LAS VEGAS — Alexander Calder’s family never dreamed that one day his mobiles, stabiles and wire sculptures would be displayed on the Las Vegas Strip, but they aren’t disappointed.

“I think it’s great that the exhibit’s next to a craps table and down the hall from a wedding chapel,” said Alexander Rower, Calder’s grandson and director of the Calder Foundation. “Art can be intimidating. Calder’s work belongs to everybody, not just art historians.”

The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art will open Calder’s “The Art of Invention” to the public today after postponing the show in October because of the Sept. 11 attacks.

One reason the foundation and Calder’s family members agreed to lend some personal pieces to the exhibition–the “Rat” usually sits on Rower’s mother’s coffee table–was a belief that an art gallery in a Las Vegas resort would attract a different audience, Rower said.