I was rambling toward the Art Museum today, admiring the sculptures all along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway when I passed Alexander Calder’s “Ordinary” (top).
The shock of the differences between Alexander Milne Calder’s “Swann Fountain” (below) and son “Sandy’s” mobile hit me anew. These two pieces can hardly both be called the same type of artwork–sculpture.
The switch from the serious, solid-looking modeled figures which catch light and cast shadows to the virtually 2-D flat plates–witty little drips of colored ink punctuating the air–hanging off linear bars that move is nothing less than drastic.