Within the context of kinetic art, Tinguely’s work distinguishes itself through its robust humour.
It also owes much to his interest in Dada, and other early avant-garde movements, as well as his interest in the possibilities of using electric motors to make elements of his sculptures move, often at great speed.
His playful and anarchic tendencies found their most vivid expression in a number of works which he designed to self-destruct, and which can now only be appreciated in documentation, such as photographs and film.
Tokyo Gal is an excellent example of his humour and his fascination with the use of rapidly moving parts. The powered flywheel, moving the feather and other elements, together with the staccato noises produced by the radio parts, combine to produce a comic and affectionate abstract representation of the girl of the title.
Jean Tinguely started out as a department store window dresser, then studied art in Basel, where he discovered the work of Dadaist artists such as Kurt Schwitters and Paul Klee, as well as those connected with the Bauhaus.
By the mid-1940s he started to experiment with electric motors to make elements of his sculptures move at high speed. He moved to Paris in 1951, where he became involved with the group known as the Nouveaux Realistes, as well as Robert Rauschenberg and the Zero Group. In this period his work became more ambitious, and increasingly involved elements of chance, with some being enabled to self-destruct in a spectacular fashion.
He also made a number of collaborative works with his wife, the artist Niki de Saint Phalle, whom he married in 1961. By the mid-1960s, Tinguely achieved an international reputation and he participated in a number of Documentas from then onwards. His work has been exhibited in renowned galleries all over the world, including a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1988.
