White Semaphores

This work is registered in the archives of the Calder Foundation, New York, under application number A08043.

Created during the period when Alexander Calder was focusing on executing a number of large scale public commissions, White Semaphores is an exquisite example of Calder’s experiments in kinetic art on a more intimate scale. While the larger public stabiles like Teodelapio (1962) borrowed his signature visual vocabulary and hinted at the prospect of motion, mobiles such as White Semaphores exhibit fluttering elements to complement the gestural sweep of their metal bases.

Extending outward like feathers, or the concave blooms of a calla lily, Calder transforms regular sheet metal into poetic abstraction. These smooth white forms sweep to and fro in the slightest breeze, drawing direct reference to the titular nautical flags. Balanced on the tip of an architecturally angular red base, a line of carefully composed wire quietly balances, seemingly hovering in place. Describing these airy vibrations, Jean-Paul Sartre noted: “These mobiles, which are neither entirely alive nor wholly mechanical, constantly disconcerting but always returning to their original position, are like aquatic plants swaying in a stream; they are like the petals of the Mimosa pudica, the legs of a decerebrate frog or gossamer threads caught in an updraft,” (J. Sartre, “Les Mobiles des Calder,” in Alexander Calder: Mobiles, Stabiles, Constellations, exh. cat., Galerie Louis Carre, Paris, 1946, pp. 6-19, English translation by Chris Turner). This graceful equilibrium is at the heart of Calder’s mobiles, and White Semaphores exists as a graceful example of the artist’s delight in motion.