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Happy birthday, Mr. Calder

Holly
Holly Bechiri
7/22/11 01:10pm
culture local life
[PHOTO ESSAY] Looking back on all the Calder images from our Flickr pool starts to show how much La Grande Vitesse has been a part of our history.
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/Dave Johnson

Alexander Calder would be 113 years old today.  We, along with Google and much of the art community, celebrate his contribution not only to the art world but to our world here as Grand Rapidians.

The above slideshow was created by simply putting in the search word "calder" in our Rapidian flickr pool. Seeing these images, it's evident how much La Grande Vitesse, brought to Grand Rapids in 1969, has become a part of our history and our lives.

 

 

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Comments

By: Paul Wittenbraker (pwitt) on July 27th, 2011 at 1:31 pm

There is a history to this idea of looking at representations of the Calder and some scholarship that expands on what these images might mean about art and public life. BigRedThing was a pre-flickr public archive of images of the Calder produced in a collaboration between the Civic Studio (Centralstation) and Jennifer Geigel Mikulay. Mikulay is a professor at Alverno College in Wisconsin who has done extensive work on the "social life" of the sculpture. Check out her recent article Another Look at La Grande Vitesse in the inaugural issue of the journal Public Art Dialogue.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

"Public artworks are never just objects or images. They are forms of address that generate loci for participation in public culture. Like architecture, photojournalism, and corporate logos, public artworks have the capacity to evoke responses that are emotional and political. They are objects of opinion and exchange, derision as well as appreciation, and their activity is ongoing. Even as their meanings and value change through time, they serve as set pieces for the stage of everyday life. They are frequently reproduced, remixed, and recirculated in the media, popular culture, and civic life."

 

The BigRedThing project is still active online if anyone wants to upload some calder images there.

Holly By: Holly Bechiri (Holly) on July 27th, 2011 at 3:46 pm

thanks Paul!

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