About


Photos of Mobile Sculpture Artist

I’m a kinetic sculptor specializing in mobiles. I’ve made a wide variety of mobiles over the years, mid-century modern Calder inspired mobiles, large custom-made mobiles, 3D printed mobiles (which still appear to be the first fully 3D printed mobiles in the world 8 years after making them) and kinetic sculptures. More recently I’ve been working on contemporary mobiles and, what I call, fully three-dimensionally designed mobiles (in progress).

Ever since I came across Alexander Calder‘s mobiles at the National Gallery of Art twenty four years ago, I’ve been fascinated with mobiles. At first I tried my hand at minimalistic wire mobiles. After receiving requests for larger custom mobiles, what started as a hobby turned into a full-time occupation.

In chronological order: my work has been featured at New York Fashion Week in Bryant Park. I’ve contributed articles about mobiles to several publications such as Make Magazine, Saatchi Art and Houzz. The 3D printed mobiles, created in a collaboration with Henry Segerman, have been featured in Gestalten’s “Printing Things – Visions and Essentials for 3D Printing” and at the 2015 3D Print Shows in California, Paris and Dubai. A series of three large custom mobiles I designed and made won 3rd Prize at the 2015 International Kinetic Art Competition, organized by KAO, the largest kinetic art and sculpture organization in the world, as part of the International Kinetic Art Exhibit and Symposium in Boynton Beach, Florida. I made a 33 foot (10 meter) mobile for a commission I won in which I competed against 22 sculptors including Zaha Hadid. I designed and made a custom mobile for Robert A. M. Stern, former dean of the Yale School of Architecture, for his room at the 2017 Kips Bay Designer Show House. In a collaboration with film director Neil Burger, I custom designed and made a large mobile for the movie The Upside, released in 2019, and starring Bryan Cranston, Kevin Hart and Nicole Kidman, in which it is featured throughout the movie. In 2022, I had the privilege to custom-design and make a two-part mobile sculpture for the atrium at the Learning Commons at Kettering University, a highly innovative state-of-the-art 105,000 square-foot architectural masterpiece. In 2023, a mobile sculpture that I custom made for the TV series And Just Like That… was featured in Season 2 Episode 5.

Photo of Mobile Sculpture Artist Marco Mahler

Photo of Mobile Sculpture Artist Marco Mahler

Photo of Marco Mahler
Besides designing and making mobile sculptures, I’ve programmed 3D animations, cleaned machines at a Lego factory, worked as a bike messenger and licensed tour guide in New York City (after seeing The Cruise), operated the coin press machine on top of the Empire State Building (which consisted of pressing the one and only button on the whole machine but I’ll probably never have a job with a view as good as that one again), played harmonica with Carolina Slim at the Belmont Stakes and performed on Radio Unnameable, recorded my songs with Pete Keppler, played “James Alley Blues” for Allen Ginsberg and “Blackwaterside” for Pavement and the Silver Jews, roamed the streets of Manhattan with Jeffrey Lewis in a band called The Urban Tumbleweeds, built out lofts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, built half a log home in the Virginia mountains (the second half that is), put out two music albums (both of them generating a genuine buzz in the music blogosphere), and programmed algorithmic stock trading strategies and custom indicators for financial charts. My how to make mobiles blog posts have received over 350,000 visitors, and I’ve answered hundreds of questions about how to make mobiles (to the best of my ability, there’s always more to learn and explore) that I’ve received via emails over the years.

I was born in Chicago and grew up in Switzerland. After New York City and Portland, Oregon, I now live in Richmond, Virginia, where I work out of a studio in the arts district.

Copyright © 2024 Marco Mahler