Still in Motion celebrates the unfolding legacy of Alexander Calder, through four contemporary artists who have been awarded the Calder Prize. Since 2005, the Calder Prize has been awarded to a contemporary artist whose early innovative work has the potential to shift how we think of art today. The exhibition features artworks by Tara Donovan, Jill Magid, Tomás Saraceno, and Aki Sasamoto—each of whom have won the Calder Prize and who continue to propel sculpture forward.

Each artwork included in Still in Motion challenges the physical and conceptual tenets of sculpture like material, form, and balance. Tara Donovan transforms aggregations of mundane items, like paper plates and hot glue in her work Untitled (2005), into sublime objects that play with perceptual habits and expectations. Tomás Saraceno’s Calder Upside Down (2018) is directly inspired by the unique balance of Calder’s forms, as the work’s glass orbs seem to float yet are tied down by a rock. With this sculpture, Saraceno questions the role of Modernism and modernity in our current environmental crisis.

Aki Sasamoto’s performances are stream-of-consciousness explorations of everyday habits. Her performance and accompanying diagram from Delicate Cycle (2017) consider the humble life of the dung beetle, which rolls its home and food together in a single mobile unit, to question human relationships with cleanliness and relationships to one another. Meanwhile, Jill Magid examines digital capital, economy, and authenticity with her Out-Game Flowers (2023), NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that Magid created by “hacking” digital flowers that have high-value in various video games. Given out-of-game value as a digital artwork, the bouquets also “hack” our virtual commodity systems. Each artist in Still in Motion is pushing the limits of sculpture, moving the medium into the twenty-first century.

Still in Motion is organized by Nidhi Gandhi, curatorial and programs associate.

FYI

The Calder Prize honors a contemporary artist whose innovative work reflects the continued legacy of Calder’s genius. It is awarded biennially to an artist who has completed exemplary and innovative early work and who has demonstrated the potential to make a major contribution to the field.

Awardees

· Aki Sasamoto 2023.

· Rosa Barba 2019.

· Jill Magid 2017.

· Haroon Mirza 2015.

· Darren Bader 2013.

· Rachel Harrison 2011.

· Tomás Saraceno 2009.

· Žilvinas Kempinas 2007.

- Tara Donovan 2005.