If you’ve ever looked long and slow enough at Alexander Calder’s mobiles made of wire-suspended, leaf-like metal shapes painted solid colors, you likely know that they are as much about their sculptural form and silhouette as they are about the breathing air, light, shadow, and nature all around them. They shiver, drift, and play with the unpredictable whims of the surrounding atmosphere, making the invisible ether newly visible. Calder’s alternately delicate and massive sculptures are in communion with much larger forces around us.

At Hauser & Wirth in Paris, several of these sculptures are now on view (until December 19) in the exhibition titled “Calder: François Premier.” The show focuses on the late artist’s return to France from the US from 1953 to 1954 and includes a few mobiles that haven’t been seen in over 70 years: Les Granettes (1953) and The Putney Mobile (1954).