Public Installation

Calder
Flying Dragon, 1975

October 19, 2021–March 20, 2022
Place Vendôme, Paris

Alexander Calder’s monumental sculpture Flying Dragon (1975) will be on view at Place Vendôme in Paris beginning October 19. The installation marks the opening of Gagosian’s new gallery at rue de Castiglione and is part of FIAC Hors les Murs, which presents artworks in emblematic public spaces throughout the city. The new gallery, which is steps away from Place Vendôme, will open with an exhibition dedicated to the history and importance of Flying Dragon.

Flying Dragon (1975)—which exemplifies Calder’s capacity to invest a powerful visual dynamism in his work regardless of scale—is among the last of the monumental works he made. While static, the striking sculpture transforms when viewed from different angles. Constructed from sheet metal, it is physically weighty but appears delicate due to its limited points of contact with the ground.

In 1975—just one year before his death—Calder was energetically engaged in multiple large-scale projects. These included a monumental sculpture for the city of Jerusalem (Jerusalem Stabile, completed and installed in 1976); L’Araignée rouge, a commission for the Paris business district La Défense (completed and installed in 1976); and the present monumental stabile, Flying Dragon.

Blending the biomorphic with the architectonic, the highly ambitious Flying Dragon epitomizes Calder’s compositional genius. Fusing elegant lines with simple forms and vibrant color, it is a distinctive and evocative form that activates the elegant space around it. Due to its immense size, it leaves viewers with the sensation of an otherworldly being imbued with legendary strength.

Download the full press release in English (pdf) or French (pdf)

Alexander Calder, Flying Dragon, 1975, installation view, Place Vendôme, Paris © 2021 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Thomas Lannes

Related News

The Art of the Olympics: An Interview with Yasmin Meichtry

The Art of the Olympics: An Interview with Yasmin Meichtry

The Olympic and Paralympic Games arrive in Paris on July 26. Ahead of this momentous occasion, Yasmin Meichtry, associate director at the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage, Lausanne, Switzerland, meets with Gagosian senior director Serena Cattaneo Adorno to discuss the Olympic Games’ long engagement with artists and culture, including the Olympic Museum, commissions, and the collaborative two-part exhibition, The Art of the Olympics, being staged this summer at Gagosian, Paris.

Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2024

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2024

The Summer 2024 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail of Roy Lichtenstein’s Bauhaus Stairway Mural (1989) on the cover.

Brooke Holmes, Katarina Jerinic, and Lissa McClure on Francesca Woodman

In Conversation
Brooke Holmes, Katarina Jerinic, and Lissa McClure on Francesca Woodman

Join Brooke Holmes, professor of Classics at Princeton University, and Lissa McClure and Katarina Jerinic, executive director and collections curator, respectively, at the Woodman Family Foundation, as they discuss Francesca Woodman’s preoccupation with classical themes and archetypes, her exploration of the body as sculpture, and her engagement with allegory and metaphor in photography.

David Cronenberg: The Shrouds

David Cronenberg: The Shrouds

David Cronenberg’s film The Shrouds made its debut at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in France. Film writer Miriam Bale reports on the motifs and questions that make up this latest addition to the auteur’s singular body of work.

Christo: Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (1963–2014)

Christo: Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (1963–2014)

Join Vladimir Yavachev, director of operations for the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation, as he discusses the genesis of the artist’s work Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon (1963–2014), which Gagosian presented at Art Basel Unlimited 2024.

Oscar Murillo and Alessandro Rabottini

In Conversation
Oscar Murillo and Alessandro Rabottini

In conjunction with Marks and Whispers, at Gagosian, Rome, Oscar Murillo and Alessandro Rabottini sit down to discuss the artist’s paintings and works on paper in the exhibition, as well as how the show emphasizes the formal, political, and social dimensions of the color red in Murillo’s work of the last decade.

BRONX BODEGA Basel

BRONX BODEGA Basel

On the occasion of Art Basel 2024, creative agency Villa Nomad joins forces with Ghetto Gastro, the Bronx-born culinary collective by Jon Gray, Pierre Serrao, and Lester Walker, to stage the interdisciplinary pop-up BRONX BODEGA Basel. The initiative brings together food, art, design, and a series of live events at the Novartis Campus, Basel, during the course of the fair. Here, Jon Gray from Ghetto Gastro and Sarah Quan from Villa Nomad tell the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier about the project.

Donald Judd: Untitled: 1970

Donald Judd: Untitled: 1970

In this video, Flavin Judd, the artist’s son and artistic director of Judd Foundation, discusses a historic large-scale work by his father from 1970, ahead of its presentation at Art Basel Unlimited 2024.

A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE: An interview with Yoshiyuki Miyamae

A-POC ABLE ISSEY MIYAKE: An interview with Yoshiyuki Miyamae

Founded in 1998 by Issey Miyake, A-POC (“A Piece of Cloth”) set out to bring the development and production of fabric and garments into the future. Over the subsequent decades, A-POC has worked at the forefront of technology to realize its goals, and under the leadership of Yoshiyuki Miyamae—who has been with Miyake Design Studio since 2001—A-POC ABLE has engaged in a dynamic series of collaborations with artists, architects, craftspeople, and new technologies to rethink how clothing is designed and made. On the occasion of the line being made available in the United States for the first time, the Quarterly’s Wyatt Allgeier visited the brand’s flagship in New York to speak with Yoshiyuki about the A-POC process, as well as the latest collaboration with the artist Sohei Nishino.

Jordan Wolfson and Johanna Burton

In Conversation
Jordan Wolfson and Johanna Burton

In this video, Gagosian presents a conversation between Jordan Wolfson and Johanna Burton, Maurice Marciano Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The pair discuss Wolfson’s animatronic work of art Body Sculpture (2023).

Jane Fonda: On Art for a Safe and Healthy California

Jane Fonda: On Art for a Safe and Healthy California

Art for a Safe and Healthy California is a benefit exhibition and auction jointly presented by Jane Fonda, Gagosian, and Christie’s to support the Campaign for a Safe and Healthy California. Here, Fonda speaks with Gagosian Quarterly’s Gillian Jakab about bridging culture and activism, the stakes and goals of the campaign, and the artworks featured in the exhibition.

Laguna~B

Laguna~B

An interview with Marcantonio Brandolini d’Adda, artist, designer, and CEO and art director of the Venice-based glassware company Laguna~B.