MINNEAPOLIS.- The Minneapolis Institute of Arts presents the exhibit The Surreal Calder through September 10, 2006. Alexander Calder is a ubiquitous presence in the story of modern art, and yet he is rarely seen in the context from which he initially emerged as an artist. His artistic parentage consisted of Marcel Duchamp, who provided the name of and concept for the mobile, Mondrian, who introduced pure abstraction to him, and Miró, who communicated the central thesis of Surrealism. "The Surreal Calder" consists of 70 works, including 13 paintings and objects by artists other than Calder, to put Calder back in the midst of Surrealism so that his achievement is more profoundly understood within that context. The exhibition is conceived as a suite of six distinct galleries.

The first gallery will include works by Miró, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, and René Magritte, and will delineate the Surrealist milieu and its chief aspects. In the following galleries, themes will explore Calder's relationship to that milieu during his early years, culminating in 1947 with the theoretical end date of Surrealism. Those works show Calder's wit, caricature, and linear flights of fancy, his "marvelous" (in the surrealist sense of that word) personages--fantastic, never-before-seen creatures, poetic constructions of unlikely materials, biomorphic forms from an imaginary vision of nature, and Calder's constellations; apparent views of celestial space. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

The Surreal Calder is organized by The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas and is generously supported in part by The Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation, Anita and Mike Stude, An Anonymous Donor in Honor of Elsian Cozens, Mary and Roy Cullen, and Mrs. Nancy C. Allen, with additional support from The Cullen Foundation, Fayez Sarofim & Co., George and Josephine Hamman Foundation, Houston Endowment, Inc., the Wortham Foundation, and the City of Houston.