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19/5/2000

L'Esprit de Tinguely

Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg

The very first exhibition held at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, in 1994, was Fernand Léger: The Rhythm of Modern Life, which reflected the relationship between art and modern industrial society and celebrated the spirit of the industrial age. L'Esprit de Tinguely is the first exhibition to offer a comprehensive presentation of Jean Tinguely's work since the retrospective held at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in 1987. The exhibition includes some 200 pieces made between 1959 and the artist's death in 1991. In addition to the sculptures, there will be filmed records of performances, photographs, posters and drawings from letters. The Kunstmuseum has accepted the challenge of finding a fresh and contemporary form of presentation for Tinguely's work, which in his own lifetime was always presented as a live collaboration with the artist himself. The objective will be not so much a historical view as a rediscovery of an artist whose mentality, strategies and concepts are highly topical and relevant at the dawn of the 21st century. Irony and subversion were always an intrinsic part of his work, and he never troubled to conceal his distaste for museums, which he liked to describe as 'cemeteries for art'. Nevertheless, he enjoyed his exhibitions, since his playful objects, often made from the simplest second-hand materials, invariably stood out in effective contrast to the august and conservative atmosphere of a museum. The concept of this exhibition springs from a collaboration between the director of the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Gijs van Tuyl, and curator Annelie Lütgens. Gijs van Tuyl says of the artist: 'Tinguely turned the machine topsy-turvy. His machines are anything but state-of-the-art: indeed, they reflect a last, fading gleam of the 19th century. And yet, in their absurdity and aggression, they are a fit commentary on our own over-rationalized, bottom-line mentality.'

The Wolfsburg exhibition begins with three of the Métamatics, dating from 1959. In each of these, a hand-driven or motorized mechanism imparts motion to drawing instruments, which cover a sheet of paper with drawings in a nervous, gestural style. These drawing machines were Tinguely's ironic critique of the Art Informel of the 1950s. The theme of acoustics, a constant preoccupation for Tinguely, is represented by a small group of radio sculptures. As with the drawing machines, viewer participation is an integral part of the large mobile sculptures Cyclograveur (1960) and Gismo (1960). Cyclograveur was originally accessible to visitors, who could set a drawing apparatus in motion by means of a pedal mechanism, so that this piece marked a continuation of the drawing-machine idea. Gismo featured in a sculpture procession that Tinguely and a number of artist friends enacted in central Paris in 1960.


Videos document the artist's spectacular performances, each of which featured the self-destruction of one of his highly eccentric sculptural configurations. The series began in 1960 with Hommage à New York, in the Sculpture Court of The Museum of Modern Art in New York. This exhibition includes filmed records of two of Tinguely's self-destructing performance machines: Etude No. 1 pour une Fin du Monde, at Humlebaek, Denmark (1961), and Study for an End of the World No. 2, in the Nevada desert.

From 1964 onward, Tinguely produced a number of black sculptures, such as the Bascules (French basculer, to tip or overturn), with their oscillating motion on curved rockers, caused when the operation of the mechanism displaces the centre of gravity, and the Eos group, which bring out the choreographic elements of mechanical motion. Another work that belongs in the same context is Eloge de la folie (1966), a mechanical, kinetic relief designed by Tinguely for the Roland Petit ballet. This approach is pursued in one of the artist's most popular pieces, Rotozaza No. 1 (1967), a ball-throwing machine, in which balls emerge from a simulated production process and are tossed high in the air. The viewer becomes a participant in the game, constantly feeding the balls back into the machine.

Tinguely developed other approaches from collaborations with artist friends. His best-known collaborative work was Hon, made jointly with Niki de Saint-Phalle. This colossal environmental sculpture in the shape of a supine Nana (Saint-Phalle's distinctive version of the female figure) was built at Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Hon no longer exists, but the exhibition includes a model of it, together with a video of its making. The Gigantoleum (1968), devised in collaboration with Bernhard Luginbühl but never executed, was intended to function as a cultural institution, combining traditional and popular forms of amusement, such as the circus and the playground, with modern technology and aspects of industrial mass-production. The conceptual origins of another collective piece, Le Cyclop, can be traced back as far as 1969, and Tinguely continued to work on it until his death; for him, it represented the fulfilment of a dream. It is a gigantic sculpture of a head, built at Milly-la-Forêt in the Forest of Fontainebleau, not far from Paris. A video documentation shows a number of views of the outside and inside of the head, thus making Le Cyclop into a living presence in the Wolfsburg exhibition. Tinguely's love of collaboration sprang from a number of causes. Multiple authorship served his aim of undermining the conventions of the art market; and he always enjoyed creative teamwork, exchanging ideas in the planning and making of a piece. The show includes a selection from the large series of works known as Les Philosophes, made between 1987 and 1990, which the artist described as his 'ancestral gallery'; it portrays those people 'who in my youth helped me to think and inspired me'. The theme of speed, and Tinguely's fascination with Formula One racing, are represented in another group of works. One of the most spectacular examples is Klamauk (1979), a converted tractor that can still be driven; like a monster, it belches vast clouds of smoke.


A high-point of the exhibition is the presentation of L'Enfer, a 'work in progress' that occupied Tinguely from 1984 until 1990. During the artist's lifetime it was repeatedly shown in a succession of slightly modified forms; the Kunstmuseum has set it beneath a circus big top. A number of sculptures are shown on a 60 cm (2 ft) high rostrum, with an effect rather like a stage tableau. All are in various kinds of motion. This is one of Tinguely's most radical works, and combines many ideas previously used in other contexts. With its wealth of cross-references, connections, and witty quotations, this huge piece comes across as a virtuoso performance.

Published to accompany the exhibition: a lavishly illustrated book with a preface by Gijs van Tuyl, articles by Margrit Hahnloser, Andres Pardey, Ad Petersen and Annelie Lütgens, and interviews with Pontus Hultén, Daniel Spoerri, Bernhard Luginbühl and Niki de Saint-Phalle, together with statements by Jean Tinguely and numerous historic documentary photographs. Format 22 ´ 16 cm, app. 400 pages, app. 300 illustrations in colour and black-and-white.

The exhibition has been developed in close collaboration with the Museum Jean Tinguely in Basel and takes place under the patronage of His Excellency the Swiss Ambassador, Dr. Thomas Bohrer-Fielding.


Opening times:
Tuesday 11.00 - 20.00
Wednesday-Saturday 11.00 - 18.00
Monday closed


Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
Porschestrasse 53 38440 Wolfsburg Germany
Phone: +49.5361.26690 Fax: +49.5361.266966

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