The Easel

28th April 2026

A Landmark Calder Exhibition with Over 300 of His Revolutionary Works Goes on View in Paris

Caroline Roux | Galerie | 17th April 2026

A huge Calder retrospective in Paris marks the 100th anniversary of his arrival there. Mobile sculptures are represented in such numbers as to remind viewers they were a “graceful leap in sculptural syntax”. Sculpture, once characterised by “volume and mass”, could also be dainty and not in a fixed position. Movement introduced time in a work, allowing Calder’s mobiles to” become a fluid part of their own environment.”

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt and His Bizarre Character Heads

Zuzanna Stanska | Daily Art | 14th April 2026

For someone relatively unknown the Viennese late baroque artist Franz Messerschmidt gets lots of exhibitions. The reason it seems is his perplexing series of 60 or so “character head” sculptures. Done in late career, they are highly detailed male faces showing various extreme emotions. Messerschmidt kept them for himself. Were they a reflection of his mental ill-health or just the Enlightenment’s fascination with faces? Says one critic “a lost soul of the European Enlightenment.” A detailed essay is here.

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