“I could not experiment with mechanism as it was too expensive and too bulky, so I built miniature instruments,” the American sculptor Alexander Calder told the New York Herald in 1927. “From then on I have constructed several thousand workable toys.” Such toys would be gathered into Circus, an ensemble of contortionists, lion tamers, trapeze artists, and other circus folk, all made of wire and all rigged to perform for audiences. This video not only provides viewers with a biography of Calder, but also walks us through the ingeniously designed elements of Circus, housed today at the Whitney. —C.J.F.