and per se and: part XVII - Frank Walter & Alexander Calder

and per se and  is a rolling sequence of exhibitions where one work is paired with another for two weekly periods, across a stretch of 12 months. For the last 15 years of his life the Antiguan artist Frank Walter lived and worked in a hillside shack, removed from ordinary society and with only his paintings drawings, sculptures and writings for company. He would work on whatever material came to hand, using anything and everything as a potential starting point for an artwork. Amongst his most poignant creations were the many carvings with which he came to share his shack, almost like an army of friends offering a kind of psychic companionship. They recall some of his very earliest boyhood creations: rudimentary but deeply charming toys hand made from old wood and wire into articulated animals and figures and checkerboards. In the realms of 20th century artist-toymakers there is no more singular presence than Alexander Calder. He started early, aged just eleven in 1909, giving his parents a Christmas present of a little dog and duck exquisitely crafted from sheet metal. The importance of toys remained a constant throughout his long career and an inherent playfulness marks even his most monumental sculptures. It was whilst living in Paris as a young man from 1926-1932 that he first started to perform his now celebrated Cirque Calder in front of small audiences of friends… the artist unpacking a suitcase of tiny toys fashioned from wire, wood, cork and fabric: pulling strings, turning cranks and releasing springs to make a horse trot around the ring, or a trapeze artist fly through the air. By the end of Calder’s life the contents of his circus had expanded to fill five suitcases, now in the collection of the New York’s Whitney Museum, and Jean Painlevé's 1955 film Le Grand Cirque Calder 1927 is the seminal recording of this extraordinary window into the artistic imagination. Frank Walter: The Last Universal Man 1926–2009  continues at the Pavilion of Antigua and Barbuda at the 57th Venice Biennale until 22 November 2017. Please note the gallery will be open by appointment only during the week commencing 6 November while Ingleby exhibits at Paris Photo 2017. Normal public opening hours will resume for and per se and: Part XVIII from Wednesday 15 November.