The installation of Calder’s Tripes is the first public art project by Pace London. © 2012 Calder Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In celebration of the Olympics and on the eve of Pace’s much anticipated opening of a 9,000 squarefoot gallery in London’s Mayfair neighbourhood, Pace London has installed a landmark monumental sculpture by the great twentieth-century artist Alexander Calder (1898–1976) at the entrance of the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel. The dynamic form will remain on view for the duration of the Olympics, through 31st December 2012.

The installation of Calder’s Tripes is the first public art project by Pace London and spotlights Pace’s expanding global network, which in addition to the new Mayfair location at 6 Burlington Gardens, also includes an existing space in Soho, four galleries in New York City and a 25,000-square-foot gallery in Beijing. Tripes (1974), created from bolted sheets of steel, stands more than nineteen feet tall and spans twelve feet.

The Calder installation at St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel echoes El Sol Rojo (The Red Sun), the artist’s commission for the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, which is permanently installed outside Aztec Stadium. Measuring over 67 feet tall, El Sol Rojo is Calder’s largest monumental sculpture. Like much of Calder’s work—with which Pace has a long and rich association—Tripes and El Sol Rojo convey movement, form, flexibility, and strength.

Harry Handelsman, the award-winning property developer responsible for the restoration of the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel, commented: “With its dramatic design and architecture, St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel is the perfect place to host Alexander Calder’s sculpture, Tripes—with its ideas of innovation, freedom of thought and invention.” The hotel is a notable patron of the arts with many significant artworks by both established and emerging artists hanging on its walls. It displays work by artists including: Bridget Riley, Gerald Laing, Gary Hume, Sunok Kang, Suzy Moxhay, Andreas Gursky, Richard Prince, and Polly Borland.