Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century.^[1] Tinguely's art satirized automation and the technological overproduction of material goods.

Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely, 1961
Born	(1925-05-22)22 May 1925 Fribourg, Switzerland
Died	30 August 1991(1991-08-30) (aged 66) Bern, Switzerland
Known for	Painting, Sculpture
Spouses	Eva Aeppli (1951–1960) Niki de Saint Phalle (1971–1991)
Partner	Milena Palakarkina (1986–1991)

Life

Born in Fribourg, Tinguely grew up in Basel, and in 1941-1945 studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule.^[2] He moved to France in 1952 with his first wife, Swiss artist Eva Aeppli,^[3] to pursue a career in art. He belonged to the Parisian avant-garde in the mid-twentieth century and was one of the artists who signed the New Realist's manifesto (Nouveau réalisme) in 1960.^[1]

Jean Tinguely portrait by Lothar Wolleh, 1968

The Tinguely Fountain in front of the Tinguely Museum in Basel

Tinguely's Heureka in Zürich-Seefeld (Zürichhorn)

His best-known work, a self-destroying sculpture titled Homage to New York (1960), only partially self-destructed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City,^[4][5][6] 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.^[7] Then in 1961 Tinguley's work was included in the landmark "Art of Assemblage" exhibition at MoMA curated by William C. Seitz.^[8] Seitz said of Tinguely in the exhibition's catalogue [that his] ..."most recent work, influenced by Rauschenberg and Stankiewicz, fuses the tradition of kinetic art with that of assemblage"....^[9]

Tinguely married fellow Swiss artist Eva Aeppli in 1951.

In 1971, he married his second wife Niki de Saint Phalle with whom he collaborated on several artistic projects, such as the Hon – en katedral^[10] or Le Cyclop.^[11] Tinguely and Saint Phalle collaborated artistically for over three decades.^[12]

Tinguely died of heart failure in 1991 at the age of 66 in the Inselspital in Bern.

Legacy

There have been three major retrospectives of Tinguely's work in the last few decades, firstly in 1987 at the Palazzo Grassi In 1987 in Venice, secondly the "Jean Tinguel: Machine Soectacle" at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam which ran from October 2016 untiil.March 2027, and thirdly at the Hangar PirelliBicocca in Milan from the fall of 2024 into the early winter of 2025.^[13][14][15]

Public works

• Chaos I (1974), sculpture in The Commons, Columbus, Indiana, US
• 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, US
• Métamatic generative sculptures (1950s)
• Luminator (1991), on loan until 2014 to the EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse
• "Heureka" , (1964) "Zürihorn" at Zürichsee, Zürich Switzerland

Hon – en katedral

Hon – en katedral (Swedish: "She, a Cathedral") was an art installation made in collaboration with Niki de Saint-Phalle that was shown at the 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 metres 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 Saint-Phalle, Tinguely, and Per Olov Ultvedt. It had 80,000 visitors during the exhibition period from 4 June to 9 September 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 reminiscent of Tinguely^[16]
• Survival Research Laboratories, directed by Mark Pauline (USA)
• Prominent kinetic sculptor Arthur Ganson described Tinguely as his "primary spiritual artistic mentor", and paid homage to him in his work "Tinguely in Moscow".^[17]

Gallery

• 
  Tinguely, Machines - Le Transport, early 1960s; scrap metal components
• 
  Tinguely, Gears, 1967; scrap old metal components (part of Le Paradis Fantastique)
• 
  Tinguely, Chaos I, 1971–72; scrap metal components
• 
  Tinguely, Large Spiral, 1971–73; steel-plates
• 
  Tinguely, Heureka, 1972–73; scrap metal components
• 
  Tinguely, detail of Heureka, 1972–73; old components
• 
  Tinguely, one piece of Carneval Fountain, 1977; location: in front of Museum Tinguely, Basel
• 
  Tinguely, title unknown, late 1970s; scrap metal components
• 
  Tinguely, Jo Siffert Fountain, 1984; scrap metal components
• 
  Tinguely, Press pour oranges in Louvre Abu Dhabi

See also

• New Realism
• Useless machine
• Arthur Ganson
• Rube Goldberg

Further reading

• Museum Tinguely in Basel
• Chapter on Tinguely in Calvin Tomkins' The Bride and Her Bachelors.
• K.G. Pontus Hultén: Jean Tinguely 'Méta'. London: Thames & Hudson, 1975 (original German version Frankfurt/M.: Ullstein, 1972)
• G. Bischofsberger: Catalogue raisonné, 3 Vols. Basel, 1982.
• Margit Hahnloser-Ingold: Pandämonium – Jean Tinguely. Bern: Benteli, 1988 (rather hagiographic, but with interesting personal memories and background material)
• Heidi E. Violand: Jean Tinguely's Kinetic Art or A Myth of the Machine Age. Diss, New York University, 1990
• Museum Jean Tinguely (eds.): Die Sammlung. (The collection) Bern: Benteli, 1996 (incl. an interesting biographical report by Margit Hahnloser: "Jean Tinguely und die Schweiz")
• Museum Jean Tinguely (eds.): Jean le Jeune. Basel: Benteli, 2002 (incl. a biographical text by Jocelyn Daignes about Tinguely's early love of materials and machines, his pacifism, and his Catholicism, p. 23-65).

References

1. Chilvers, Ian; Glaves-Smith, John (2009). A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art. Oxford University Press. p. 709. ISBN 978-0-1992396-6-5.
2. "Jean Tinguely". The Art Story. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
3. Leu, Aia (2012). The Art of the Leu Family. SeedPress. p. 13. ISBN 978-0-9551109-2-4.
4. "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 published by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1968, p. 168-171.
5. Museum Tinguely (23 May 2017). "Jean Tinguely, Homage to New York, 1960". Vimeo.
6. Yigruzeltil (12 April 2013). "Homage to New York." WikiArt.
7. L.A.S (18 August 2010). "Study for an End of the World No. 2". Sartorially Inclined.
8. https://www.moma.org/artists/?exhibition_id=1880
9. https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1880_300062228.pdf
10. NCAF (3 June 2016). "50 years since HON". nikidesaintphalle.org.
11. Vanessa [@treeswithknees] (19 December 2010). "Le Cyclop". Atlas Obscura.^{[unreliable source?]}
12. Steer, Emily (14 February 2024). "9 Powerful Couples Who Moved Beyond the Binary of Artist and Muse". Artnet News. Retrieved 7 March 2024.
13. garadinervi : repertori — Jean Tinguely (1954-1987), Palazzo Grassi,... https://search.app/7q1EXofotxqxCa2u7
14. Jean Tinguely: Discover the exhibition | Pirelli HangarBicocca https://search.app/M1wo6rhBQC9FMYCf8
15. Jean Tinguely - Machine Spectacle https://search.app/jE2bxsaLH6hp37q97
16. Crowther, Bosley (September 9, 1965). "Film Festival: Heels, Old and New:1954 Movie Makes One Feel for Hero". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
17. Ganson, Arthur (9 January 2009). "Tinguely in Moscow (in the Wind)". Arthur Ganson. Retrieved 21 February 2018.

External links

• Tinguely-Museum in Basel
• Biography by the Tinguely Museum in Basel
• Art Cyclopaedia: Jean Tinguely
• https://web.archive.org/web/20060210001214/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 20 November 2008 in New York City at Museum of Modern Art
• Jean Tinguely in American public collections, on the French Sculpture Census website