Calder: Mobiles made immobile

Movement. Sequence. Passing. Alexander Calder’s mobiles and stabiles (sculptures that don’t move) are a reply to that famous paradoxical question of Zeno: How is movement possible?

In order for anything to reach a given point, it can be deduced that it must travel at least half that distance. However, in order to travel half that distance, it must travel half of half that distance, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. And yet, movement is possible, we see it, we observe it, or is it simply an illusion? The concept of infinity too incomprehensible a reality that our brains soothe us with the fiction of motion.

Art in motion, or art at rest? Imperceptibly moving or perceptibly still? I see people moving around a stabile, and I see mobiles moving in front of stationary people. My pencil travels across the paper, making marks on the page. Do my drawings move? For my pencil to travel from point A to B it must travel to halfway point C. For my pencil to reach point C (traveling from point A) it must travel to halfway point D.

We take for granted the passage of time, the relation of cause to effect. As the object changes form before our eyes, we recognize it as the same object not something completely new. But the shifting form allows us to see new things. What was once imperceptible is now perceivable. As we walk in circles around the stabile, our understanding changes.

I attempt to document my thinking on paper. Rendering a moment of perception, or rather a series of moments, the passage of time, my pencil, and the objects in the pages of my sketchbook.