ART CITIES:N.York-Jean Tinguely

The Swiss sculptor and pioneer of Kinetic art Jean Tinguely was a highly ingenious individual who explored several avant-garde art movements of the 21st century, including Constructivism, as well as Neo-Dada and Surrealism. His main focus was with movement and machines, which often satirized technological civilisation. His work was predominantly made from everyday objects, pieces of scrap or junk, and was of a mechanical nature, structured like machinery, but serving no purpose.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gladstone Gallery Archive

Jean Tinguely began experimenting with movement in space in 1944 with his machine-like sculptures by equipping them with electric motors and making them spin around at high speed. He had his first solo exhibition, in 1954, at the Galerie Arnaux. Tinguely’s fantasy machines with pre-programmed elements of chance, the so-called “Métamatics”. They are machines producing drawings, or self-destructive machines. An exhibition of works by Jean Tinguely is currently on show in New York. This exhibition includes works by the artist from 1954 through 1991. Salvaged pieces of iron and wheels collected from junkyards provided abstract shapes for the artist. Using these “forms” and incorporating other found objects, Tinguely welded and assembled sculptures, creating a new function with the byproducts of consumption. He installed old motors, often decommissioned from 78rpm phonographs, onto his sculptures to produce unpredictable and non-repeating motion. Within these dynamic sculptures of chance, accident, and inconsistency, Tinguely’s sculptures often entertain or agitate the audience with their humor and irony. Tinguely is perhaps best known in New York for his monumental self-destroying sculpture “Homage to New York”, presented for only one evening in March of 1960 in the sculpture garden at MoMA in its sculpture garden on 17/3/60. The earliest work on view in the exhibition at Gladstone Gallery, is “Meta-Malevich relief”, whose title references constructivist compositions. A hidden pulley and rubber band system behind the pictorial plane moves white geometric shapes in front of the black background in non-repeating arrangements. Also on view is a large group of his motorized sculptures, including “Scooter”, “Raichle Nr.1”, and “Trüffelsau” Several of Tinguely’s lamps also are installed, including “L’Odalisque”, a 6-part sculpture with light fixtures and moving components.

 

Info: Gladstone Gallery, 530 West 21st Street, New York, Duration: 6/11-19/12/15, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.gladstonegallery.com