16-04-2025
Exploring Movement & Balance: Calder/Hiquily Exhibition at Opera Gallery
March 2025–Opera Gallery is pleased to present 'Calder/Hiquily: Balancing
Act', an exhibition dedicated to the artists Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and
Philippe Hiquily (1925-2013) from April 15- May 4, 2025. Featuring 8 works
on paper and 21 sculptural works, this exhibition presents a visual dialogue about
Calder and Hiquily's shared fascination with movement, material, and form.
Alexander Calder, who studied mechanical engineering before pursuing
art at the Art Students League in New York, is known for his pioneering
mobiles and kinetic sculptures, that revolutionised modern sculpture with
the innovative use of wire and metal. With his use of mathematics and
principles of engineering, Calder's practice represented a broader conceptual
engagement with the relationship between humans and machines, as well as
art and technology. By Calder's estimation, kinetic art was striving to 'lift
the figures and scenery off the page and prove undeniably that art is not
rigid'. Calder's 1953 mobile New Old Universe, with its colourful, spherical
forms suspended in perfect harmony, exemplifies the synchronicity between
precision and coincidence at the core of his practice.
