Jean Tinguely

Jean Tinguely , 1925-91, Swiss artist. Tinguely is best known for his "metamechanics," electromechanical sculptures that perform tasks such as painting or playing music. Most celebrated of these works is Homage to New York (1959), a machine that destroyed itself when set into motion.

Tinguely, Jean (1925–91). Swiss sculptor and experimental artist. He had an international career, working in Paris, NewYork, and elsewhere. His work was concerned mainly with movement and the machine, satirizing technological civilization. His boisterous humour was most fully demonstrated in his auto-destructive works, which turned Kinetic art into Performance art. The most famous was Homage to New York, presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on 17 March 1960. The object on which the work was based was constructed of an old piano and other junk; it failed to destroy itself as programmed and caused a fire. Tinguely was also an innovator in promoting the idea of spectator participation, as in his Rotozazas, in which the spectator plays ball with a machine. His most famous work is somewhat more traditional—the exuberant Beaubourg Fountain (1980) outside the Pompidou Centre, Paris, done in collaboration with Niki de Saint Phalle; it features fantastic mechanical birds and beasts that spout water in all directions.

Tinguely, Jean (b Fribourg, 22 May 1925; d Berne, 30 Aug. 1991). Swiss sculptor and experimental artist. He had an international career, working in Paris, New York, and elsewhere. His work was concerned mainly with movement and the machine, satirizing technological civilization. His boisterous humour was most fully demonstrated in his auto-destructive works, which turned Kinetic art into Performance art. The most famous was Homage to New York, presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on 17 March 1960. The object on which the work was based was constructed from an old piano and other junk; it failed to destroy itself as programmed and caused a fire. Tinguely was also an innovator in promoting the idea of spectator participation, as in his Rotozazas, in which the spectator plays ball with a machine. His most famous work is somewhat more traditional—the exuberant Beaubourg Fountain (1980) outside the Pompidou Centre, Paris, done in collaboration with Niki de Saint Phalle; it features fantastic mechanical birds and beasts that spout water in all directions.