Page 58 - Studio International - February 1965

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1 nothing. neither to balance a mass nor to fill a space. hear behind the doors of furnished apartments and
Tinguely What is of use finally with Tinguely and of use for makes one think chiefly-notably for the heavier-of
Bascule. 1 960 what? The spindle is useful to the pulley. the pulley to those hollow blows which escape from the axles of
68 cm. high
Galerie Alexandre lolas the driving belt. the teeth to the cogwheels. the motor delivery lorries in slow manoeuvres on the floor of a
to movement. The usefulness. in the meta-mecaniques. garage. But the movement which they simulate has
2 is only internal and reciprocal. The machine itself never nothing to do with the railways.
Tinguely comes to anything outside and as a whole it produces For the rest. the latest machines defy description. as
Mobiles noirs sur fond blanc. 1956 nothing, except sometimes smoke and always much nearly all that comes out of the barn-workshop where
56 x 49 in. Hanover Gallery
noise. When it draws. it is to make you laugh. When it Tinguely is now installed in the southern suburbs of
3 saws. it is itself that it saws. to destroy itself as it did Paris. They are exalted also by that strange mixture of
Tinguely a few years ago in a little private gallery in the rue de incongruity and of aesthetic success which is the mark
Suzuki. 1963 Grenelle under the sign of the Four Seasons. of this singular temperament, that is. of the two comple­
72 cm. high What Tinguely produces in the end is of uproar and of mentary cares of good operation and of harmonious
Galerie Alexandre lolas
passion. of humour and of eroticism. This last aspect is attraction here associated. Tinguely has not arrived here
particularly acknowledged in the two works of 1964 without difficulty: 'When they go well. they do not
which we will mention and which form the clue of the please me; when they please me. they do not go well.'
lolas exhibition. The noise that they emit one will not The two viewpoints were at last reconciled. MK Ill and

Eos were born. for the astonishment of some and for
the pleasure of others-of whom I am one. We under­
stand better before these surprising engines what
Tinguely adds to the spirit of Duchamp: it is the con­
fidence in pure energy as much as in aesthetic value
itself. It has still a kind of aesthetic pre-established by
Duchamp and the Dadaists. and even if their work was
directed against it. it retains some of the traces. The
humour or the authority of the machines of Tinguely
results only from the resources of the scrap-iron. from the
noise and from the movement carried to their paroxysms
to which are frequently added. in variable measure.
eroticism and fear-which often go together.
Movement becomes a material and it integrates in the
work a modified space The piece in action is more than
the piece in repose; it dematerializes itself in moving or
in turning and tends to suppress itself or on the contrary
it transports with it all the zone and space which it
thrashes. which it turns upside down. which it whips.
amplifying and distending thus its proper volume. The
ambient air modelled and ill-used by the connecting
rod or the wheel forms thus with the smoke. the cries
and the uproars which escape from the monster, a
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