Kinderclub Museum Tinguely, Basel, 10 February - 1 May 2011 
Museum Tinguely is doing pioneering work by setting up the Kinderclub Museum - Museum Tinguely in one of its collection rooms. Selected works by current and former Kinderclub members are on display until 1 May 2011. All these objects not only testify to serious and concentrated engagement with works previously exhibited at Museum Tinguely, but also provide an insight into the creative output of over 400 Kinderclub afternoons.

"Welcome to the Children's Club Museum - it's great that you've come!" is how the children greet their visitors by video message in the newly opened Children's Club Museum. Every Wednesday afternoon for the past ten years, children from the age of 8 have been meeting in the Children's Club at Museum Tinguely. Every week they observe, discuss and research the exhibitions; build, design and experiment in the studios; sometimes individually, sometimes in groups. Outstanding works from such afternoons prompted the two art educators Beat Klein and Lilian Steinle to initiate their own Kinderclub Museum. In everyday life, works by children are often perceived from the outset as cute handicrafts that are quietly discarded after a while. The works exhibited in the Kinderclub Museum prove that there is much more to them!

The objects in the Kinderclub Museum testify to serious and concentrated engagement with current or previously exhibited works in Museum Tinguely, to the implementation of selected elements and to the translation of these into one's own thinking. Thus it happens that children themselves become mediators through their works and their presentation in the museum: If one allows the children's works and Tinguely's works to enter into a dialogue, it quickly becomes clear that mutually exciting, new perspectives on both works emerge. Through the simplification in the children's works, the viewer finds the complexity of Jean Tinguely.
With the Children's Club Museum, which is open to the public, the Museum Tinguely provides insights into the creative power of children and young people and is delighted to invite visitors to a new and lively exchange with kinetic art.

Kinderclub Museum Tinguely, Basel, 5 December 2012 - 28 February 2013
With this exhibition, the Kinderclub Museum Tinguely follows on from the successful first exhibition of the Kinderclub Museum in 2011. This year's exhibition for children and families focuses on the artwork Hippopotamus by Jean Tinguely from 1991. The machine sculpture consists of a hippopotamus skull that slowly opens and closes and an old tar wagon. The exhibition aims to show the complexity of possible approaches to a work by Tinguely for mediation, but also to raise new questions.

Round discs in the four colours green, blue, yellow and red hang on the walls of the room. The yellow ones are dedicated to the artist Jean Tinguely. The blue ones provide information about tarring, blasting and the history of the tar blasting truck used by Jean Tinguely. The green ones inform about the biology of the hippopotamus, its occurrence and its characteristics. The red ones circle the broad field of culture, how the hippopotamus was treated in the past and in what forms this animal can be encountered today.
The visual information is supplemented by a tactile table. A plaster cast of Wilhelm the hippopotamus from Basel Zoo, various pieces of scrap metal and a tactile bag where you can feel a secret in the hippopotamus' maw are just a few examples of this haptic pleasure. In addition, the senses of smell and hearing are also addressed.

In addition, there is a Hippo Quiz, a Hippo Competition and a Hippo Computer Game. The Hippo Quiz for the whole family is another way to engage with the artwork, answer questions and draw your own hippo. The completed questionnaire entitles you to take part in the Hippo competition. On the computer screen, you playfully design your own work of art. Images of scrap parts, engines and even hippo bones can be pushed together to create a new machine sculpture. If you press the play button, everything moves. There is no standstill.
Again and again, throughout the duration of the exhibition, the children's club children present their self-made objects on a pedestal. They provide new impulses and surprises. For more than ten years, children from the age of 8 have been meeting every Wednesday afternoon in the children's club. They observe, discuss and research in the exhibitions; build, design and experiment in the studios; sometimes individually, sometimes in groups.