2026, Calder year: four fascinating stories of "stable"these sculptures which have redefined the place of art in public space

It’s a double birthday. In 2026 we are celebrating both the fifty years of the death of the American sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and the hundred years of his arrival in France. The exhibition Calder. Rêver in balance to the Louis Vuitton Foundation is a beautiful tribute. A very rich retrospective, which sweeps through all of the revolutionary inventions of the engineer Calder: small wire statues, drawings, jewelry, monumental or, of course, moving sculptures. In 1931, Marcel Duchamp named these delicate abstractions “mobiles”, moved by touch, air currents or a discreet motor. The following year, in contrast, the painter Jean Arp invented the term “stabile” to describe the American artist’s fixed sculptures.

The two words seem to oppose each other, but mobile and stable are two facets, inseparable and simultaneous, of the same work.The mobile internalizes the movement: the work itself really moves. The stabile exteriorizes the movement, that is to say, it entrusts it to the spectators“, analyzes Olivier Michelon, one of the curators of the exhibition. “The large stabiles are made to be surveyed, penetrated: you cannot grasp them at a single glance, you have to multiply the points of view. Something happens when you turn around.” These sometimes colossal works, most often installed in public spaces, have experienced varying fortunes, at home in the United States, or in France, where Alexandre Calder resided for a long time.

“High Speed”, 1969, Grand Rapids

Room 9 of the exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, in the middle of mobiles with fragile silhouettes, its slightly garish red-orange and its stocky presence are imposing. All the art of Alexander Calder’s stabiles shines through in this 1/5 scale model. High Speed. A funny animal, solid, compact, anchored to the ground. And yet lively, light, aerodynamic. The sculptor transformed technical constraints, ribs, bolts, into aesthetic vocabulary. Its title evokes the name of Grand Rapids, the Michigan city which, in 1967, commissioned the sculpture to adorn a completely redone neighborhood. After three preparatory scale models and two years of work in his workshop in Saché in Indre-et-Loire, Alexander Calder delivered the final result: an immense stable of more than 15 meters.

This possibility of enlargement, of expansion, is a constant in Calder’s works. He was already thinking about it in 1929, when he knitted circus characters out of wire.”Although their current size is reduced” he said, “I think they can be enlarged to any scale“. Son and grandson of sculptors known for their architectural ornaments, he always dreamed of colossal works, dialoguing with the vertical and horizontal lines of modern buildings. High Speed, billed for 134,000 dollars, was initially highly criticized: its opponents criticized its abstract character and its French manufacture. It has gradually become a symbol of the city, even represented on its logo. All Grand Rapids festivals, concerts and political meetings now take place on Calder Plaza!

“Caliban”, 1964, Bourges

May 14, 1965. General de Gaulle visits the Maison de la culture in Bourges with André Malraux, who inaugurated it a year earlier. Alexander Calder welcomes the President of the Republic and presents his Caliban. Commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, the almost 6 meter high stabile is the guardian of the place. Since 1953, the sculptor has not lived far away. He has just completed, in Saché, the construction of a huge workshop where he can devote himself to public commissions: Alexander Calder has become the sculptor who accompanies post-war architecture. “Unlike classical monumental sculpture, that of Calder has no symbolic value, eit is part of an architectural development”, explains Olivier Michelon, co-curator of the exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. “Calder lives surrounded by architects, he knows what modern architecture needs: he brings it a certain lyricism.”

In the United States, manufacturers ask their customers to buy a Calder stable. In France, it is the State which takes care of it: since 1951, 1% of the amount of public projects must be devoted to a work of art. Calder’s stabiles were for the most part financed by this “artistic 1%”. A system still in force today, but fallen into disrepair. obsolete. The great popular design of the Maisons de la culture has also lost its luster. The one in Bourges had to leave an Art Deco building which had become dilapidated. Caliban finally found a refuge far from modern architecture: the courtyard of the Estève museum, a 15th century mansion.

“Broken Wings”, 1967. Perpignan

On the right of the photo, you can still see the big C and the small A of Calder’s monogram. Below, the date of creation of the stabile – 67 – is partly tagged. This sculpture is titled Les Ailes brisées, a tribute to Saint-Exupéry created specifically for the college of Perpignan which bears the name of the writer and aviator. The artistic 1% has been frequently used in national education establishments: the IUT of Tours, the University of Grenoble or the Pierre and Marie Curie campus in Paris also have their Calder stabiles. But none had ever been degraded to this extent!

In 2020, a scandalized Perpignan gallery owner summoned the press in front of the college. “Rude drawings, insults“, remembers Clément Cividino for franceinfo Culture. “We could see traces of sanding, it was vaguely repainted… Shameful! “After this cry of alarm, the departmental council will swear that it had already launched a rehabilitation procedure. In any case, Les Ailes brisées, completely renovated, have now found their place in front of the college. But the stabile was placed on a new, higher, mesh base, sheltered from students or malicious passers-by.

“Untitled”, 1963. La Colle-sur-Loup

This photograph is one of the few which show on site a mysterious unnamed stabile 3.5 meters high. If we are to believe the monogram engraved on the work, Calder created it in 1963. And this image attests to his presence in 1969 in the brand new “Village Vacances Famille” in La Colle-sur-Loup, in the Alpes-Maritimes. The “VVF”, an emblematic social program of the years 1960, wanted to put tourism within the reach of modest families, did Calder give his work to this cause? Or responded, again, to a public order? Its stable will remain there for decades, forgotten, rusty, at the edge of the swimming pool where it serves as a drying rack for towels and swimsuits.

It was in this state that an acquaintance of the writer Marie Lebey found him, by chance. Fascinated, she wrote a novel, The Value of Dreams, to the singular destiny of this work. When it was rediscovered, times had changed, the association which managed the “VVF” became a private company which put the renovated stabile on sale on July 8, 2020.This is the very first time that a monumental Calder stabile of this scale has been presented at auction in France“, welcomes the Artcurial house. Indeed, the largest sculptures are largely in the hands of museums or institutions like the Calder Foundation. This will not be the case for this one, sold for 4.9 million euros to a discreet buyer for its private collection. Far from the public spaces so dear to Alexander Calder.