Mobilization

Americans, who love motion, have taken sculpture off its pedestal and put it, swinging and swaying, into the air. Ever since Connecticut's brilliant Alexander Calder first exhibited mobiles* in 1932, the oddly shaped, delicately balanced contraptions of wood, metal or plastic have been suspended in the more modern-minded museums. Until recently, hardly anyone thought of these dangling doodles as suitable for the living room. But this year, with artists designing mobiles for commercial production, they seem to be growing into a national fad. A whole new minor industry is turning out thousands every day, from $1 up. Among the more interesting:

P:Gay, simple cartoonlike models, such as trains reminiscent of Cartoonist Rowland Emett's famed rickety railways in Punch; and "Sky," in which a pair of crescent moons dance around a corona-circled sun and lesser heavenly bodies ($3.95 each, produced by Pace Design Studios, Chicago). P:Seasonal groups, such as "Santa," featuring a robust St. Nick, a reindeer and a star-carrying angel, all suspended from a crescent moon; and "Spring," a versatile, pastel menage of rabbits, flowers, birds and butterflies ($1 and $1.95, Scamanda Mobiles, Manhattan). P:Decorative abstractions, such as Sculptor Marechal Brown's "Tapered Quills," looking like giant buffalo teeth strung on an Indian brave's necklace ($33, Gotham Lighting Corp., New York City). P:Elegant, modernistic fish in contrastingly colored woods, handmade by Connecticut Sculptor Clark Voorhees ($270, Hansen, Manhattan). P:Children's mobiles, with figures from nursery rhymes ($3.95, Spacecraft, Detroit) ; "Rocket" and a "Circus" collection of acrobats and animals ($2.50 and $2, Modern Toy Co., Chicago). Explains one manufacturer of nursery mobiles: "They have a beautifully soothing effect on kids."

P:A new wrinkle: kits from which amateurs can design and assemble their own mobiles ($7.50, MobiProducts, Bloomington, Ind.). Experts' advice to automobilists: models that are balanced too carefully will not move easily; a good mobile should sway in the updraft from any mild cocktail party argument or even the softest gurgle from the crib.

* The idea of moving decorations is ancient, e.g., fluttering Chinese toys and streamers, the revolving cock or horse on weathervanes. But Calder pioneered the use of motion in a pure art form. The name "mobile" was first applied to his work in 1932 by French Painter Marcel (Nude Descending a Staircase) Duchamp.

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