Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 in Fribourg, Switzerland - 30 August, 1991 in Bern) was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics.
He grew up in Basel and belonged to the Parisian avantgarde in 1950s and 60s. He signed the manifest of the New Realism movement (Nouveau réalisme) in 1960.
His self-destroying Homage to New York (1960) failed to self-destruct at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; his Study for an End of the World (1961) detonated successfully. Tinguely's art satirized the mindless overproduction of material goods in advanced industrial society. In Arthur Penn's Mickey One (1965) the mime-like Artist (Kamatari Fujiwara) with his self-destructive machine is an obvious Tinguely tribute.
In 1971 Tinguely married Niki de Saint-Phalle.
Public works
- Le Cyclop outside of Milly-la-Forêt.
- Stravinsky Fountain (or Fontaine des automates) near the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1982), a collaboration with Niki de Saint-Phalle
- Tinguely Fountain (1977) in Basel
- Lifesaver Fountain on Königstrasse in Duisburg, Germany, a collaboration with Niki de Saint-Phalle
See also
- Pontus Hultén
- New Realism
- Rube Goldberg—conceptual pioneer of excessively complex machinery
External links
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