04 December 2015

Pittsburgh by Alexander Calder

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Made of aluminum and iron, this 28 foot delicately balanced sculpture was the winner of the 1958 Carnegie International. Dating to 1896, the Carnegie International is the oldest contemporary art exhibition in North America. The Carnegie Museum of Art acquired many of it's pieces through this event, which seeks out the “old masters of tomorrow”. Originally it was held annually, but now occurs about every three years.


Pittsburgh was donated to Allegheny County and was displayed in the old terminal of the Pittsburgh International Airport – but no where close to correctly. County executives made some really questionable decisions and essentially defaced the work of art and treated it like a toy. They painted it to match the county's colors (green and yellow) and then monkeyed with the way the mobile was balanced in order to change the height of some of the arms. When that stopped the mobile from being able to move, they simply added a motor! Sacrilege! As you can probably guess, Mr Calder was less than pleased with what had been done to his creation.


As a compromise, the sculpture was painted again – this time with red on the paddles. It wasn't until 1979 that the county came to it's senses and restored the mobile to it's original condition.


It now floats above the center portion of the air-side terminal (at the top of the escalators) as it was originally meant to.  

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