In windswept, granite-paved plazas across the country, metal sculptures by Alexander Calder preside like benevolent monsters.  It’s a shame these works possess so little of the charm that the sculptor’s smaller pieces have.  That charm overpowers at the new exhibit at Pace on 57th Street, Calder 1941.  The galleries are filled with pieces Calder completed that year, all with the signature spinning wire arms and medallions, and all scaled intimately.  The smallest pieces are the size of water pitchers, and the largest are just taller than a man.  Each one is light in form and in spirit.  Visiting the gallery was like walking through a garden.

These pieces, particularly the tabletop ones, have a toy-like quality that makes one want to get close to them.  The gallery guard issued three separate warnings to my friend and me while we were there, and he seemed especially harried, as if he’d been overextended since the exhibit opened.  What’s the appeal of these small pieces?  From every angle the sculptures take on a different aspect, so that it’s almost criminal to show them in a single photograph.  As one circles them, the experience is cinematic more than sculptural.  And, from every angle, the thin wire and flat metal shapes are strongly graphic, with delicate asymmetries gives them a personal feeling.  These sculptures feel like they’ve been drawn in the air.