When Nathan Carter was invited to join a show that included contemporary artists in some way influenced by the great 20^th century artist Alexander Calder, he thought it was a crank call.

"In graduate school it was taboo to mention dusty old white guys like Calder," he said.

His keen interest in Calder (1898-1976) was not advertised. But this attraction is now very public, and the public is us.

Making its final stop after appearing at three other venues, "Alexander Calder and Contemporary Art: Form, Balance, Joy," opens at 7 p.m. Thursday at The Nasher Museum. The show's curator, Lynne Warren, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, will give a talk along with Carter. A reception and cash bar follow. The show ends June 17.

More than 30 of Calder's works will be on exhibit, alongside the works of seven contemporary artists: Carter, Martin Boyce, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Aaron Curry, Kristi Lippire, Jason Meadows and Jason Middlebrook.

Carter discovered Calder at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art when he was 12.

"Calder's circus pieces were on display. It was unbelievable," Carter said. "He had this thing of making things out of bits of material, a handmade economy of means. I thought it spoke a more universal language than the art upstairs did and that someone who was 6 or 70 would see it and be just as excited."

He rediscovered Calder at Yale while in graduate school, enthralled with all of Calder's work, including his monumental stabiles as well as his mobiles. "They have a lot of visual power," Carter said.

What does it mean to be influenced by an artist?

"I think a good example is the way that a DJ puts together different kinds of music to make a sound collage: making music from samplings of previously recorded things," Carter said. "That is how I think I am influenced by Calder. Sampling gestures, materials, colors, and an attitude of working."

Each of the exhibit's contemporary artists has a body of work that, as Lynne Warren puts it, is "full in itself." The artist's work also needed to show or acknowledge Calder's influence.

"Not all of the artists would say 'I am totally inspired by Calder' but they all had relationships to how he created his work by hand using simple materials and his use of balance and how gravity works on art either directly or by illusion, and being very thrifty in their art," she said.

Warren's art education, like Carter's, was devoid of Calder though she knew of him. When she began working at the Museum of Contemporary Art, she was soon living with Calder.

The museum has extensive Calder holdings including sculptures and drawings, in part due to the Leonard and Ruth Horwich family, who made a long-term loan of many Calders to the museum in the early 1990s.

"My thing is going to see what young, contemporary artists are doing, and I began to notice in early 2000 that young artists were moving towards handmade art, almost tinkering, and using common materials," Warren said.

She saw a show of Carter's in New York. "I could instantly see that he had been looking at Calder. This was radical," said Warren.

Soon thereafter she met Jason Middlebrook, who uses wood he has collected from all over the world to make art.

Middlebrook told Warren about how he wanted to make a mobile.

"Jason said to me, 'I thought it would be simple. I looked at a Calder mobile. No big deal. Then I realized how complicated, advanced, and delicate it was. I had this moment when I realized how awesome Calder is. It turns out he was this grandfather artist to the ecological movement since he used a lot of recycled material.'"

Lippire discovered Calder at Paris' Museum of Contemporary Art.

"For me his work was an eye opener in the breadth of very simple strategy of line, shape and color and how it can take a 3D form," she said. "You don't want your work to just sit there. You want an object that is engaging, causes people to move around, changes its position."

One of her pieces in the show, "Hanging Garden," was inspired by folk arty, rose-laden, handmade chandeliers that Lippire saw in a Mexican town. Wanting to infuse her sculpture with a personal connection, Lippire recreated the potted plants she had in her garden using copper, brass, and steel.

"The sculpture has a cable that runs down the center stalk so that it can spin," she said. "I think anytime you are making work that comes down or off the ceiling it reminds you of Calder. He owns that plane."

Warren's favorite Calder piece in the show does not sit on the floor or hang from the ceiling.

"Orange Paddle under the Table is unique. It is the only one I know of made to be mounted on the edge of the table," Warren said. She met the sculpture while at the Horwich's home for dinner.

It was attached to the dining room table.

"I ate with it," Warren said.

Sarah Schroth is the Nancy Hanks Senior Curator at The Nasher and is coordinating curator of the Calder show. "Anyone who comes to the show will be rewarded for three reasons," she said. "One is that you are among so many Calders and this is a rare opportunity to see so many at once. Two, you understand when you are standing under or beside them how complicated they are. Three, you see that modern artists are still looking at him. That was Lynne's idea," Schroth said.

Warren said that this exhibit is fun and wonderful for whole families to attend.

"It is definitely accessible to people who don't think they are about art. Joy is an important part of this. The joy is an important part of what Calder did. He was serious and innovative but he had this joyous feeling about himself that he imbued into his work."