Still in Motion

From September 6, 2024 through August 3, 2025, the San José Museum of Art (SJMA) will present Still in Motion. By exhibiting the work of four contemporary artists, who have each been awarded the Calder Prize, SJMA honors Alexander Calder’s legacy and demonstrates how it continues to inspire artistic practice today. Organized by Nidhi Gandhi, curatorial and programs associate at SJMA, Still in Motion features artworks by Tara Donovan, Jill Magid, Tomás Saraceno, and Aki Sasamoto. It is presented concurrently with Calder: at home, among friends which highlights the artist’s intimate side through works and small objects that filled his home and were shared with close friends and relatives. 

“We are delighted to celebrate Calder and his legacy at SJMA with two new exhibitions. With Calder: at home, among friends, visitors can learn more about his artistic practice and personal connections, and in Still in Motion, they can get a taste of the lasting influence of his legacy. Similar to Calder, the artists in Still in Motion are moving the medium of sculpture forward by challenging its physical and conceptual tenets such as material, form, and balance,” said Nidhi Gandhi, curatorial and programs associate at SJMA. 

The four Calder Prize awardees presented in Still in Motion push the limits of sculpture through materials and references that speak uniquely to the contemporary moment.  

• In Untitled (Paper Plates) (2005), Tara Donovan transforms aggregations of mundane items, like paper plates and hot glue, into sublime objects that play with perceptual habits and expectations.  

• Tomás Saraceno’s Calder Upside Down 28/18/15/12/8 (2018) is directly inspired by the unique balance of Calder’s forms, as the work’s glass orbs seem to float yet are tied down by a rock. With this sculpture, Saraceno questions the role of Modernism and modernity in our current environmental crisis.  

• Aki Sasamoto’s performances are stream-of-consciousness explorations of everyday habits. Her movie and diagram from Delicate Cycle (2017) consider the humble life of the dung beetle, which rolls its home and food together in a single mobile unit, to question human relationships with cleanliness and relationships to one another.  

• In Hand-hacked Bouquet 1 (from the series “Out-Game Flowers),” (2023), Jill Magid examines digital capital, economy, and authenticity. She creates NFTs (non-fungible tokens) by “hacking” digital flowers that have high-value in various video games. Given out-of-game value as a digital artwork, the bouquets also “hack” our virtual commodity systems.  

These two new exhibitions join a roster of solo exhibitions and retrospectives honoring Calder at SJMA, including: Sculpture and Paintings by Alexander Calder (1971), Calder’s Universe (1978), Flying Colors: The Innovation and Artistry of Alexander Calder (1997), and  Alexander Calder: Color in Motion (2009).  

Calder lived in the Bay Area during his childhood, moving to San Francisco in 1912 and then Berkeley in 1914 with his parents and sister. During that time, Calder attended high school at Lowell High School, San Francisco. The artist retained connections to the Bay Area through his sister Margaret “Peggy” Calder Hayes, who settled in Berkeley after attending University of California, Berkeley, and his nephew Dr. Kenneth Hayes, who moved with his young family to San José in 1958.