The opening of Calder Gardens on Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway is a major milestone in the rise of the city’s reputation as a world-class hub for art and culture. Dedicated to the works of 20th-century avant-garde sculptor Alexander Calder, the space redefines how art is experienced in public space by welcoming viewers to engage with the ever-changing pieces on an emotional, visceral level. The architecture of the building and the surrounding landscape designed by renowned landscape architect Piet Oudolf add another layer to the overall experience, sparking reflection and an appreciation for the relationship between art, nature and the built environment.

Temple Now spoke with two Tyler faculty members: Erin Pauwels, associate professor of art history, about Alexander Calder and his contributions to art and society, and Rob Kuper, associate professor of landscape architecture, about the museum’s outdoor space and its designer Piet Oudolf.  


 

Temple Now: Is it true that Alexander Calder invented the mobile?

Erin Pauwels: The short answer to that question is yes, Alexander Calder is credited with inventing the mobile. There are older examples of hanging sculptural forms like wind chimes that have existed for thousands of years, but Calder invented what we think of as mobiles today. Most of his sculptural mobiles are constructed from metal and wire and are delicately balanced so they move when activated by air currents. We tend to think of sculpture as something stationary and rooted in place. Calder’s remarkable innovation gave life to static form through feats of engineering that take advantage of negative space and mechanization to produce kinetic sculptures that respond to the environment around them.  

 

TN: In addition to mobiles, he pioneered stabiles, which are basically mobiles that are stationary and on the ground. What is the difference between a stabile and a regular sculpture?

EP: The distinction between mobiles and stabiles actually emerged as kind of a joke. The artist Marcel Duchamp, who was friends with Calder, coined the name “mobiles” to describe his kinetic sculptures. The term is a pun in French that can mean “motion” and “motive.” When Calder began also making stationary sculptures, another artist friend, Jean Arp, described them as “stabiles” to differentiate between Calder’s sculptures that moved and the ones that stayed put. What differentiates Calder’s stabiles from more conventional stationary sculpture is that the idea of movement remains very important. Most of Calder’s stabiles were specifically designed to be seen in 360-degree view. Whereas his mobiles move on their own terms, stabiles are activated by viewers moving all around the artworks and seeing them from different perspectives.  

 

TN: Calder is most famous for mobiles and stabiles, but what are some other works he made that don’t get as much attention?

EP: My personal favorite is his small-scale sculptural work called “Cirque Calder.” It is comprised of many wood and bent wire figures representing the animals and performers in a circus, including sword swallowers, lion tamers, acrobats and a horse-drawn chariot. Some are kinetic sculptures, but most were designed to be activated through play. Calder carried all of his little circus figures and animals around in a suitcase and then would do performances with them in Paris. I think it speaks to his sense of playfulness as a sculptor and his willingness to experiment with the forms and materials we associate with art—qualities that infuse his entire body of work.

 

TN: Who were Calder’s contemporaries and was he part of any particular artistic movements?

EP: That’s a really interesting question for Calder. He was involved in several early 20th-century art movements yet deliberately stayed on the margins of things, so he does not fit neatly into any one specific category. The best descriptor for him is that he was a modernist sculptor involved in avant-garde circles. He was friends with Marcel Duchamp and several members of the surrealist art networks. I think he admired the sense of humor that came out of Dada and surrealism, and the way both aim to break rules and deflate the usual pretense of fine art. He also took inspiration from the work of abstract painter Piet Mondrian, whose gridded abstract paintings employ a range of bright primary colors similar to the ones you see in Calder’s sculptures. Above all Calder was an independent thinker who aimed to shift the way people think of art and sculpture.

 

TN: Calder Gardens is dedicated to the work of Alexander Calder but it’s important to give context of his family, which has a long legacy in Philadelphia. Who were his father and grandfather and what does their work mean to Philadelphia?

EP: Alexander Calder was the third generation in a family line of sculptors. It can be a little confusing because all three artists were named Alexander Calder. Alexander Milne Calder is the modern sculptor’s grandfather. His most prominent commission was the monumental sculpture of William Penn that sits atop Philadelphia’s City Hall. At 37 feet tall this bronze figure is the biggest sculpture on top of any building in the United States. The artist’s father, Alexander Stirling Calder, is associated with Beaux-Arts and art deco style sculpture and designed the Swann Memorial Fountain located in Logan Square. So if you go down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway starting at City Hall you can see examples of each generation of the Calder family’s work, with each representing a different stylistic moment in the development of American sculpture, from a formal bronze figure, to an allegorical art deco style fountain, to the 20th-century avant-garde work at Calder Gardens.  

What is exciting about the new sculpture park is that it recognizes the important legacy of the Calder family in Philadelphia and highlights our city’s long distinguished history as an American center for artistic training and groundbreaking public art. I think there’s something fitting about aligning the family’s creative achievements along the Ben Franklin Parkway in the heart of Philadelphia. It feels really appropriate to me.

Temple Now: Who is Piet Oudolf and what are some of his most notable works?

Rob Kuper: I don’t know how Piet Oudolf classifies himself but he’s certainly a landscape or garden designer. He works primarily with perennial plants. We’re quite fortunate to now have one of his projects here in Philadelphia but he’s also created works nearby on the High Line in New York City, the Meadow Garden in the Delaware Botanic Garden, and further afield, the Lurie Garden in Chicago and Oudolf Garden in Detroit. His work is amazing. The amount of diversity of plants and his use of color and form or structure of the plants is unmatched. And the drawings he produces of the gardens are beautiful works in and of themselves. His gardens use many curvy paths and drifts, which means a mass of plants of a particular species. He’s sensitive to native plants and aware of native plants in particular regions. He has a wonderful mind for plants, where they fit and how they’re compatible with one another.

 

TN: Is it accurate to say Oudolf uses plants as a medium and that the entire design itself is an artwork?

RK: Absolutely. I suppose it’s a cliché to say garden design is like painting, but it absolutely is. One of his core values is impermanence and he’s aware of temporary, fleeting experiences in the garden. There are going to be changes in the garden over the years. And then on a smaller scale, it changes from one day to the next, whether something is starting to foliate or flower, whether the sun is out, whether it’s raining, whether snow is falling. And that’s what’s magnificent! We’re not going to be able to really, truly experience what Oudolf has in his head on Sept. 21 when the garden opens. Or even maybe next year or two years from now. It might take five years for the garden to reach its peak. Everyone should make a point to see the garden and see it often at different times of the year to take advantage of that impermanence.

Also, one of the things the garden is supposed to be is a sanctuary, so I’m assuming that it’s a sanctuary for people as well as for other organisms, pollinators or other wildlife that might be present. Given its proximity to Fairmount Park and the Schuylkill River Trail, maybe it will turn into a stopping point, a refuge, for wildlife, birds and other creatures.

 

TN: Calder Gardens is special because the landscaping around the building is just as important as, if not more important than, the building itself. During the typical landscape design process, what is the relationship between the outdoor space and the built structural environment?

RK: Ideally, you want a relationship to exist between the two of them. So, in terms of architectural materials, you might want to select plants or other objects, materials, elements, structures that either complement or contrast the materiality of the architecture. You could focus on the forms itself, extending lines into the landscape, to create paths or boundaries, or in this case maybe planting beds or boundaries between plants. The architecture may become a point of origin from which one explores the landscape and returns, as well as a landmark, a point that one may find from afar and see within a larger context, thereby understanding both differently, and with greater power. Although, with plants, they don’t always behave. They might grow one way or another, or die back, or really flourish. The same characteristics one might pay attention to with architecture are the same that landscape architects do, and Oudolf, I am certain, is paying attention to: the color, the form, the texture of the plants. In turn, Herzog, the architect, is paying attention to the landscape, the topography on and near the site, perhaps even regionally, as well as the vision of the landscape designer.

 

TN: How do thoughtfully landscaped spaces benefit cities and people?

RK: They can do so in a number of ways. For an individual in a dense, active city like Philadelphia, it provides a respite. Our world is built with lots of hard materials that we haven’t evolved with over hundreds of thousands of years, and they can grate on our senses and demand a great deal of our attention. So public spaces that have a lot of greenery in them and vegetation are opportunities to reconnect with nature and restore our ability to pay attention or recover from mental fatigue. Even five, 10 minutes really changes things. Also, as a shared public space, it’s an opportunity to bring people of different, diverse backgrounds together, to create tolerance, even community, and not only connect people with one another, but to connect them to the earth. There’s a lot of disconnect that has happened over the last 200 years or so, if not beyond, and public green spaces provide that reconnection.