MY SHOP 1955

Editor: Here we have Alexander Calder's "My Shop," a mixed-media painting from 1955. The colours are vibrant and it seems to teeter on the edge of abstraction, though you can still make out recognizable forms. How do you interpret this work? Curator: I see a deeply personal iconography at play here. Calder, best known for his mobiles, imbues these static objects with a vibrant sense of life. The shapes and colours carry a specific emotional and psychological weight, almost a memory palace of his artistic life. The presence of the Eiffel Tower, though abstracted, plants us in Paris. How do the other elements read to you? Editor: It’s almost like looking inside the artist's mind! The shapes on the canvases... are they sketches or reflections of his own sculptures? Curator: Exactly! They mirror and magnify aspects of his sculptures. Circles morph into eyes, lines vibrate with potential motion, capturing that essence of dynamism in a frozen moment. Notice how colour further amplifies these elements; the yellows suggest vitality, the reds passion, while blues and blacks are used more for formal anchors in space. Consider too the 'shop' as a space. Do we see literal wares? Or a realm of visual processing? Editor: So it is more about capturing the atmosphere of a creative space rather than a literal representation. Curator: Precisely! The visual language gives permanence to creative energy, transforming it into coded imagery with repeated use across artworks. This provides symbolic understanding through cultural memory. Can you imagine similar ways of understanding everyday life via colour choices and forms within our current environments? Editor: It definitely makes you consider how personal spaces are filled with coded signs. It’s almost like the artwork is speaking through symbols, reflecting lived experiences, inviting viewers into understanding shared, albeit private, experiences.