series of anodyne objects that

move for others so it might be yes

poetry

[Music]

you

[Music]