Becoming the Breeze: Alex Chitty with Alexander Calder

Artworks by Alexander Calder are often asked for by name at the MCA—understandable as they have frequented spaces in the museum for more than 25 years. For this exhibition, we invited Chicago-based artist Alex Chitty to interject in the display of Calder’s work. Here, Chitty proposes a reframing for how we look, think, and interact in both museums and the world at large.

In Becoming the Breeze: Alex Chitty with Alexander Calder, Chitty challenges the conventions of museum display by directly engaging with Calder’s modern artworks. Working in close collaboration with the museum staff to produce this exhibition, Chitty’s interjections evoke the same playful spirit the modernist sculptor brought to his own practice. Much like the breezes that activate Calder’s mobiles, the visible and invisible forces that drive exhibitions—how artworks are stored, who chooses them, and more—are revealed in ways that allow us to see Calder’s work anew.

Becoming the Breeze: Alex Chitty with Alexander Calder is organized by Raven Falquez Munsell, independent curator, and Jack Schneider, MCA Curatorial Assistant, in collaboration with Alex Chitty and with the support of MCA staff.

Image: Alex Chitty, The Workaround (screenshot), 2019 Digital jpg file. Courtesy of the artist