THE HELICES (DOUBLE HELIX) 1944

Alexander Calder made this bronze sculpture, titled THE HELICES (DOUBLE HELIX), sometime in the mid-20th century. It's all about process; you can almost see Calder’s hands at work here, twisting and shaping the clay before it was cast. There's this rugged texture, like he wanted you to feel the earthiness of the material. The way the light catches the surface emphasizes the physicality. Look at the base, how it flares out—it reminds me of a tree trunk, anchoring these swirling lines to the ground. The lines themselves, they’re like gestures, reaching out, connecting, but also unfinished. It's about potential, about the dance between order and chaos. Calder always had a knack for making the abstract feel so alive. You see that in his mobiles, too, this same sense of playfulness and movement. It's like he was talking to artists like Joan Miró, who also embraced a kind of joyous, biomorphic abstraction. For Calder, and for art in general, it's more about the conversation than any final statement.