For the current exhibition entitled “Art Machines Machine Art”, the Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland, turns into a production hall. “Art Machines Machine Art” presents Jean Tinguely’s drawing machines dating back to the 1950s followed by art machines down to the present day, created by Pawel Althamer (Extrusion Machine), Michael Beutler (Proper en Droog), Angela Bulloch, Olafur Eliasson (The endless study), Tue Greenfort (Mobile Trinkglaswerkstatt), Damien Hirst (Making beautiful drawings), Rebecca Horn, Jon Kessler (Desert), Tim Lewis (Auto-Dali Prosthetic), Lia, Miltos Manetas, Roxy Paine, Steven Pippin, Cornelia Sollfrank, Jean Tinguely, Antoine Zgraggen, Andreas Zybach (Sich selbst reproduzierender Sockel). All of these machines have a common feature: they produce their own art. Depending on the mechanical process involved, visitors may keep certain works such as drawings produced by Jean Tinguely’s Meta-Matics and certified stamped sheets produced by Damien Hirst’s or Olafur Eliasson’s machines.
Museum Tinguely, Basel / Switzerland, March 17, 2008.
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Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) who grew up in Basel and belonged to the Parisian avant-garde in the 1950s and 60s, stimulated and revolutionised the “static” art world with his kinetic works. The Museum’s permanent collections present a selection of the artist’s machine sculptures, reliefs and drawings from all the periods of his career. The Museum also offers a varied and lively programme of temporary shows devoted to Tinguely’s fellow artists and contemporaries – Bernhard Luginbühl, Niki de Saint Phalle and Yves Klein – and to his models such as Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters, as well as to related subjects such as contemporary kinetic art.