Jean Tinguely citations

Jean Tinguely, né le 22 mai 1925 à Fribourg et mort le 30 août 1991 à Berne, est un sculpteur, peintre et dessinateur suisse.

Parmi ses inventions les plus originales, on compte les Méta Matics ou sculptures animées dont il a commencé la réalisation en 1954 sous le nom de Méta-mecaniques qui étaient alors des tableaux animés de façon électrique. Les Méta Matics sont des machines à dessiner.

Avec sa deuxième épouse, Niki de Saint Phalle, il a créé de gigantesques sculptures, dans des parcs de sculptures, notamment le Jardin des tarots en Toscane. Durant toute leur carrière commune leur couple n'a cessé de susciter l'intérêt des médias.

Tinguely possédait le don d'attirer l’attention et d’établir ainsi une communication avec ses mécanismes détournés de leur sens et de leur finalité. Avec Euréka, une énorme machine conçue pour l’exposition nationale suisse de 1964, cette particularité est apparue comme une caractéristique essentielle de son art. Imprégné des œuvres de Marcel Duchamp , il s’inscrit dans l’esprit dadaïste qui se manifeste par la provocation et la dérision souvent au cours de manifestations publiques. En 1959, son premier triomphe public a lieu lors de la Biennale de Paris, inaugurée par André Malraux, au musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, avec des machines produisant des peintures en série dont il a pu faire la démonstration devant le public.

Il remet en question l’académisme de l’art créant des machines construites en partie avec des objets de récupération, sciemment imparfaites, s'opposant au culte de l'objet neuf et pratiquant le recyclage déjà utilisé avant lui par l'art brut.

Ces matériaux de récupération auxquels il redonne vie en les animant avec des moteurs comptent parmi les innovations les plus vivantes de la sculpture du XXe siècle. Wikipedia  

✵ 22. mai 1925 – 30. août 1991
Jean Tinguely photo
Jean Tinguely: 22   citations 0   J'aime

Jean Tinguely Citations

Jean Tinguely: Citations en anglais

“To me art is a form of manifest revolt, total and complete. It's a political attitude which doesn't need to found a political party.”

Quote from an interview on the Belgian radio, 1982; As cited in: Andersson, Patrik Lars. Euro-pop: the mechanical bride stripped bare in Stockholm, even. (2001). p. 50.
Quotes, 1980's
Contexte: With Dada I.... have in common a certain mistrust toward power. We don't like authority, we don't like power, To me art is a form of manifest revolt, total and complete. It's a political attitude which doesn't need to found a political party. It's not a matter of taking power; when you are against it, you can't take it. We're against all forms of force which aggregate and crystallize an authority that oppresses people. Obviously this is not a characteristic of my art alone - it's much more general, a basic political attitude. It's a clear intention, more necessary today than ever, to oppose all forms of force emanating from a managing, centralizing political power.

“Let us contradict ourselves because we change. Let us be good and evil, true and false, beautiful and loathsome. We are all of these anyway. Let us admit it by accepting movement. Let us be static! Be static!”

reprinted in 'Zero', ed. Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, Cambridge, Mass; MIT Press 1973, p. 120
Quotes, 1960's, untitled statements in 'Zero 3', (1961)

“There is no death! Death only exists for those who cannot accept evolution. Everything changes. Death is a transition from movement to movement. Death is static. Death is movement. Death is static. Death is movement.”

reprinted in 'Zero', ed. Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, Cambridge, Mass; MIT Press 1973, p. 119
Quotes, 1960's, untitled statements in 'Zero 3', (1961)

“Static, static, static! Be static! Be static! Movement is static! Movement is static! Movement is static because it is the only immutable thing - the only certainty, the only unchangeable. The only certainty is that movement is static.”

Quoted in: Guy Brett, ‎Hayward Gallery, ‎Museu d'Art Contemporani (Barcelona, Spain) (2000) Force fields: phases of the kinetic. p. 250.
Quotes, 1950's, Static static, static !, 1959

“I wanted something ephemeral, that would pass like a falling star and, most importantly, that would be impossible for museums to reabsorb. I didn't want it to be 'museumised'. The work had to pass by, make people dream and talk, and that would be all, the next day nothing would be left, everything would go back to the garbage bins.”

Quote of Tinguely in a radio interview (1982), as cited in: 'Violand-Hobi', Heidi G. Jean Tinguely: Life and Work (NY: Prestel, 1995), p. 36 ; Talking about his Homage to New York; Cited in: John D. Powell. (2009, p. 31).
Quotes, 1980's

“Everything moves continuously. Immobility does not exist. Don't be subject to the influence of out-of-date concepts. Forget hours, seconds and minutes. Accept instability. Live in Time. Be static - with movement. For a static of the present movement. Resist the anxious wish to fix the instantaneous, to kill that which is living.
Stop insisting on 'values' which can only break down. Be free, live. Stop painting time. Stop evoking movements and gestures. You are movement and gesture. Stop building cathedrals and pyramids which are doomed to fall into ruin. Live in the present, live once more in Time and by Time - for a wonderful and absolute reality”

Original text in German:
Es bewegt sich alles, Stillstand gibt es nicht. Lasst Euch nicht von überlebten Zeitbegriffen beherrschen. Fort mit den Stunden, Sekunden und Minuten. Hört auf, der Veränderlichkeit zu widerstehen. SEID IN DER ZEIT – SEID STATISCH, SEID STATISCH – MIT DER BEWEGUNG. Fur Statik. Im Jetzt stattfindenden JETZT... Lasst es sein, Kathedralen und Pyramiden zu bauen, die zerbröckeln wie Zuckerwerk. Atmet tief, lebt Jetzt, lebt auf und in der Zeit. Für eine schöne und absolute Wirklichkeit!
In For Statics (original title: Für Statik), 1958 programmatic text for the 'Concert for Seven Pictures' in Düsseldorf: as quoted in: Arts/Canada. Vol. 25. (1968) p. 4.
Quotes, 1950's

“THE ONLY STABLE THING IS MOVEMENT”

Quote from Tinguely's letter to Peter Selz (1956); quoted in: Osbel Suárez et al. (2007) Lo[s] cinético[s]. p. 256.
Quotes, 1950's

“During my nightmarish time in a coma, 11 days long, you kept appearing in my dreams, wild, you and Slava, like gypsies & always too late. You were a two-man orchestra & we were always looking for you and waiting for you.”

In a letter, January 1986; cited in: Jean Tinguely, ‎Margrit Hahnloser-Ingold, ‎Paul Sacher (1996) Briefe von Jean Tinguely an Paul Sacher und Gemeinsame Freunde.
Quotes, 1980's

“The relationship of art and play: to play is art - consequently I play. I play enraged.”

Jean Tinguely (1959), quoted in: ACM multimedia 2000: proceedings. ACM. Special Interest Group on Multimedia (2000). p. 19.
Quotes, 1950's

“They'll all pee blue for one week to ten days, for about the duration of the show. The first opening I've enjoyed!”

Quote of Jean Tinguely (1958), cited in: Heidi E. Violand-Hobi, ‎Jean Tinguely (1995) Jean Tinguely: life and work. p. 10.
Quotes, 1950's

“My ghosts are satisfied.”

Jean Tinguely (1990); as quoted in: Museum Jean Tinguely Basel, ‎Jean Tinguely, ‎Fritz Gerber (1996) Museum Jean Tinguely Basel. p. 250.
This source explains, that Tinguely "wrote in the catalogue, a remark that addresses the elements of movement and hope that are always present in his sculptures. It appears that hopelessness was as foreign to him as it was to his machines."
Quotes, 1990's

“I wanted something ephemeral, that would pass like a falling star and, most importantly, that would be impossible for museums to reabsorb. I didn't want it to be 'museumised.'”

The work had to pass by, make people dream and talk, and that would be all, the next day nothing would be left, everything would go back to the garbage bins.
Quote of Tinguely in a radio interview (1982), as cited in: 'Violand-Hobi', Heidi G. Jean Tinguely: Life and Work (NY: Prestel, 1995), p. 36 ; Talking about his Homage to New York; Cited in: John D. Powell. (2009, p. 31).
1980s

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