Alexander Calder – Weeds. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $3.6 MILLION
Mauvaisesherbes or Weeds by Alexander Calder comes up at Sotheby’s Modern evening auction in New York on November 18 with an estimate of $3 million – $5 million. Composed of 15 elements arranged along a central axis in a tapered cascade it is an example of his career-long, transformative exploration of sculptural abstracted forms. The artwork is invigorated through its tensions—between the geometric and the organic, the structural and the fluid and between spatial and volumetric weight. It is precisely this dynamism for which Calder’s mobiles garnered their widespread acclaim and which has made his sculptures some of the most recognisable of the twentieth century. Executed in 1963 Weeds comes to market from the collection of Erica Jong, American poet and novelist whose trailblazing work within her own field complements the innovation Calder charted in sculpture. The auction features artworks that capture the spirit of artists working around the globe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who dared to challenge established norms of artistic practice to create a new and wholly modern vision of art.