Pictures in Motion: Celebrating Cirque Calder

Thursday, June 11–Monday, August 3
Screened all day during open hours
Free with admission

In June and July, we screen two films celebrating Alexander Calder’s legendary Cirque Calder. The documentary Le Cirque Calder (1961), directed by Carlos Vilardebó, captures Calder performing his miniature wire circus in his studio in France. We also premiere Cirque Calder on Film (2026), directed by Vic Brooks and commissioned by the Calder Foundation and Fondation Louis Vuitton.

Le Cirque Calder, 1961
Directed by Carlos Vilardebó
28 min.

Le Cirque Calder, directed by Carlos Vilardebó, is a renowned film documenting Calder performing his miniature circus in his studio in France. Drawn from Calder’s original Cirque Calder—developed between 1926 and 1931 as a portable, evolving performance piece—the film preserves a rare record of its final performance in 1961. ​

The film shows Calder himself animating a cast of hand-built wire and mixed-media figures, staging acrobats, animals, and performers through improvised sequences of movement, balance, and theater. The camera follows the small-scale choreography of the circus as it unfolds through gesture, manipulation, and timing, foregrounding its mechanics as much as its theatricality. Alongside Calder’s own narration and sound cues, the film captures the dynamism and precision of a work that exists between sculpture and performance, offering a vivid document of one of his most iconic and enduring creations.

Cirque Calder on Film, 2026
Directed by Vic Brooks
11:30 min.

Cirque Calder on Film explores the development of Calder’s Cirque Calder between 1926 and 1931 and the complex afterlives of its documentation on film in the decades that followed.

Drawing on newly restored family footage, archival materials, and close readings of films by Carlos Vilardebó, Hans Richter, and Jean Painlevé, the short documentary revisits Calder’s performances of Cirque while reflecting on how cinematic representations—particularly Vilardebó’s 1961 film—have profoundly shaped contemporary understandings of the work. Reconsidering this genre-defying project within the cultural and technological transformations of its time, the film repositions Cirque as a singular synthesis of sculptural and dramaturgical practices that continues to resist a fixed or linear interpretation. In doing so, it reveals Calder’s pioneering orchestration of time, space, material, and action through Cirque as both a precursor to performance art and a crucial threshold in his practice, anticipating his turn toward the mobiles and stabiles, for which he later became known.

Pictures in Motion presents moving-image works, including experimental cinema, artist films, and documentaries. Each program is organized around themes that reflect Calder Gardens’ curatorial focus, showing how artists use motion, time, and sound to expand contemporary visual practice.

Programming at Calder Gardens is generously supported by Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, Donna Green, and Michael Sternberg.