Alexander Calder mobiles exhibition coming to Tate Modern

The Tate is to complement its burgeoning programme of performance and dance with the biggest exhibition to date of mobile man Alexander Calder.

Entitled Performing Sculpture, featuring about 100 works, will explore the transformation of his art from solid plinth-based works to fancies of movement and colour.

Achim Borchardt-Hume , its co-curator, said: “With live art, performance and dance playing such a key role in Tate Modern’s programme, we are delighted to present the most comprehensive survey to date of Alexander Calder in the UK.”

The American, who died aged 78 in 1976, forced the public to rethink what sculpture was, he added, re-presenting the artform “not as a solid object you walk around or something you have a confrontational encounter with, but as something that is unfixed and constantly changing”.

The mobiles developed from early wire sculpture portraits of friends and figures, and became abstract after Calder visited Piet Mondrian’s studio.

Alexander Calder: Performing Sculpture is at Tate Modern from November 11 to April 3.