Jean Tinguely
Relief Rouge, 1978
Artist
Jean Tinguely
Title
Relief Rouge
Year of creation
1978
Technology and dimensions
steel, iron, aluminum, wood, metal, welded and painted (red), 178 x 288 x 112 cm
Year of acquisition
1984
Even as a child, Jean Tinguely constructed devices made of wood, wire and nails and moved by wheels. Later, while studying art in Basel, works by Kurt Schwitters and Laszlo Moholv-Nagy inspired him to work intensively on kinetic sculpture. The collaboration with the artists of the group “Nouveaux Réaliste” in Paris, with Yves Klein, Arman, Spoerri, Christo and others, encouraged him in this intention. In 1959 he ostentatiously stated: "The only conceivable statics (stability) is life, is development - is movement or something like that: For statics: everything moves, there is no such thing as standing still."
His moving material sculptures increased over time ever larger dimensions. His artistic development not only led him to the famous fountain designs in Basel in 1977 and Paris in 1983, which he carried out together with his partner Niki de Saint-Phalle, but also, towards the end of the 1970s, to his expansive “meta-machines”, which were overwhelmingly powerful and have mysteriously taken on the character of factory-like workshop labyrinths.
His Relief Rouge was also created during this time. Here, Tinguely - mounted in a large, rusty metal box - sets in motion the play of a set of wheels and tires that, with its gradual, almost cumbersome movement and its sudden turning, is apparently completely self-sufficient and does not seem to make any sense. Driven by three small electric motors and connected to each other by rods and treadmills, faster or slower rotations and strange changes of direction take place, reminiscent of the laborious crawling of an animal. It is not possible to discover any recognizable rules for the process, which is accompanied by creaking noises; the only thing that registers as a certain order is the constant repetition of this process.
The central focal points of this absurd and probably precisely because of that fascinating process are the circular discs within the discarded machine and toy parts, which have been polished up again with bright red, which keep the apparatus, but also the eye, in motion. They seem like relics of the familiar power of rotation and, despite their actually trivial objectivity, establish connections to ancient signs of life and sun, which are sent in the simplest form along unfathomable paths.
The material that has become useless and was already destined for the scrapyard is given new, alienated functions in material-like structures that, in a playful and opposite way, make the tension of all motor skills clearly noticeable. With these abstract compositions, Tinguely questions familiar experiences and uses subtle humor to parody the widespread belief in technology of our time. In doing so, he creates parables that, in their bizarre staging, reminiscent of old-time playground equipment, both stimulate our imagination and are carried by a deeper, existential meaning. He once summarized his concern in the words: “Modern technology has become anonymous, all-encompassing and discreet. The latter also because it is able to completely hide the wheel and circular movement, for example in computers, while my sculptures are based on this principle, on the wheel and circular movement. But because the technology has become silent and masks itself with the design, with the smooth shell and the streamlined shape, it makes us forget that we are controlled by it. My machine sculptures are intended to bring this fact to light again.”
Fritz Jacobi
