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PART II ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
tinguely
Mechanical spectacles 25 years after his death, the Stedelijk Museum is presenting a major retrospective on Tinguely’s edgy and playful machine art.
© Jean Tinguely, Elément Détaché III, 1954. Collectie Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam, 2016.
text Joke van der Weij translation Elysia Brenner
J
ean Tinguely withdrew at a young age to the working-class, rural environment from which he came. On weekends he preferred to retreat to the woods around his birthplace of Freiburg. There, he built constructions made of dozens of wooden cogs, driven by the flow of a stream. Each cog turned at its own pace. He also incorporated cans that made sound with the help of a little hammer. For days, the primitive installation would play its ‘concert’ of sounds that could be heard from a hundred metres away. Not that he was intentionally making art out there in the Swiss woods, but he did imagine what it would be like if a lone wanderer happened upon his installation’s noises. ART IN MOTION Even with recognition quickly mounting in the ‘50s, he spent his entire life in opposition to the traditional art world, which he found too rigid. Movement! An artist must continue playing, continue experimenting. And his kinetic art literally set the world of art in motion.
Arty elitist? He designed do-it-yourself drawing machines that allowed visitors to make their own unique art. Tinguely met kindred spirits in Daniel Spoerri, Yves Klein, the Zero group – that was so important in the Netherlands – and Niki de Saint Phalle, whom he not only worked with but eventually married. He used his success and charisma to further his ideas of what art should be. His exhibitions were a resounding success. The last three years before his unexpected death he spent setting up the Torpedo Institute, a new museum in an old glass factory in the Freiburg area. He consistently spoke of it as an ‘anti-museum’ where completely different rules would govern than in ‘normal’ museums. However, it never got off the ground. But we also don’t need it to enjoy the genius of Tinguely or to feel a burst of joy at his edgy, antibourgeois art full of such a lust for life. DANCE OF DEATH The exhibition ‘Jean Tinguely – Machine Spectacle‘ in the Stedelijk