Mobile Reflector
- Artist: Kenneth Martin
- Date: 1955
- Medium: Steel, aluminium and duralumin
- Dimensions: object: 415 x 1460 x 1460 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
"Mobile Reflector" by Kenneth Martin
This piece dates from 1955 and is built from steel, aluminium and duralumin. It’s a huge structure—about 415 mm tall and 1.46 m wide and deep—so it fills the room with its presence.
Martin began creating mobiles in 1951, calling them “drawings in space.” The smallest breeze sets the pieces in motion, and he considered the shadows that dance on the floor as important as the metal itself. In this work he balances geometric plates on rods, a design that appears in the first entries of his Mobile Reflector series.
The mobiles reflect Martin’s return to non‑representational ideas that had been developing before World War II. He and a small group of contemporaries were exploring how forms could exist without depicting objects but still engage the viewer through balance and movement.
When you look at “Mobile Reflector,” notice the interplay of light and shadow as the metal shifts subtly. The whole thing feels like a sculpture that breathes, a kinetic dialogue between structure and air.
See it in person
Mobile Reflector is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
