John Pedlow's Essay

The contemporary artwork that I choose to look at was Alexander Calder’s sculpture Flamingo. I find that metal sculptures are one form of art that I truly do not understand what so ever. I guess you could say that this has something to do with my extremely limited knowledge of art as a whole. Also though growing up I when the word art was mentioned I thought of painting and most likely Picasso or Van Gogh just because they are two of the most commonly known painters. That said though Flamingo is not your average metal sculpture, there is just something about it that catches your eye right off the bat. This very well could be the bright red color that is not typical of metal sculptures or its extreme size in the middle of Chicago, but there is definitely something that catches your eye about this sculpture.
This sculpture is the only sculpture that I can remember (and I haven’t seen that many) that was aesthetically interesting to me. To me the color of the sculpture is what initially catches my eye because it is not the color you expect to see when you think of metal sculptures. After that the actual shape of the sculpture is interesting to me, I do not quite understand why the shape catches my eye as much as it does but there is something about it that intrigues me. That is one of the reasons I took this class however, because I want to develop more of an understanding of art so that I can appreciate it later in life.
Alexander Calder was the artist who sculpted Flamingo and he was born in 1898 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and lived until 1976. He was a third generation sculptor and his grandfather was the man who sculpted the figure of William Penn that sits atop the dome of city hall in Philadelphia. However Calder was more mechanical driven at an early age and studied mechanical engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. After receiving his degree in 1919, Calder held a number of jobs until he tried his hand at art. He gained fame for his sculptures and mobiles over time and his fame peaked in the 1970’s, which happens to be the era that Flamingo was created in. Flamingo was created unveiled in 1974 in Chicago. This sculpture is a massive 50 ton work of art and is made up of steel and is located in Chicago’s Federal Plaza. I hope to at one point after taking this class to be able to look at a work of art like this and at least try and be able to understand it.