Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
	Jean Tinguely portrait by Lothar Wolleh
Born	22 May 1925; Fribourg, Switzerland
Died	30 August 1991 (aged 66); Bern, Switzerland
Nationality	Swiss
Known for	Painting, Sculpture

Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) 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. Tinguely's art satirized the mindless overproduction of material goods in advanced industrial society.

Life

Born in Fribourg, Tinguely grew up in Basel, but moved to France in 1952 with his first wife, Swiss artist Eva Aeppli,^[1] to pursue a career in art. He belonged to the Parisian avantgarde in the mid-twentieth century and was one of the artists who signed the New Realist's manifesto (Nouveau réalisme) in 1960.

His best-known work, a self-destroying sculpture titled Homage to New York (1960), only partially self-destructed at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City,^[2] although his later work, Study for an End of the World No. 2 (1962), detonated successfully in front of an audience gathered in the desert outside Las Vegas.

Tinguely married fellow Swiss artist Eva Aeppli in 1951. In 1971, Tinguely married his second wife, Niki de Saint Phalle.

Jean Tinguely died in 1991 at the age of 66 years in the Bern Hospital after a heart illness.

Public works

Chaos I (1974), sculpture in The Commons, Columbus, Indiana, USA
Le Cyclop outside of Milly-la-Forêt.
The Stravinsky Fountain (fr: La Fontaine Stravinsky) near the Centre Pompidou, Paris (1983), a collaboration with Niki de Saint Phalle.
Carnival Fountain (Fasnachtsbrunnen) (1977) in Basel.
Tinguely Fountain (1977) in Basel.
Lifesaver Fountain on Königstrasse in Duisburg, Germany, a collaboration with Niki de Saint Phalle
Jo Siffert Fountain (commonly called Tinguely Fountain), Fribourg, Switzerland
La Cascade, sculpture in the Carillon Building lobby, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Métamatic generative sculptures (1950s)
Luminator (1991), on loan until 2014 to the EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse

Hon-en-Katedrall

Hon-en-Katedrall (sometimes spelled "Hon-en-Katedral") was an art installation that was shown at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1966. The exhibition consisted of a sculpture of a colorful pregnant woman lying on her back with her legs wide apart. The sculpture was 25–26 meters long, about 6 meters high and 11 meters wide. It was built of scaffolding and chicken wire covered with fabric and fiberglass, painted with brightly-coloured poster paint. Through a door-sized entry in the location of the woman's vagina, visitors could go into the sculpture. Inside was a screen showing Greta Garbo films, a goldfish pond and a soft drink vending machine. Johann Sebastian Bach's organ music played through speakers. The exhibition was created by Niki de Saint-Phalle, Tinguely and Per Olof Ultvedt. It had 80,000 visitors during the exhibition period from June 4 to September 9, 1966.

Noise music recordings

1963 ‘Sounds of Sculpture’, 7”, Minami Gallery, Tokyo, Japan_[Tinguely’s sculptures recorded by avant-garde composer Toshi Ichiyanagi during Japanese exhibition]
1972 ‘Méta’, book+7_, Propyläen Verlag, Stockholm
1983 ‘‘Sculptures at The Tate Gallery, 1982_, Audio Arts cassette
1983 ‘Meta-Harmonie H’ incl. in ‘Meridians 2_ compmqenan ate a pie
2001 ‘Relief Meta-Mechanique Sonore I’ incl. in ‘A Diagnosis’ compilation, Revolver-Archiv für Aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Influence on others

In Arthur Penn's Mickey One (1965) the mime-like Artist (Kamatari Fujiwara) with his self-destructive machine is an obvious Tinguely tribute.

References

^ Leu, Aia. The Art of the Leu Family, SeedPress, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9551109-2-4. (p. 13).
^ "The Garden Party", report about Homage to New York (1960) by Billy Klüver, reprinted in: Pontus Hultén (ed.): The Machine as seen at the End of the Mechanical Age. Exhibition catalogue. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1968, p. 168-171.

External links

Tinguely-Museum in Basel
Biography by the Tinguely Museum in Basel
Art Cyclopaedia: Jean Tinguely
http://www.art-public.com/cyclop/cyclop_g.htm
videos: Tinguely's kinetic fountains in Basel and Paris
Métamatic Research Initiative
Lecture by Kaira Cabañas (PhD, Princeton University) Homage to New York: Jean Tinguely's Destructive Art delivered November 20, 2008 in New York City at Museum of Modern Art
Jean Tinguely in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website

[1] Leu, Aia. The Art of the Leu Family, SeedPress, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9551109-2-4. (p. 13).

[2] "The Garden Party", report about Homage to New York (1960) by Billy Klüver, reprinted in: Pontus Hultén (ed.): The Machine as seen at the End of the Mechanical Age. Exhibition catalogue. Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1968, p. 168-171.

[1]

[2]

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