PASSION & SPORT

JEAN TINGUELY

First successes 

Jean Tinguely, EOS XII (1967)

Jean Tinguely (1925 – 1991) was a Swiss artist and one of the leaders of the New Realists movement. In the 1930s, he studied industrial art and design in Basel. After the war, he held many exhibitions in France and Switzerland.

 

In 1960, Tinguely gained international renown with his Hommage to New York. This self-destructing machine, presented at the Museum of Modern Art, was made up of objects found on rubbish tips. It heralded a highly successful period for Tinguely, during which his style became more minimalist.

Works in motion 

In 1965, Tinguely turned away from the recycling of miscellaneous objects and started to build gigantic animated machines shrouded in black. “Black gives […] machines a uniform shape […]. Black is a way to hide the object  – it is an action that is essentially “anti-new-realist” […]". 

 

Black draws the spectators’ eyes to the mechanical aspects of the sculpture and the way it moves. The works produced by Tinguely after 1965, such as Eos XII (1967), have their own unpredictable dynamics that seize the attention of the spectator.

Creating art from mechanical systems and cars 

Tinguely was fascinated by all things mechanical, so it was only natural for Renault to approach him. The works created through their partnership include Requiem for a dead leaf, designed in 1966 for the Universal Exhibition in Montreal. Requiem is a monumental sculpture made up of wooden wheels of various shapes, shrouded in black. These wheels are driven by a motor that sets in motion a small white leaf fluttering at the other end. The motion of the dead leaf, brought back to life by human engineering, is a reconciliation of machinery and poetry. A reconciliation dear to the artist and his sponsor.

 

Tinguely’s passion for cars was also expressed in Pit-Stop (1984-1985), a work created in a hangar rented by Renault. This work combines pieces of film with a sculpture made up of Formula 1 engine and body parts selected by the artist at the Renault Sport plant. A fruitful exchange between engineers and a trail-blazing artist.