拍品專文
"The dancer is gone but the dance remains." These are the words of Alexander Calder's great friend and curator James Johnson Sweeney who spoke at a memorial service held at the Whitney Musuem in New York following Calder's death.
From the beginning of his career as an artist, Calder explored the human form and its beauty, first with his enchanting wire sculptures of circus figures and later in a variety of mobiles and stabiles. Critter au ventre plih et aux quatre bras is an excellent example of Calder's stabiles in human form, and is considered one of his latest important sculptures.
"Early in the 1970s, Calder began producing works that appear to be a synthesis between the stabiles, the mobiles, and the animal subjects of his early career: the 'animobiles' (Louisa's contraction of Animaux-mobiles--mobile animals). The base of these works, conceived as a stabile, is given a discreetly playful animal form. 'Critters', the last of the series of works undertaken by Calder, are fantastic, many armed figures, or big red devils with forked tails, but more often than not they are sillouettes with a less obvious identity. All of them were cut out of large plates of sheet metal according to Calder's drawings. 'I draw on the plate and then its cut out for me by machine. I don't much like using machines- you've got to have habits of security'" (M. Gibson, Calder, New York 1988, p. 88).
Critter au ventre plie et aux quatre bras depicts a dancing figure waving its four arms in the air. Although it is cut from a single sheet of metal, Calder has managed to instill a dynamic sense of motion in the figure reminiscent of a standing mobile. Critter au ventre plih et aux quatre bras's pointed head and numerous extremities bring to mind the image of a dancing Buddha or Siva. The figure's pointed head could be interpretted as an ushnisha or knot of hair on the top of the head and the waving arms could be signalling the mudra or symbolic gesture.
"The Critters, assembled on the grounds in front of the Sachh studio during the last years, took on a fantastic and almost a threatening appearance as they gradually increased in number. Taken one by one they are not all that different from the remainder of Calder's production, but when they are seen assembled in the gathering dusk, as they appear in the handsome photographs of Clovis Provost, one may well get the feeling, however reluctantly, that they represent both the impatient assertiveness of life, and the patient presence of death. (Ibid.)"
From the beginning of his career as an artist, Calder explored the human form and its beauty, first with his enchanting wire sculptures of circus figures and later in a variety of mobiles and stabiles. Critter au ventre plih et aux quatre bras is an excellent example of Calder's stabiles in human form, and is considered one of his latest important sculptures.
"Early in the 1970s, Calder began producing works that appear to be a synthesis between the stabiles, the mobiles, and the animal subjects of his early career: the 'animobiles' (Louisa's contraction of Animaux-mobiles--mobile animals). The base of these works, conceived as a stabile, is given a discreetly playful animal form. 'Critters', the last of the series of works undertaken by Calder, are fantastic, many armed figures, or big red devils with forked tails, but more often than not they are sillouettes with a less obvious identity. All of them were cut out of large plates of sheet metal according to Calder's drawings. 'I draw on the plate and then its cut out for me by machine. I don't much like using machines- you've got to have habits of security'" (M. Gibson, Calder, New York 1988, p. 88).
Critter au ventre plie et aux quatre bras depicts a dancing figure waving its four arms in the air. Although it is cut from a single sheet of metal, Calder has managed to instill a dynamic sense of motion in the figure reminiscent of a standing mobile. Critter au ventre plih et aux quatre bras's pointed head and numerous extremities bring to mind the image of a dancing Buddha or Siva. The figure's pointed head could be interpretted as an ushnisha or knot of hair on the top of the head and the waving arms could be signalling the mudra or symbolic gesture.
"The Critters, assembled on the grounds in front of the Sachh studio during the last years, took on a fantastic and almost a threatening appearance as they gradually increased in number. Taken one by one they are not all that different from the remainder of Calder's production, but when they are seen assembled in the gathering dusk, as they appear in the handsome photographs of Clovis Provost, one may well get the feeling, however reluctantly, that they represent both the impatient assertiveness of life, and the patient presence of death. (Ibid.)"