| This dissertation is an iconographical study of Jean Tinguely's machine art. Arranged chronologically, the monograph includes biographical information. Tinguely's philosophical, cultural, and art historical sources are evaluated. The Swiss sculptor's formative years in Basel are scrutinized with emphasis on conditioning factors such as family and religion. The preference for expression through movement is seen in view of his intellectual and philosophical attitude that was decisively influenced by Albert Camus and the anarchist philosopher Max Stirner. In 1959, he formulated these metaphysical concepts in the manifesto "For Statics" that also echoes the paradoxical logic of Eastern thought and Heraclitus' metaphysic of change. Movement assumes philosophical dimensions and as such is essential to Tinguely's machine sculptures.;The development of Tinguely's expressive means is examined. To the expressive potential of the anthropormorphized machine, of movement and sound, he is seen to add the formal and symbolic qualities of found or readymade objects. The multiple meanings implied by the everyday materials, the clues given by the structural makeup, and the titles of the works are guides for deciphering their iconology.;The associational materials Tinguely takes from the world of the child, including fairy tales, and the way he communicates through the comic, playful, and toylike aspect of his work, are analyzed. The spirit of the grotesque-carnivalesque is recognized to be of crucial consequence, as carnival is demonstrated to be a formal, aesthetic and ideational paradigm. The peculiarities of carnival in Basel and Tinguely's artistic contributions to it are discussed.;Tinguely's adaptation of the formal aspect of religious art and themes are scrutinized and the evolution of an unprecedented eschatological vocabulary is examined. Major works of that period are analyzed in depth and their sources in art history and local traditions are identified. The artist's exhibition methods, as typified by a large traveling show which opened in three European cities in 1985/86, are examined. Throughout the years Tinguely is seen to renew his art and to reformulate his philosophy underlying all of his oeuvre through the process of appropriation and subversion, be it of style, form, content, or of associational material. |
