mobile

A sculpture consisting of a number of various objects and shapes, suspended on wire arms. Mobiles are designed to move freely and, therefore, change continuously in a current of air. Unlike traditional static sculpture, they create movement in space. The US sculptor Alexander Calder invented mobiles in the 1930s, initially naming them his ‘wire sculptures’. He adopted the term ‘mobile’ after it was suggested by French-born US artist Marcel Duchamp in 1932.