Research Notes on Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely at the Tate Gallery
8th September – 28th November 1982
Alan Bowness and Richard Calvocoressi

- Neo-Dadaist who rejoices in paradox and ambiguity
- Kinetic artist who mocks the kinetic sculptures that place faith in new materials and up-to-date technology
- Belief that the only certain, stable thing in the world is movement, perpetual motion, change
- Interest in the immaterial/ breaking down the traditional stability of the work of art/ dematerialising static image or form into a continuous flow of movement and sound
- Sculptural works: scrap iron, old or obsolete mechanical parts, discarded household products, various familiar objects
- Often primitively built- unpredictable in action and devoid of a utilitarian purpose
- Some sculptures have digested and disgorged footballs, sprayed water, crushed bottles, smashed plates, painted abstract pictures, emitted agreeable or threatening noises, emanated smells or even destroyed themselves
- Real function of his work is irony- a parody of mechanical and human behaviour, a satire on production, consumption and waste
- His work performs an important psychological service by offering a release from the pressures of an increasingly sophisticated tenchonological age
- The object at rest in transformed into the mobile, the living work of art, by switching on an electric current
- Requires the viewer to participate- press the switch- establishing a relationship with the machine
- Terms his work, ‘meta-mechanical’- describes the irrational, imaginative, a-mechanical ends to which his machines are put
- Socially liberating aspect of this new contract between artist, machine and spectator
- Early machine work was based on a system of asynchronous gears that moved the various parts- bars, circles, rectangles- each part moved at a different speed, so it could be months or even years before the same configuration repeated itself
- Shifting relationships and infinite variations of chance in action- alluded to the fragmentary sensations and conflicting rhythms of modern life
- Tinguely’s interest in the potential of a rotating or spinning motion to challenge and alter formal appearance is central to his work
- His early work relied for its optical or kinetic effect on the spectator as motor rather than on built-in mechanical movement
- His work is indebted to Duchamp’s- his first open-wire constructions, which were operated by handles, recalls Duchamp’s preoccupation with the wheel and mechanical rotation
- His ‘Prayer Mills’ also bears a slight resemblance to Duchamp’s tiny but influential painting ‘Coffee Mill’ of 1912
- Duchamp’s optical machines, such as ‘Rotary Demisphere’, 1925, also caused Tinguely to research illusion and dematerialisation
- Also was intrigued by Duchamp’s questioning, ironical attitude to the value of art in the age of technology and mass communication
- Heavily influenced by Duchamp’s elevation of the role of accident in artistic creation and his almost existential belief in the significance of gesture.
- Felt art should have a direct contact with urban and industrial culture, its by-products and side effects: mass production, waste, advertising, violence
- By reintroducing reality into art, the intervention of the artist would often by reduced to a minimum
- Demystify art- simple, immediate language
- Tinguely disliked the schematic and finished look of Abstract Expressionist work- symbolised a misguided wish to immobilise time- by using unfired clay my work also lacks a finished, immortal quality
- Searched for an ideal environmental art, a fusion of sensory and motor experience within a unifying structure, in which spectator involvement assumes a crucial place
- Expendable or auto-destructive works of 1960-62- when large and often intricately assembled collections of disused machinery and scrap sprang into action and, after a frantic life of half an hour or so, exploded or set fire to themselves- almost nihilistic
- Reflected the Happenings- introduced movement and change, engaged most or all of the senses and demanded active cooperation, whether physical, emotional or intellectual
- Belief that scenes of violence or destruction would have a positive, therapeutic benefit for the spectator
- Mounting anxiety about the threat of nuclear warfare/ significant advances in computer technology as well as attempts at manned space travel
- Auto-destructive- a work of art which is ephemeral and which therefore has little or no commercial value
- Impressed by the junk sculptures of Richard Stankiewicz
- Stated that his work became more disgusting, when the museums became whiter
- Late 1960s- began to openly display the belts, pulleys and wheels which assisted the moving elements in his work
- Shone bright spotlights on his machines, throwing strong linear shadows onto the walls and creating a strange, spectral impression
- Had a romantic fascination for mean, worthless materials
- Deliberately used cheap, worn-out motors and gears which added to the chance effect- exploited the machine- demonstrated properties not usually associated with it, such as random movement, irregularity, disorder
- Almost nostalgic art- disregarded electronics and advanced technology
- Sculptures often moved erratically, often shaking themselves into paroxysms of cacophonous activity- air of improvisation
- After 1963, Tinguely began to paint his sculptural works a uniform matt black- depriving them of their character as an assemblage of recognisable objects rescued from the rubbish tips and attics of urban life- emphasised their formal, plastic qualities
- Matt black- work began to resemble pieces of nineteenth century industrial machinery
- Allowed the grotesque- a groaning/ grinding/ clanking progress- endlessly frustrated in the intent- metaphor for imprisonment as the work is weighed down by lengths of heavy chains which it is forced to carry
- Changed the speed of rotation so all sorts of visual and sonic patterns would emerge
- Early 70s, the work became more colossal, heavyweight and industrial
- Essential underlying humanism of his work, the range of emotions and sensations it embraces, from soft to loud, gentle to brutal, restrained to exuberant, reassuring to disturbing