"The Surreal Calder"

SCULPTURE PREVIEW If any surrealist piece requested your undivided, in-person, distended-eyeball-to-eyeball attention, it would be the divine mobiles, wire sculptures, and stabiles by Alexander Calder (1989–1976). Referenced and ripped off so often by so many designers that his modernist vocabulary and inherent elegance seem completely, comfortably familiar, Calder doesn't so much disturb or destabilize with his beauty as he does charm and pique these days: The scale of witty jabs like The Spider (1940) and the foregrounding of the artist's use of found materials in works like Ashtray Mobile (ca. 1951) intrigue while contextualizing Calder in the Surrealist movement. Nonetheless, works like White Panel (1936) — which hinges on the interplay of positive and negative space and the quiet twist of shapes, shadows, and color — have to be seen and wandered around to be truly appreciated. Consider it a dance with a playful sculptor who once described a piece as "rather Sewer-realist." (Kimberly Chun)

THE SURREAL CALDER Through May 21. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Mon.–Tues. and Fri.–Sun., 11 a.m.–5:45 p.m.; Thurs., 11 a.m.–8:45 p.m.

151 Third St., SF. (415) 357-4000. www.sfmoma.org