Alexander Calder Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Just as one can compose colors, or forms, so one can compose motions.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : Eric Zafran, Alexander Calder, Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, Cynthia E. Roman, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (2000). “Calder in Connecticut”, Rizzoli Intl Pubns
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“To an engineer, good enough means perfect. With an artist, there's no such thing as perfect.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : Song: Perfect People, Album: Relentless
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“The universe is real, but you can't see it. You have to imagine it.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, Ill.), Alexander Calder (1974). “Alexander Calder: a retrospective exhibition. Work from 1925 to 1974”
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“That others grasp what I have in mind seems unessential, at least as long as they have something else in theirs.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : Alexander Calder, A. S. C. Rower, Ugo Mulas, Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, Palazzo delle esposizioni (Rome, Italy) (2009). “Calder: Sculptor of Air”, 24 Ore Cultura
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“To most people who look at a mobile, it's no more than a series of flat objects that move. To a few, though, it may be poetry.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“Why must art be static? You look at an abstraction, sculptured or painted, an entirely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei, entirely without meaning. It would be perfect but it is always still. The next step in sculpture is motion.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“I love red so much, I almost want to paint everything red.”
-- Alexander Calder -
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“My fingers always seem busier than my mind.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof. For that is a rather large model to work from.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago, Ill.), Alexander Calder (1974). “Alexander Calder: a retrospective exhibition. Work from 1925 to 1974”
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“My fan mail is enormous. Everyone is under six.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“My whole theory about art is the disparity that exists between form, masses and movement.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : Interview with Katherine Kuh, 1962.
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“When an artist explains what he is doing, he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make his work fit in with the explanation.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : Alexander Calder, A. S. C. Rower, Ugo Mulas, Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, Palazzo delle esposizioni (Rome, Italy) (2009). “Calder: Sculptor of Air”, 24 Ore Cultura
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“The simplest forms in the universe are the sphere and the circle. I represent them by disks and then I vary them... spheres of different sizes, densities, colours and volumes, floating in space, traversing clouds, sprays of water, currents of air, viscosities and odours - of the greatest variety and disparity.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : "The Artist's Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, Harper & Row, New York and Evanston, Illinois". Interview with Katherine Kuh, 1962.
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“The sense of motion in painting and sculpture has long been considered as one of the primary elements of the composition.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : "Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture". August, 1933.
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“If you can imagine a thing, conjure it up in space then you can make it... The universe is real but you can't see it. You have to imagine it. Then you can be realistic about reproducing it.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : Interview with Katherine Kuh, 1962.
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“I have been making wire jewelry - and think I'll really do something with it, eventually.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“The first inspiration I ever had was the cosmos, the planetary system.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“About my method of work: first it’s the state of mind—Elation (joy).”
-- Alexander Calder -
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“The basis of everything I do is the universe.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“The underlying sense of form in my work has been the system of the Universe, or part thereof...What I mean is that the idea of detached bodies floating in space, of different sizes and densities, perhaps of different colors and temperatures, and surrounded and interlarded with wisps of gaseous condition, and some at rest, while others move in peculiar manners, seems to me the ideal source of form.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“A mobile is an abstract sculpture made chiefly out of sheet metal, steel rods, wire and wood. Some or all of these elements move, propelled by electric motors, wind, water or by hand.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“When everything goes right a mobile is a piece of poetry that dances with the joy of life and surprise!”
-- Alexander Calder -
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“The trouble with a lot of artists today is that they have too much technique and equipment. They don't know what to do with it all. If you cut down on it, you can work more strongly within narrower limits.”
-- Alexander Calder -
“You see nature and then you try to emulate it.”
-- Alexander CalderSource : "The Artist's Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, Harper & Row, New York and Evanston, Illinois". Interview with Katherine Kuh, 1962.
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