(AGENPARL) – Tue 17 February 2026 https://whitney.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=387f59a72ae7b64ccae37d5c9&id=7c6ca1dcdf&e=59415c6e7e
** LAST CHANCE TO EXPERIENCE HIGH WIRE: CALDER’S CIRCUS AT 100 BEFORE IT CLOSES MARCH 9, 2026
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High Wire explores the formative work that shaped Calder’s lifelong engagement with movement, balance, suspense, and ephemerality—concepts that would later define his invention of the mobile. High Wire is the Whitney’s first exhibition dedicated to Calder’s Circus since moving to 99 Gansevoort and commemorates the artist’s innovation and the enduring impact this work has had on twentieth-century art.
Situating the Circus within the broader arc of Calder’s career, the exhibition traces how the dynamics of chance, motion, and action embedded in the performances gave rise to his pioneering wire sculptures, early standing mobiles, stabiles, and later abstract works.
To experience High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100 (https://whitney.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=387f59a72ae7b64ccae37d5c9&id=ebee50bbc2&e=59415c6e7e) in its final weeks, visitors can reserve timed tickets at whitney.org. The Whitney offers free admission for visitors of all ages during Free Friday Nights, every Friday from 5–10 pm, and Free Second Sundays each month. Visitors age 25 and under are always free, and Members enjoy anytime admission.
For press materials and additional assets, please visit the High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100 press kit here: https://whitney.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=387f59a72ae7b64ccae37d5c9&id=f9b322aeae&e=59415c6e7e.
** PRESS CONTACT
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For press materials and image requests, please visit our press site at whitney.org/press or contact:
Meghan Ferrucci, Senior Publicist
Whitney Museum of American Art
(212) 671-8346
Whitney Press Office
whitney.org/press
(212) 570-3633
** EXHIBITION SUPPORT
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High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100 is sponsored by
Major support is provided by Kenneth C. Griffin and Griffin Catalyst, the Jon and Mary Shirley Foundation, Stephanie March and Dan Benton, and Anne-Cecilie Engell Speyer.
Significant support is provided by Paul Arnhold and Wes Gordon, Jill and Darius Bikoff, Nancy and Fred Poses, and a gift in honor of June and Paul Schorr.
Generous support is provided by Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund.
Additional support is provided by The Lipman Family Foundation and an anonymous donor.
** ABOUT THE WHITNEY
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The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by the artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), houses the foremost collection of American art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Mrs. Whitney, an early and ardent supporter of modern American art, nurtured groundbreaking artists when audiences were still largely preoccupied with the Old Masters. From her vision arose the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has been championing the most innovative art of the United States for ninety years. The core of the Whitney’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit American art of our time and serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture in the United States. Through this mission and a steadfast commitment to artists, the Whitney has long been a powerful force in support of modern and contemporary art and continues to help define what is innovative and influential in American art today.
Whitney Museum Land Acknowledgment
The Whitney is located in Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape. The name Manhattan comes from their word Mannahatta, meaning “island of many hills.” The Museum’s current site is close to land that was a Lenape fishing and planting site called Sapponckanikan (“tobacco field”). The Whitney acknowledges the displacement of this region’s original inhabitants and the Lenape diaspora that exists today.
** VISITOR INFORMATION
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The Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 99 Gansevoort Street between Washington and West Streets, New York City. Public hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 10:30 am–6 pm; Friday, 10:30 am–10 pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 am–6 pm. Closed Tuesday. Visitors twenty-five years and under and Whitney members: FREE. The Museum offers FREE admission and special programming for visitors of all ages every Friday evening from 5–10 pm and on the second Sunday of every month.
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Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort Street New York, NY 10014
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Image credit:
Alexander Calder, Calder’s Circus (detail), 1926-31 (installation view, High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 18, 2025–March 9, 2026). Wire, wood, metal, cloth, yarn, paper, cardboard, leather, string, rubber tubing, corks, buttons, rhinestones, pipe cleaners, and bottle caps, dimensions variable. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from a public fundraising campaign in May 1982. One half the funds were contributed by the Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Charitable Trust. Additional major donations were given by The Lauder Foundation; the Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc.; the Howard and Jean Lipman Foundation, Inc.; an anonymous donor; The T. M. Evans Foundation, Inc.; MacAndrews & Forbes Group, Incorporated; the DeWitt Wallace Fund, Inc.; Martin and Agneta Gruss; Anne Phillips; Mr. and Mrs. Laurance S. Rockefeller; the Simon Foundation, Inc.; Marylou Whitney; Bankers Trust Company; Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth N. Dayton; Joel and Anne