Abre o número 2 do volume 9 de Sociologia & Antropologia o singelo texto de obituário de Günther Roth, da Columbia University, escrito por Glaucia Villas Bôas, nossa primeira editora responsável. ...Falecido no último dia 18 de maio, o professor Roth integrou o conselho editorial de Sociologia & Antropologia desde o início, e sempre se mostrou interessado e atencioso com os rumos da revista e da sociologia no Brasil.
Through a review of some ephemeral occupations of the entrance floor of the Mies' Neue National Gallery in Berlin, inaugurated in 1968 with an exhibition dedicated to Piet Mondrian designed by Mies, ...some singularities of this construction are unraveled, and some stories about the relationship between the architect and some artists are threaded together. In this way a sketch is drawn of the life in time of this museum, which finds in David Chipperfield's recent double work, that of his temporary installation Sticks and Stones before its closure for a few years to carry out the renovation work on the building, and that of this long process that ended with the museographic repartition with the significant exhibition of Alexander Calder; a way of interweaving temporary narratives about architecture, construction and art.
The oeuvre of Japanese composer Yuasa Jōji holds a singular place in the contemporary musical landscape. From the artist collective Jikken Kōbō, in which he took part during the 1950s, to his later ...pieces for large orchestra, and through his innovative electroacoustic and mixed-music, Yuasa single-handedly explored a vast number of musical issues across the twentieth century. This article aims to shed a new light on the composer’s substantial musical output through his interest in topological theories. It will be a question of showing through examples, the different outcomes of the application of this mathematical model in the musical domain, all the while demonstrating how it takes place within his nexus of influences, as a centre towards which many other of Yuasa’s interests converge.
The work of Alexander Calder often proves to be playful in appearance and clever in its construction. These qualities make his small-scale moveable circus, Cirque du Calder, a perfect prompt for an ...artistic investigation. Brown introduced a group of homeschool students to Calder's moving sculptures through a three-part art program at the Flint Institute of Arts. As an introduction to Calder's use of movement, students first viewed and discussed Red Fish Tail, a mobile in the museum's collection. Students interpreted the mobile based on their own observations and compared their conclusions with those of their classmates. Next, they viewed a video of Calder performing his Cirque du Calder, a model circus brought to life as miniature moving wire sculptures.
Man-Eater with Pennants, a rarely exhibited sculpture in Alexander Calder’s oeuvre, was commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and installed in 1945. To exhibit the large standing mobile in ...Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start (2021), the derelict sculpture had to be remediated; this initiated a collaborative investigation with conservation scientists, conservators, curators, and the Calder Foundation into the original paint colors hidden beneath layers of repaint. XRF analysis was carried out to elucidate the paints’ composition, followed by sampling for analysis to assess the paint stratigraphy and binders. Scrapings were analyzed by µ-FTIR and Raman spectroscopies; cross sections were examined with optical microscopy and analyzed with SEM-EDS. Analysis differentiated between the original paints, which contain Prussian blue, parachlor red, chrome yellow, and the many layers of overpaint, which contain titanium white, molybdate orange, a variety of β-Naphthol reds, red lead, and ultramarine. A model for Man-Eater, Mobile with 14 Flags, is also part of the museum’s collection, and was first considered as a point of reference for the original colors. Similar analysis, however, indicates that the maquette was painted after the Man-Eater was first installed, therefore is not representative of the original colors. In addition to investigating an early primary palette for Calder’s outdoor sculptures, this study helped develop the plan for the restoration of the original color scheme of Man-Eater.
According to the dictatorship’s elaborate narrative, this process would “update” the country, achieving the “miracle” of “fast-track modernity,” along the lines of Juscelino Kubitschek’s ...developmental management of Brazil, but in a dictatorial mode. According to the dictatorship, Venezuelans became modern overnight: “By taking up residence in the superblock the family has literally crossed the threshold to modernity” (57). ...Spectacular Modernity applies to similar processes in countries like Mexico and Brazil that share Venezuela’s heroic attempt to modernize against a backdrop that loudly contradicts that project.
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, owns one of the largest motorized works made by the renowned American artist Alexander Calder, titled
Half
-
Circle, Quarter
-
Circle, and Sphere
. ...Created in 1932, and acquired by the Whitney in 1969, this seminal work was featured in an iconic exhibition held in 2017 and entitled
Calder: Hypermobility
. Prior to that, the object underwent a series of treatments in order to repair its main kinetic elements that had become compromised during its lifetime. While the work’s mechanism retained its creator’s ingenious engineering solutions, the motor, urethane belts, plug, and electrical wires turned out to be neither original, nor authentic to the period. The appearance of the piece had also been altered, as most surfaces displayed multiple layers of overpainting and, thus, did not deliver the proper gloss, hue, and texture. These observations prompted a first, comprehensive scientific study to investigate the stratigraphy of Calder’s painted surfaces on
Half
-
Circle, Quarter
-
Circle, and Sphere
, with the final goal to comprehend and restore its original appearance through careful removal of the overpaint. Non-invasive X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis was carried out to gain initial insight into the paints’ composition. After that, extensive microscopic sampling was performed to assess the possible presence of original layers below the repainting throughout the object’s surface. Cross sections were examined with optical microscopy and analyzed with Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopies, as well as scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS), in order to identify pigments, colorants, and extenders located in the various paint layers. Scrapings were also investigated with pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) for a detailed characterization of the binding media. Scientific analysis revealed, in selected white and red areas, up to eleven layers of overpaint composed of a wide array of modern materials, including pigments (titanium white in the form of tetragonal rutile and a variety of synthetic organic red pigments) and binders (alkyd or late formulations of enamels based on
ortho
-phthalic acid/phthalic anhydride, glycerol and pentaerythritol, polyvinyl acetate with various plasticizers, and acrylics). On the other hand, the identification of materials that were available in the early 1930s, such as zinc white, calcite, and gypsum, as well as traditional drying oil binders, supported the hypothesis that a layer of original paint may still be present in certain areas. In addition to shedding new light on the stratigraphy of Calder’s painted surfaces, this study informed the optimization of a treatment plan tailored for the safe removal of the overpaint to uncover the original layer, wherever present.
Resumo O objetivo do artigo é investigar como a relação entre o artista norte-americano Alexander Calder e o crítico de arte brasileiro Mário Pedrosa contribuiu para o surgimento do programa ...concretista carioca nos anos 1940 e 1950. Durante seu exílio nos Estados Unidos, Pedrosa teve a oportunidade de conhecer o artista, com quem acabou por estabelecer uma relação de amizade. Os desdobramentos dessa relação podem ser vistos nos artigos escritos pelo crítico a partir de 1944, que evidenciam, por um lado, profunda reflexão sobre a obra do artista e, por outro, a construção de um vocabulário para analisar a arte moderna e de argumentos que seriam mobilizados para justificar o desenvolvimento da arte concreta em solo brasileiro. Dentro de um quadro mais amplo de debates entre figurativistas e abstracionistas, o contato de Pedrosa com as obras de Calder e a transformação do escultor em figura-chave para seu programa crítico são aqui entendidos como fatores importantes para as mudanças que se processaram no modernismo brasileiro a partir de meados do século XX.
Abstract The aim of this article is to investigate how the relationship between the US artist Alexander Calder and the Brazilian art critic Mário Pedrosa contributed to the emergence of the concrete art program in the 1940s and 50s. During his exile in the United States, Pedrosa had the opportunity to meet the artist, who became his friend. The consequences of this relationship can be seen in the articles written by the critic, which show, on one hand, a deep reflection on the artist’s work, and, on the other, the construction of a vocabulary to analyse modern art and of arguments mobilized to justify the development of concrete art on Brazilian soil. In the context of debates between figurativists and abstractionists, Pedrosa’s contact with Calder’s works and the transformation of the sculptor into a key figure for his critical program are comprehended in this paper as important factors in the changes that occurred within Brazilian modernism from the mid-twentieth century on.
El objetivo de este artículo es mostrar cómo, gracias a las conexiones individuales y sociales, en la España de la década de 1930 se organizaron exposiciones de artistas de la vanguardia ...internacional. Tomaremos como caso de estudio el de Alexander Calder que, con la mediación de Joan Miró (re)presentó su performance Cirque Calder en Barcelona (organizado por ADLAN, 1932, 1933) y Madrid (Residencia de Estudiantes, 1933). Una visita propiciada por Miró y que contó con Sebastià Gasch y Ramón Gómez de la Serna no sólo como críticos de la recepción de su obra, sino como verdaderos avaladores de su circo como propuesta artística. Artistas internacionales inscritos en la narrativa del arte moderno de nuestro país a partir de estrechos vínculos personales.
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