Calder: Un Effet Du Japonais

A sweeping look at the enduring resonance of the American modernist’s art with Japanese traditions and aesthetics

While Alexander Calder (1898-1976) never traveled to Japan, he was embraced by many of the country’s artists and poets during his lifetime. Published on the occasion of the first monographic exhibition of work by Calder to be mounted in Tokyo in nearly 35 years, Un effet du japonais explores how Calder’s art continues to resonate with Japanese culture and aesthetics.
Documenting 98 works from the collection of the Calder Foundation that span the 1930s to the 1970s, alongside extensive installation photography, this bilingual volume sheds new light on the artist’s mobiles, stabiles, standing mobiles, oil paintings and works on paper. In addition to extensive archival material, new texts by Alexander S.C. Rower, Susan Braeuer Dam, Stephanie Goto, Jean McGarry and Akira Tatehata explore the many through lines that connected Calder and his work to Japan, complemented by an introduction by Marc Glimcher and a poem by Jane Hirshfield.