Alexander Calder is one of the best known and most influential artists of the twentieth century. His sculpture has been extensively shown and continues to be a critical reference within international histories of modernism. Less known is the importance of sound and architecture in his work, as well as the extent to which he was influenced by ideas of performance and theatricality. The Acoustic Ceiling, multi-colored panels that appear to float across the ceiling of a university theatre in Caracas, emerged through Calder’s close collaboration with the architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva as well as engineers and local fabricators. Together, they created a singular artwork that not only shifted Calder’s own process of artmaking but has continued to shape successive generations in Latin America and beyond.

Essays and conversations by artists, scholars, architects, and musicians cover topics ranging from mid-century modernism in Latin America, performance and sound in Calder’s work, acoustic engineering, architecture in Venezuela, political histories and art in twentieth-century Caracas, and Calder’s deeply collaborative spirit. Richly illustrated with over a hundred previously unpublished letters, photographs, and artworks, this book offers an unprecedented look at Calder’s contributions to performance and sound through his engagement with Latin America.

Contributing authors include Alexander S. C. Rower, founder and president of the Calder Foundation, New York, and the artist’s grandson; Inés Arango-Guingue, a Colombian writer and curator based in Chicago; Lisa Blackmore, professor of Spanish and Director of the Digital Humanities Center at the University of Virginia; aural architect Jonas Braasch; Mirtru Escalona-Mijares, a composer, performer, and professor of art who lives in Paris; María Fernanda Jaua, a teacher and researcher; Beryl Gilothwest, deputy director of Research and Exhibitions at the Calder Foundation, New York; Johannes Goebel, founding director of the Institute for Music and Acoustics/ZKM Karlsruhe and of Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Carlos Gómez de Llarena, architect and former professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela; Silvia Hernández de Lasala, PhD, architect and professor at the Universidad Central de Venezuela; Leilehua Lanzilotti, a musician, multimedia artist, and curator based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi; cellist Aimon Mata; Ana Navas, a multidisciplinary visual artist based in the Netherlands; Rafael Pereira, a leading scholar in modernist architectural history, based in Caracas; Gryphon Rue, an artist, composer, and musician based in New York; architect and designer Rafael Santana who lives and works in Caracas; and Paulina Villanueva an architect and director of the Fundación Villanueva in Caracas.