Calder Picasso at the deYoung

This exhibition demonstrates in parallel fashion the similar and contrasting development of the two artists. A satisfying and digestible show.

 

Years ago, I was introduced to Calder at a retrospective at SFMOMA. It had many early works wire sculptures of circus and moving wire pieces, which charmed me. This show has a sampling of wire sculptures which ingeniously demonstrate how a wire, which functions as a line in space, creates a three-dimensional figure and an accompanying two-dimensional shadow. If the sculpture is in movement, one’s perspective also changes as does the shadow. This is especially true for his mobiles, his signature contribution to art, animated and evolving sculptures which engaged the viewer in a dynamic dialogue.

 

Picasso, who perhaps personifies 20^th century art, exudes the confidence of someone at the top of his game. He used representation and abstraction to explore the possibilities of art:  creating 3 dimensional on 2 dimensional surfaces, painting at various perspectives into a unified whole and simplifying forms to its essential components. This last part was striking, how a woman could be conveyed in simple colored lines, or a bull could be pared down to its essential parts. The other aspect that I found captivating, was his ability to play with paper to form sculptures, which were later turned to bronze sculptures.

 

Alexander Calder

 

The admission of approximation is necessary, for one cannot hope to be absolute in his precision. He cannot see or even conceive of a thing from all possible points of view simultaneously.  

–Alexander Calder

 

Calder’s Tightrope Worker subject explicitly, visualized qualities that are always present in his own work: skill and balance. By titling the subject, “worker” instead of “walker,’ Calder emphasizes the effort required for both the real-life and sculptural version of the subject. --exhibit.

The studio was a sacred dumping ground, from which new inventions emerged in unexpected ways.

--Jed Perl, Calder’s biographer.

Pablo Picasso

You must aim hard at likeness to get to the sign. For me, surreality is simply that, and has never been anything else. profound likeness beyond the shapes and colors by means of which things present themselves.

--Pablo Picasso.

This is one of my favorite examples of the inventiveness of Picasso—to use bicycle parts to create a bull’s head, the quintessential Spanish mascot. Picasso said, “The idea of a Bull’s Head came to me before I had a chance to think. All I did was weld them together.” He was fascinated by the process of transformation but then ideally, would discard the piece so he could use the seat and handlebars to repair a bicycle.

Picasso produced a series of lithographs of a bull progressively reducing it from a three dimensional animal to two-dimensional outline of it’s essence.  “Each time he simplified the drawing; it became more and more geometric, with areas of flat black…to arrive at his bull in a single line, he had to pass through all the others before.”  Fernand Mourlot.