Calder's Unfinished Projects Explored in Santander Exhibition

The Centro Botín in Santander, Spain, is hosting 'Calder Stories,' an exhibition of eighty works by Alexander Calder running until November 3, 2019. Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Gallery in London, the show focuses on Calder's forgotten, censored, or unrealized projects. Most works come from the Calder Foundation, with many pieces exhibited for the first time, including models that never evolved into larger forms. The foundation, established in 1987 in New York, is led by Calder's grandson Alexander S.C. Rower. The exhibition includes digital animations of Calder's choreographic diagrams from the 1930s and 1940s, depicting ballets without dancers. The building, designed by Renzo Piano, also features his exhibition design. Obrist proposed the concept, marking the first time such a framework is applied to a deceased artist. Calder's last Spanish exhibitions were at the Guggenheim Bilbao and Reina Sofía in 2003-2004. Rower notes that Calder was intensely serious while working, contrary to his jovial public image. The exhibition also highlights Calder's unrealized passion for choreography and his monumental sculpture 'Teodolapio' in Spoleto, Italy, commissioned by critic Giovanni Carandente in 1962. Calder represented the US at the 1952 Venice Biennale, winning the Grand Prize for Sculpture, and had friendships with Italian artists Alberto Burri, Emilio Vedova, and Gino Severini.