Artbotics Artist Presentations:
Jean Tinguely
Ellen Wetmore, email, 3-24-11
Include in your report:
• Format is Powerpoint presentation of 10 slides
• 1 bibliography of at least 3 sources.
• Must include a title page with your name and
contact information, & the date.
• Artist biography basics: date born, education,
major exhibitions, projects, and publications
• Report must include at least 5 examples of the
artists’ work with detailed descriptions of
what the work is and what it does.
• For Bibliography & citations please use the MLA
style, as outlined here:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage
/mla#web_page
• USE YOUR LIBRARY, use artist’s own web site,
look for articles of shows they have been in
searching via location and artist name.if they
were in an institutional show, that site will have
text and images from the show, use the artist’s
gallery website.
Details make the stories better.
•
•
•
•
•
Birth date & place, and family information
– Spouses? Kids? Lovers? Did they learn art from their parents? Louise Bourgeois’ art was
all about her mother.
What Nationality? Race? Religion? Ethnicity? Did this affect their work like it did for Arschile
Gorky or does for Fred Wilson? Painter Rosa Bonheur had to have a license from a doctor to
wear pants which she required to work in the slaughterhouses where she studied her
subjects.
Education/training
– Camille Claudel learned from August Rodin, how did this influence her style?
History and philosophy of their art
– How did their work develop over time? What was a germinal moment for them? What
single work “made” them as an artist? Why? Did they experiment with different ideas at
different moments of their life? Why? Tell us the story
– Johannes Itten invented a new philosophy of color theory; Picasso’s Guernica defined
him and was defined by his country’s war; Shepard Fairey is in the middle of a lawsuit
about copyright over his work. What’s the story?
Influences on their work & Historical context of their art: what else was going on at the time?
War? Discrimination? Revolution? Zeitgeist? Was their art accepted as art? Did they move to
Tahiti, abandon their wife and kids, take up with a 13 year old and transform their art?
Jean Tinguely Bio
• 1925: Born on May 22 in Fribourg. Mother and
child move from Bulle to Basel in July 1925.
1931 – 1940: Schooling in Basel. 1941 – 1944:
Apprenticeship as a decorator. (Avoids the war,
Switzerland is neutral)
1944: Attends courses at the School of Arts and
Crafts in Basel.
• Married Nikki de Saint Phalle 1971, met in 1955
• Died in Bern, 1991
Jean Tinguely
Homage to New York
•
Homage to New York", "a self- destroying work of art conceived and built for
this occasion", opened at the Museum of Modern Art on March 17 1960 at
6.30pm; half an hour later only fragments of Tinguely's giant tableau of
absurdist kinetic sculptures remained: wheels, rubber tyres and metal rods
from "Suicide Carriage", a piano leg, a fan - and scores of preparatory black ink
drawings.
Fragment from Homage to New York
Jean Tinguely (Swiss, 1925-1991)
•
•
Early works include drawing
machines - Then, in 1959, he
begins work on his «MétaMatics», motor-driven
drawing machines that the
user can operate to create
automatically abstract works
of art.
Using everyday materials
such as steel wire, tinplate
and paint, in the early Fifties
Tinguely creates moveable
abstract constructions that
can be set in motion by
turning crank handles driven
by a cogwheel mechanism.
Absurdist machines
KLAMAUK, 1979
Professional life with St.Phalle
St. Phalle sculpture Black Venus, 1963
LE Cyclop – la Tête, Tinguely & St. Phalle, model
For a park based sculpture in France http://www.lecyclop.com/
Bibliography
• Wullschlager, Jackie. "Joyous Machines:
Michael Landy and Jean Tinguely." Financial
Times 3 Oct. 2009: 19
• http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/
audios/248/467
• http://www.moma.org/collection/object.ph
p?object_id=33838
• http://www.tinguely.ch/en/museum_samml
ung