Fun Facts

The reading's been going well. Getting to the point where I need to skim over things I already know, but every once in awhile, a Calder fact jumps out at me as "fun." Here are a few of these such fun facts:

• Calder knew what parts of work were fun and which were serious. Despite the fun and lighthearted nature of his pieces, Calder had a strong desire to be properly acknowledged/represented, as well as compensated, for his work (Ambitious).
• He took his inspiration more from paintings and architecture than from sculpture for his stabiles (Stabiles).
• He was featured in a Hans Richter Film, Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) (Sperling 17).
• At the time of creating his Circus, it was prime time for Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth, as well as a popular toy called "Humpty Dumpty Circus." His version "only truly came to life when it was performed" by Calder (Sperling 16, 17).
• All of the texts indicate he avoided signing onto any manifesto/movement, except for Abstraction-Creation with the likes of Hans Arp, Piet Mondrian, Robert Delauney, Antoine Pevsner, and Jean Helion (Sperling 21). Nonetheless, his work is non often associated with Surrealism (which Calder liked to call "sewer-realism").
• Marcel Duchamp is the one who gave Calder's mobiles their name (Sperling 21).
• "Calder actively abhorred the slickly crafted art object. He used unorthodox materials in unorthodox ways, both in process and in final product" (Sperling 24).

I'm not feeling good so I'm going to stop for now. More later.