Custom Hanging Mobile Sculpture and Mies van der Rohe Daybed

A custom designed mobile I made in 2012 with the modern classic Mies van der Rohe daybed (to illustrate the size of the mobile). It measures 5.5 feet in height and 4.5 feet width, made with steel (sheet metal, wire, rivets) and a solid lead metal weight:

This mobile became the original inspiration for the custom-made mobile I made for the movie The Upside released in 2019.

It seems to me that this mobile crosses over from a mid-century modern style to a more contemporary one, in one of my earlier ventures to break away from Alexander Calder‘s work and to expand the art form of mobiles that he created beyond his work, which eventually led to these contemporary mobile sculptures, this hypothesis and these much more complex and intricate mobile sculptures.

The mobile shown here moves beautifully with the air currents. Although originally not intended for outdoors, I suspended it in the yard for a while, and it proved strong enough to withstand an intense storm. The weight at the bottom provides for quite a bit of stability. It’s a kinetic mobile sculpture, but it would make for a sophisticated hanging wall sculpture as well. I still have a stack of drawings with mobiles similar to this one, based on the same idea or theme (bird like?). I may get around to turning those drawings into mobiles eventually.

It seems that Stephen H. Kawai may have felt inspired by this mobile with his Ghost Bird (2018).

– See more of my mobile sculptures –