The Guardian announces the Tate’s 2015 program of major sculpture retrospectives. Calder’s already powerful market will get international recognition on a major scale at Tate Modern and Barbara Hepworth will receive a Summer survey at Tate Britain:
Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture will trace the works of the groundbreaking sculptor, born in 1898, from his initial years entertaining the artistic bohemia of interwar Paris with works such as Calder’s Circus, to his later life when he gained renown for his mobile and stabile sculptures.
The exhibition, which opens at Tate Modern in November and will run till spring 2016, will include a wide selection of Calder’s motorised constructions and figurative wire portraits, often inspired by the circus or cabaret, alongside his suspended kinetic sculptures of vividly coloured shapes. It was these works of wire and sheet metal that are now seen as the invention of the mobile, a termed first coined by dada artist Marcel Duchamp.
The Tate Britain’s summer show will also be dedicated to sculpture, with the first major exhibition of Cornish artist Barbara Hepworth for almost 50 years. Hepworth, born in 1903, was one of the most successful artists in the world during the 1950s and 60s. The Tate will chart her progress from small carvings made as an emerging artist to the magnificent bronzes that were celebrated across North America and the far east as well as in the UK. Among the 70 pieces on show will be rarely seen works by Hepworth, including textiles, drawings, collages and photograms.
Master of motion Alexander Calder to lead Tate’s 2015 programme (The Guardian)