When I walk by Alexander Calder's 'Boxoffice' sculpture I often stop, sometimes circle it, and sometimes, like today, sit down and think about it for awhile. (Photos by me, today.)
I like that 'Boxoffice' is:
o intensely monochromatic, both to emphasize the lines and also so it becomes a blank screen to project other textures onto
o of a height to permit walking through it, even by people who are ignoring it and have no idea they are encountering the awesome
o viewable from many angles and so different from the different angles that there is no way the viewer or even the creator (though certainly The Creator) will be able to rationally record and summarize the appearance, so that each viewing will become a fleeting experience that only exists completely in the present, utterly unable to be preserved or replayed at a later date
Only after knowing it for a long time have I noticed that 'Boxoffice' has:
o in the midst of the simplicity, unexpected details distinct enough to be obviously there by design but still subtle enough to not be noticed on the first viewing.:a vocabulary of flat pieces except for one that is strangely bent, a sharp peak at the top, not so obvious as to be overlooked on the first viewing, or a waver to one of the edges, almost like your hand slipped while drawing it, but tantalizingly evocative of some shape you were basing it off of and that we are forbidden to ever know, as unknowable to the viewer as the eleventh dimension of the suspected superstrings of atomic physics
o ephemeral lines weightless when first sketched on paper but ultimately realized in tons of rolled iron plate, reeking of the foundry.
o the honesty of visible seams, both welded and bolted.
Boxoffice is kind of a sibling to Calder's The Baron, a sculpture outside my first chemistry department in DeKalb's Northern Illinois University.
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There's a photo of the artist with Boxoffice here. A Newark blogger encountered this sculpture and took many photos of the entire surrounding plaza here. And there's an odd blog I found while looking for Calder connections here.
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