plexiglas, radio parts, cable, electric motor, red light bulb
Size: 82 x 68 x 26 cm
A small motor mounted on a radio continually turns the knob for selecting the frequency, constantly switching channels and causing cheerfully harsh sounds. The elements of the apparatus, set behind plexiglas, has complete freedom.
iron wheels with rubber tires, support, auto parts, scrap iron, hoses, rubber belts and tubes, electric motor
Size: 200 x 170 x 80 cm
“Water-Spraying Sculpture” as Tinguely called it are portable sculptures that are not designed for permanent installation, but are more like lawn sprinklers that can be moved across the grass to water in sections and then in the evening, their work completed, are to be stowed away.
Wire, scrap iron, plaster bandages, paint
Size: 82 x 77 x 47 cm
A gigantic walk-in culture station, Texas collectors Jean and Dominique de Menil had purchased a plot of land near Milly-la-Forêt, south of Paris, and put it at Tinguely’s disposal to create this mammoth structure.
steel, mixed media, and electrical mechanism
515 x 700 x 465 mm
The kind of hand tools Tinguely customarily employed are brought together in an electrically-driven three dimensional collage. The appearance of movement and the beat are coordinated in a displaced way so that the illusion of irregularity is created.
tractor with machine sculpture on top: scrap iron, wooden wheels, barrels, rubbish pail, garden gnome, various percussion instruments
Size: 315 x 660 x 315 cm
Elements of a sound sculpture are mounted here atop an old tractor. Bells, cymbals, pots and barrels are struck, developing in conjunction with the striking background noise of the powerful tractor motor the accidental melody of the “Méta-Harmonies”. Added to this are firecrackers and smoke bombs ignited by the driver, which with their loud bangs and stench lend the driving sound sculpture an apocalyptic note. “Klamauk” also accompanied Tinguely on his last drive, the parade through Fribourg on the occasion of his funeral on September, 4th 1991.
iron, wooden wheel, plastic pipe, rope, electric motor
Size: 300 x 228 x 70 cm
This piece was one that hung in Tinguely’s studio after it’s showing in “Incitation à la Création” at the Abbaye de Sénanque, sponsored by Renault. It was shown with Tinguely’s first attempts of his skull sculptures.
iron, plastics, foams, mirrors, wooden wheels, electric motor
Size: 495 x 1101 x 406 cm
This piece was a homage to his artist friend, Yves Klein, who had died in 1962. Three basic colors blue, gold and pink are the main hue choices, and the mirrors affixed behind the piece lend the large machine-sculpture an indeterminate depth, emphasizing the transparency but also the fact that the viewer can sometimes feel like part of the machine.
surfboard part, wooden wheel, scrap iron, oil barrel, palette, elastic bands, electric motor
Size: 254 x 110 x 115 cm
“So-called immobile objects exist only in movement. Immobile, certain, and permanent things, ideas, works and beliefs change, transform, and disintegrate. Immobile objects are snapshots of a movement whose existence we refuse to accept, because we ourselves are only an instant in the great movement. Movement is the only static, final, permanent, and certain thing. Static means transformation. Let us be static together with movement. Move statically! Be static! Be movement! Believe in movement’s static quality. Believe in change. Do not hold onto anything. Change! Do not pinpoint anything! Everything about us is movement. Everything around us is change. Believe in movement’s static quality. Be static,” as stated by Jean Tinguely.
Kinetic art was an important revival to the tradition of Constructivism. Parts of the movement also revived utopian optimism, the potential for art to spread into new areas of everyday life, and to embrace technology appropriated to the modern world.
The kinetic art movement also borrowed much from Dada, and parts of it were skeptical about the potential of technology to improve human life. Jean Tinguely expressed a more anarchic, satirical attitude to machines and movement. Tinguely suggested that rather than being humanity’s helpmate, the machine might become her master.
iron, wire, wood, cast-iron urn, electric motor, cement, pig skull, cow mandible, tree branch, and electrical tape
132.1 x 101.6 x 81.3 cm
During Tinguely’s final years he became infatuated with death in then started using animal skulls with his sculptures.