Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum Project Presents
“What a Circus”

 

Join hands with artist Alexander Calder across time and space
Continue his philosophy of creation in immersive workshops
Create a circus for the new generation

 

“Why must art be static? The next step is sculpture in motion.”

— Alexander Calder

 

 

As part of the Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum Project, a new workshop-exhibition, "What a Circus," is coming to Shanghai, China. Having toured France, Switzerland, Spain, and other countries, the exhibition draws inspiration from Alexander Calder's creative concepts and forms, blending toys and theater. Through interactive elements like games, installation experiments, and theater stages, the exhibition creates a workshop-style interactive space. It invites visitors to use their creativity and perspectives to reshape a grand circus scene at the West Bund Museum’s Creativity Gallery. The exhibition will be open to the public from June 7, 2024, to December 1, 2024.

 

 

The concept of the workshop-exhibition "What a Circus" is inspired by Calder’s 1926 creation "Calder's Circus," a complex and unique piece made from wire, leather, fabric, and other materials to form a portable circus that fits in a suitcase. Calder could manipulate the movement of each element, engaging a groundbreaking performative act, sparking the idea for his famous mobile sculptures.

 

 

Calder’s use of minimal lines and colors creates a poetic balance, crafting rhythmically mobile sculptures. "What a Circus" is a cross-temporal dialogue with Calder and a call to the innocence and joy within us all. "Balance," "color," and "movement" are the permanent "guests" of this circus, inviting every visitor to explore the symbiotic laws of creation between art and science. Here, unique creativity will flourish, and visitors will become circus members, playing various roles. They are the audience, the creators, and the performers, exploring the dynamic balance between people, space, and art. When sculptures can move, and drawings can grow, this revived circus scene becomes an inspiring, unconventional, and self-challenging creative journey. Through interdisciplinary practice, the public will not only break creative thinking patterns but also experience the charm of limitless art forms.

 

 

The exhibition comprises three interactive parts: "Playing with Balance," "Drawing in Space," and "In the Ring." In "Playing with Balance," participants can experience the thrill of tightrope walking and observe their every movement through the mirror, turning themselves into mobile sculptures. In "Drawing in Space," they will explore the transformation of drawings from two-dimensional to three-dimensional forms, presenting more complex layers in three-dimensional space. From simple lines to complex volumes, drawing is not limited to flat surfaces but rather shows richer layers in three-dimensional space. In "In the Ring", participants will move from individual exploration to collective creation, using their imagination to create moving performers for the circus performance. The exhibition encourages hands-on practice and features audio recordings, documentaries, films, and digital displays of Calder's manuscripts.

 

 

Since its opening, the West Bund Museum has launched several interactive installation exhibitions. These allow both children and adults to experience a world of reversed proportions in the "Passing Though" exhibition, discover the secrets of color in the "Living Images" exhibition, explore intriguing perspectives in the "My Eye" exhibition, embark on an ecological adventure in the "Sid and the World Below" exhibition, awaken their awareness of the era and self through symbols in the "The People of Tomorrow" interactive installation exhibition, and nourish the "The Plantamouves" with their own insights. The new "What a Circus" exhibition will invite visitors to unleash their imagination. Through a rich sensory experience involving their eyes, ears, hands, and entire body, they will be transported to the artistic world of Alexander Calder, a key figure in 20th-century sculpture history. This exhibition offers a cross-temporal dialogue, allowing visitors to personally experience Calder's creative process, engage in hands-on activities, and continue writing his own philosophy of creation.