“Only in movement do we find the true essence of things. Today we can no longer believe in permanent laws, defined religions, durable architecture or eternal kingdoms. Immutability does not exist. All is movement. All is static.”

Quotes, 1950's, Static static, static !, 1959

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Jean Tinguely 21
Swiss painter and sculptor 1925–1991

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Jean Tinguely photo
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“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.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

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

Jean Tinguely photo
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“Immobile, certain, and permanent things, ideas, works and beliefs change, transform, and disintegrate…Movement is the only static, final, permanent, and certain thing. Static means transformation…Do not hold on to anything…Do not pinpoint anything!... We are fooling ourselves if we close our eyes and refuse to recognize the change... Decomposition begins only when we try to prevent it... We would so much like to own, think, or be something static, eternal, and permanent. However, our only eternal possession will be change... To attempt to hold fast an instant is doubtful... How beautiful it is to be transitory. How lovely it is not to have to live forever.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

as quoted in: Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. ed. Stiles, Kristine and Selz, Peter (LA: University of California Press, 1996), p. 405; Cited in: John D. Powell. Preserving the unpreservable: A study of destruction art in the contemporary museum. University of Leicester, 2007. p. 30
Quotes, 1960's, untitled statements in 'Zero 3', (1961)

Jean Tinguely photo

“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.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

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)

Jean Tinguely photo

“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!”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

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)

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“Time is movement and cannot be checked. Time passes us and rushes on, and we remind behind, old and crumbled. But we are juvenated again and again by static and continuous movement. Let us be transformed! Let us be static! Let us be against stagnation and for static!”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

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)

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“What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism, lecture http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm (1946)
Context: What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist sees him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is. Not that he is simply what he conceives himself to be, but he is what he wills, and as he conceives himself after already existing – as he wills to be after that leap towards existence. Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism.

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