Calder’s Circus Back in Paris, France
One hundred years ago, in 1926, American artist Alexander Calder arrived in Paris. On the occasion of Calder. Rêver en équilibre, at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, his foundational project, Cirque Calder (Calder’s Circus), makes a grand return to the European city that defined his career. Teetering, tottering, and fashioned from wire, Calder built this pint-sized circus in the Roaring Twenties. Crouched around the set, about the size of a child’s playset, he would perform the circus for Paris’s avant-garde art scene. This first work set the stage for Calder’s iconic mobiles, pieces defined by movement, balance, and a playful disposition toward the world around us.
‘In 1946, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a beautiful essay about Calder’s Mobiles,’ remarks Fondation Louis Vuitton curator Oliver Michelon, who worked on the show. ‘He says that Calder’s works are something like “little local fiestas,” une petite fête locale in French. So there’s this idea of playfulness and joy in Calder’s work later on that is already present in the circus.’
installation view of the exhibition Calder. Rêver en équilibre, presented fom april 15 to august 16, 2026 at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris | image © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / ADAGP, Paris © Fondation Louis Vuitton / David Bordes
Curator Oliver Michelon on the Circus in a Calder Retrospective
The project is an exceptional loan to the Paris foundation from the Whitney Museum of American Art. Just months before the opening of Rêver en équilibre, the New York museum had wrapped its exhibition, High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100, which staged the spectacle in all its miniature wonder. ‘There couldn’t be a Calder retrospective without having the circus, as this is also the 100th anniversary of Calder coming to Paris,’ Michelon tells designboom. ‘He showed this as one of his first works in Paris, from 1926 to 1933… It was essential because the circus is the starting point for Calder’s stay in Paris.’
Calder performing his circus, shared on the event of the exhibition High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100, at the Whitney Museum of American Art
How the Circus Set Things in Motion
When many think of Calder’s work, his hallmark mobiles come to mind: masterfully balanced arrangements of colorful shapes fluttering ever so gently from a single point. What preceded these moving marvels was a study in motion that began with a journalistic assignment to illustrate the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus around 1925. Fascinated by the performers, Calder created his own troupe. ‘The circus is a kinetic work—that’s the first point.’
Olivier is keen to point out the bridge between this work and Calder’s more well-known oeuvre. ‘It is nothing but movement. Horses are running, acrobats are jumping, objects are thrown into space, a balloon is exploding. Movement is everywhere. In 1926, just before coming to Paris, Calder had published a book, Animal Sketching, as a method book for drawing animals. There, he stated that to draw animals you have to understand that they are movement; animal equals movement. The circus is the same: circus equals movement… In [Calder. Rêver en équilibre], a bit after the circus, we have a later work called Small Sphere (1932) and Heavy Sphere (1933), which is the first suspended mobile by Calder. It can be seen as a continuation of the circus as well, because it’s kind of like an act.’
Garland Entry, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1930 | image from Library Of Congress Prints And Photographs Division
Paris in the Roaring Twenties Sets the Stage
The circus sits between many different categories: is it art? A toy? A performance? Olivier was quick to remind us that, ‘The circus was something that defied category….. Today we are looking back with our historical categories, but in the Roaring Twenties everything was mixed. So today we can call the circus a performance, that’s convenient but that category didn’t exist then.’
Olivier sets the stage in the Roaring Twenties, or Les Années folles in France. ‘But you have to think that [the circus is set in] the same context in which a modernist architect like Le Corbusier was fascinated, mesmerized by Josephine Baker and her almost electric dance. You have to think that Mondrian was a jazz addict, and he was well known for dancing like mad. And that same Mondrian invited Calder to his studio after seeing the circus. So everything was a bit mixed in ways that today we are only beginning to appreciate.’
Sacha Stone, Calder and the Cirque Calder (1926-1931), 1929, Gelatin silver print, 27.9 x 35.6 cm, Calder Foundation, New York | © 2026 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York © Sacha Stone
Bringing Motion to Delicate Objects
Conservators at the Whitney have commented on the challenges of displaying such delicate objects. As captured in films taken during Calder’s lifetime, the figurines were built to be handled. Speaking to overcoming this difficulty, Olivier remarks, ‘with Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauder, guest curators of the exhibition and Jean-François Bodin, our architect, we decided to isolate it act by act, sequence by sequence. I believe that helps to convey its vitality.’ Accompanied by a film made by Carlos Vilardebó in 1961 of Calder later in his life, the display of the original objects is given a certain vitality all these years later.
‘There are circular display cases that, of course, are reminiscent of the circus ring. We play records that Calder played during the circus performance… there’s low light, so the circus gradually appears as you enter the room. There is time to discover it and be surprised. As you approach it, you also hear the music more because it’s coming from the display case…. Even if they are not moving, there is a lot of humor in every material. You have bouchons de liège (cork stoppers), you have very tiny things. You see the fun in making it as well.’