The Calder Foundation’s office is the penthouse floor of a building on West 27th Street, but the elevator opens straight onto the roof. Some of Alexander Calder’s early works—mobiles, wire sculpture, wall hangings—are on display in a small gallery, where I was immediately told I cannot take photos. I asked why not and got this response: “Hardly anyone gets to see these.”
I suppose the actual answer is that it’s not really a gallery, more of an archive, with a huge collection of books and catalogues as well, that lends to museums and stores collectors’ pieces, a very private business.
Calder.org, by the way, has this great interactive map that takes you to a random work if you click the spiral on the bottom right. I almost named my forthcoming novel after one, La Grand Vitesse, a commission that became an icon of Grand Rapids, Michigan, but was convinced I can’t have an English book with a French name (tell that to the translators of Bonjour Tristesse).
This rooftop party was for the second issue launch of Alphabet, a magazine edited by Donatien Grau (Head of Contemporary Programs at the Louvre, among other titles) and Thomas Lenthal (art director and co-founder of System, among other titles).
Donatien introduced me to Julian (Schnabel) and the prolific gallerist Adam Lindemann, who told me he’s in the process of writing a sensational column about the art world that no one is ready for. Adam and I had been in the elevator together and he’d asked me, a stranger, what this party was for.
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