Alexander Calder

The Challenge... A Tribute to Modern Art is a 1974 American documentary film directed by Herbert Kline. The film shows footage of great modern artists in their studios creating and commenting on their work, with narration and commentary by Orson Welles. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Alexander Calder created and performed one of the most important and beloved works, his miniature circus (1926-1931). More than twenty years later Jean Painleve made Le Grande Cirque Calder 1927, begun in 1953 and completed in 1955.

The 1966 construction of Alexander Calder's 'La Grande Voile' (The Big Sail), a monumental sculpture installed in McDermott Court at MIT in Cambridge.

8 x 8: A Chess-Sonata in 8 Movements is an American experimental film directed by Hans Richter, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean Cocteau. Described by Richter as "part Freud, part Lewis Carroll" and filmed partially on the lawn of Duchamp's summer house in Southbury, Connecticut.

American sculptor, Alexander Calder, creates around the workshop. The film features several of his kinetic sculptures-- Wild moving figurines that spin, undulate and perform circus acts. The film ends on a hanging moon mobile, completing our wacky trip.

The film begins with a sun materializing out of the emptiness of space. In the first of three sequences we see various images from nature against music: the sky, trees, leaves, a bird, water, sand, a beach. A little boy wanders along the beach observing the natural world around him. He walks and presently comes to a house and peers inside. The second sequence has no music. The narrator speaks of sculptor Alexander Calder and his work, as we see Calder in his workshop, cutting and creating unusual shapes, and seeing the resultant artworks. The last sequence has music as we view images of Calder's work. However, now they are intercut with images from nature so that we understand that Calder's inspiration is the natural world around him. The film ends as it began, with an image of the sun, now fading into the sky.

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Among Alexander Calder's creations were miniature spring-loaded circus figures, made of wire. In this short film, Calder (1989-1976) talks about and demonstrates these toy-like creations. We see them spin, hop, roll, and leap. It's pure whimsy, wit, and glee.

Alexander Calder revolutionized the art of sculpture with his distinctive modernism, freeing sculpture from its stand and adding movement to the art itself. He rose to fame in the 1930s with his renowned Miniature Circus but his modernist creativity skyrocketed with his wire sculptures, an invention he dubbed "drawing in space."

Captures Alexander Calder at work on a wire model.

Documentation of an exhibition entitled Le Mouvement held in Paris in 1955, co-curated by Breer and Pontus Hulten. Features works and appearances by Breer, Tinguely, Agam, Soto, and others. — Anthology Film Archives