I’m not crazy, after all…

Dear reader,

This week I’m reading (yes, really reading cover to cover) the exhibit catalog for the Alexander Calder exhibit recently on view at LA County Museum of Art. (See post from May 6) In one of the articles I came across a text that so perfectly illustrates the purpose of this blog, I am compelled to share it with you now, even if it doesn’t follow the train of thought of the last few posts.

In his article “Sensibility and Science”, author Jed Perl calls Calder “a poet guided by the steady instincts of a scientist.” (Calder and Abstraction,  exh. cat. LA, CA LACMA: 36). Later in the essay, he says:

“We sometimes forget that the intimate relationship between science and alchemy and magic of all kinds, taken for granted in early modern times, was still very much a factor around the turn of the century; even Pierre and Marie Curie, scrupulous scientists, took an interest in paranormal experiments. Calder, although far too matter-of-fact and pragmatic a personality to feel the pull of the dark sciences, certainly dedicated his art to the proposition that magic could be engineered. This liberal-spirited man came of age when artists were on easy terms with the mystical and the transcendent, and although he would not have embraced Erik Satie’s interest in the Rosicrucian Order or Wassily Kandinsky’s and Mondrian’s interest in Theosophy, he might well have agreed with Georges Braque, whom he knew, that making a work of art was like reading tea leaves. Writing in his Occult Diary around 1900, the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, who took an interest in alchemy, remarked that “if you would know the invisible, look carefully at the visible.” Surely the elusive movement of Calder’s greatest mobiles of the 1940s and 50s are echoes or afterimages – if not indeed embodiments – of the invisible. That fascination with the hidden sources of appearances, which animated Albert Einstein’s theories about the nature of matter and Sigmund Freud’s, Carl Jung’s and Henry Bergson’s investigations of the human mind, animated Calder’s art as well.” (41)

Alchemy, magic, paranormal experiments, mystical, transcendent, reading tea leaves – all these words are summed up in the word “the invisible” – hidden sources of appearances! That’s exactly what I’ve come to believe! I am happy to read the same language in a respectable source – confirming I’m not crazy, after all! 🙂 And I too believe that magic can be engineered.