Calder Crags + Vanuatu Totems from the Collection of Wayne Heathcote
April 25 - June 8, 2019
Opening: Thursday, April 25th, 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Venus Over Manhattan
980 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10075

(New York, NY) – Opening on April 25th, Venus Over Manhattan will present Calder Crags and Vanuatu Totems from the Collection of Wayne Heathcote, an exhibition comprising a suite of large-scale standing mobiles by Alexander Calder, and a group of historical Vanuatu figures from the Ambrym, Banks, and Malekula islands. On view through June 8th, the presentation will provide an unprecedented context in which to consider the powerful achievements of these uniquely transcendent sculptural forms.

Alexander Calder’s Crags comprise a series of standing mobiles produced in 1974, first exhibited at the Perls Galleries in New York. Each work features both stationary and kinetic elements, representing a fusion of Calder’s colossal stabiles and delicate mobiles. The Crags consist of large, undulating forms that rest directly on the floor, cut from sheet metal and painted black. The steep curves and perforations that typify these shapes suggest visions of mountainous terrain, recalling the graphically simplified topographies of 19th century Japanese watercolors, with their cliffs, crags, and escarpments. Situated between the peaks and the valleys of their bases, the Crags incorporate balanced kinetic elements, painted in a primary palette, that dance gently through the air. The complex layering of individual planes, cascading forms, and contrasting colors, represents a synthesis of Calder’s diverse aims, marrying the weighty permanence of his bold constructions with the agile beauty of his suspended shapes. The exhibition also includes two of Calder’s Totem works, which dramatically cut through space much like his more well-known stabiles, but furthermore delineate sculpted masses open on one side, only apparent to the astute observer. Taken together, Calder’s Crags and Totems bear out a uniquely rendered vision of an extraordinary mindscape, replete with enchanting and complex geographies.

The Vanuatu figures on view hail exclusively from the collection of Wayne Heathcote, a leading collector and dealer of Oceanic art. Heathcote acquired the collection in the early 1970s, through Nicolai Michoutouchkine, founder of the Museum of Oceanic Art in Port Vila, Vanuatu, after having served as a field policeman on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. The core of the group comprises two sets of towering fern figures, notable for their distinct stylistic differences. The larger group, featuring curvilinear forms and bright sections of hand-painted color, represents a formal approach unique to Ambrym, centrally located in the archipelago of Vanuatu. The second group, which features a more geometric approach to figuration, is unique to the Banks Islands, located at the northern end of the archipelago. A third group of smaller objects, typified by fully rendered figures over-modeled with a mixture of earth and vegetable matter, represent figuration from Malekula, the archipelago’s second largest island.