Jean Tinguely Swiss, 22/05-1925-30/08/1991
To me art is a form of manifest revolt, total and complete.
LIFE AND CAREER
Born in Fribourg on 22 May 1925 and raised in Basel, Tinguely studied at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule Basel from 1941 to 1945 under Julia Ris. During this time, he encountered the work of Kurt Schwitters and other Dadaists, whose influence shaped his lifelong engagement with anti-art sensibilities and mechanical absurdity.
In 1952, he moved to France with his first wife, Swiss artist Eva Aeppli, to pursue his artistic career. He became a central figure of the Parisian avant-garde and, in 1960, was one of the original signatories of the Nouveau Réalisme manifesto. His first marriage ended, and in 1971, he married fellow artist Niki de Saint Phalle, with whom he collaborated on monumental works such as Hon – en katedral and Le Cyclop. Tinguely died of heart failure in 1991 in Bern at the age of 66.
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Méta-matic 53, 1962
Kinetic Art and the Meta-matics
Tinguely’s early kinetic works, such as Meta-Malevitch, Meta-Kandinsky, and Meta-Herbin, produced a visual interplay of rotating elements at different speeds. These constructions created endlessly shifting compositions, offering a mechanical homage to Constructivist painters.
His most famous creations, however, are the Meta-matics—machines that autonomously generate abstract drawings. Created in the late 1950s, these machines critiqued both the rise of gestural abstraction and the growing automation of labor. Tinguely received a French patent for these devices, described as machines that "draw or paint in a way that, in practice, is entirely automatic," with human involvement limited to adjusting parameters and supplying power.
The Meta-matics produce unpredictable and expressive results. The principle underlying these machines is based on Lissajous curves—overlapping harmonic oscillations—which in Tinguely’s case are rendered chaotic by intentional mechanical imprecision. These imperfections—cogwheels that slip, belts that jerk—make every drawing unique. As Pontus Hultén observed, “Tinguely discovered an almost inexhaustible source: a mechanism whose goal was not precision but anti-precision, the mechanics of chance.”
Tinguely described his aesthetic as “asynchronous” and embraced irregularity as the core of creation. His drawings parody Abstract Expressionism, echoing Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings or Franz Kline’s gestural minimalism. But unlike Pollock, Tinguely’s “artist” is a machine—mocking and expanding the notion of authorship and creativity.
As Yves Klein noted in 1959, these machines are to abstract art what photography was to realism—ushering in a decisive rupture and a new artistic paradigm. Others compared his inventions to Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, seeing them as conceptual provocations that questioned what art could be.
Mechanical Chance and Artistic Freedom
Tinguely’s machines are constructed from simple motors, belts, wheels, and cranks—not modern electronics, but familiar, even obsolete technologies. Their unreliability is their essence: unpredictable sequences, repeated actions, stutters, and sudden halts animate his sculptures with a kind of mechanical poetry.
For Tinguely, chance is not static but active—embedded in the behavior of the machine itself. As Hultén wrote, “With their unrepeatable and unique movements and sequences, Tinguely’s machines exist in an enviable freedom... They subvert the established order and convey a sense of anarchy and individual liberation.”
Meta-matic drawings depend on setup and materials—paper texture, ink type, pen pressure. Yet, regardless of configuration, “it is impossible for the machine to produce an ugly drawing,” Tinguely claimed. These works do not merely produce images—they critique authorship, style, and even the ego of the artist.
In his Schéma des Dispositifs, Tinguely outlines how he constructs chance using imperfect gears, worn leather belts, and fragile wire arms—components that ensure stability through instability, creating what he called “stable chaos.”
His Métamatic machines also inspired artists, technologists, and even researchers. The Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum’s Meta-matic was used to simulate primate and infant drawing behavior. Others extended his ideas in experimental projects such as muscle-controlled drawings or "machine guitar bands" using sabre saws to draw collaboratively.
Legacy
Tinguely’s impact has endured. Three major retrospectives of his work have taken place in recent decades:
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Palazzo Grassi, Venice (1987)
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Jean Tinguely: Machine Spectacle, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2016–2017)
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Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2024–2025)
His influence reaches across disciplines—kinetic art, conceptual art, cybernetics, and performance—challenging both the role of the artist and the machinery of art production itself.
As Pontus Hultén concluded, Tinguely’s Meta-matics embody “a new concept of art,” where machines that manufacture art “touch the very kernel of our civilization.”