Mercury Fountain (1:3 scale model)

Alexander Calder was the sole overseas artist in the Spanish Pavilion of 1937. Josep Lluís Sert, one of the architects behind the Pavilion, commissioned Calder to make the work in 1937 with the intention of creating an entirely avant-garde work, chiming with the pieces of Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró in the same site. Mercury Fountain was ultimately one of the great successes of the Pavilion as it fully integrated the liquid, mobile and silver nature of metal with a dynamic concept and concrete abstraction in the design. Mercury, simulated here with cut-out and painted cardboard, is the core element in the sculpture. It flowed from the static part (Stabile), made up of three uneven surfaces affixed to two semi-circular bars, to move beyond the metal liquid from the centre of the pond, taking it up to the spatula that activated the mobile part (Mobile) and formed by a red circle and the text “ALMADEN”, in reference to the place where the mines of this chemical element are located. According to the artist in his autobiography, “the impact of mercury against the beater made the combination of the two rods, the red disc and the word Almaden oscillate in the air, describing a kind of eight”.

This maquette is a replica of the original the artist made for the approval of his idea. In displaying his installation in the context of Guernica, he sought to draw attention to the economic interests of the fascist uprising against the Republic and one of its most important war assets, the Almadén mines, which wouldn’t be taken by General Yagüe until March 1939.



Carmen Fernández Aparicio