Calder Jewelry
Grand Rapids Art Museum
Through April 18
artmuseumgr.org, (616) 831-1000

Grand Rapids boasts a bright, red mascot. A giant, 42-ton mascot generally referred to as, "The Calder."

La Grande Vitesse, a sculpture by Alexander Calder, has been an icon of the city since 1967, when it was erected on what is now called Calder Plaza. The artist is known for inventing the suspended "mobile" (a name given to the moving art pieces by none other than Marcel Duchamp) and for creating monstrous and modern, abstract sculptures.

Juxtaposed with his voluminous sculptures is a vast collection of comparatively diminutive works of jewelry. Calder's striking, wearable art takes on many forms, from necklaces and hair combs to bracelets and tiaras.

The Grand Rapids Art Museum, founded in 1910, celebrates a centennial year and the "historic association" with Alexander Calder through the exhibition of 100 jewelry pieces.

According to Cindy Buckner, research curator at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Calder used "the same motifs of his drawings and sculptures...snakes, spirals and circles."

Buckner described that "the work has a lot of humor to it...lots of animals, bugs and fish. When you're wearing that type of jewelry it has an element of whimsy."

While the jewelry is primarily constructed with metal, he often used other elements like wood, beach glass and ceramic shards to create unique and striking pieces.

Calder's influences are clear. Created from the 1930s through the 1960s, each work of jewelry conjures up surrealist or primitive art associations. One such necklace is an obvious reference to brass neck rings worn by women of certain African tribes. Calder's version is less like a series of restrictive coils and more like a modern and gutsy contraption.

Other pieces are elegant, featuring winding spirals and metallic loops. A large necklace, which rests flat across the chest, bares loops that sweep into formidable points, dramatically jutting from the shoulders. On a smaller scale, a broach comprised of flattened tines, curving upwards in a traditional leaf shape, is more modest.

In his lifetime, Calder designed and crafted more than 1,800 works of jewelry. The collection features hundreds of items he created as gifts for his wife, Louisa. While Calder exhibited pieces in galleries sometimes alongside his more traditional art works, he also intentionally used materials that ensured affordability, making the wearable art accessible to more than just the lucky benefactors of his gifts, including the famed Georgia O'Keeffe and Peggy Guggenheim. Many of the gifts to Louisa will be present at the exhibit, including the piece given to Guggenheim.

The exhibition has been shown around the globe, including the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. Calder's work made a particularly big splash at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where "the fabulous show was very well received," said Buckner. The final stop in Grand Rapids not only rounds out the tour with a bit of historic nostalgia, but, Buckner divulged, features a "silver, spiral-shaped bracelet recently purchased" by the GRAM, which "was not part of the show" prior to the Grand Rapids exhibition.

Jewelry fanatics, sculpture lovers and even those obsessed with the mystifying fashion accessories of pop princess, Lady GaGa will be equally intrigued by Calder's outrageous, wearable art.