Maria Netter. Art critic and photographer

28 October 2015 – 7 February 2016

 

Museum Tinguely is showing a documentary presentation featuring approximately 100 extraordinary and hitherto largely unpublished reproductions of black-and-white photographs by the journalist and art critic Maria Netter (1917–1982), who resided and passed away in Basel. Maria Netter, who came from a Jewish family, left Berlin in 1936 in order to study in Basel. Following studies in Art History, she went on to become one of the most influential and courageous critics of the contemporary art scene in the German-speaking region. Self-taught photographer Maria Netter was rarely seen without her Leica M3 compact camera, which was introduced on the market in the early 1950s and which allowed her to take snapshots without a flash. Her artistic forays gave rise, among others, to photos of artists, gallery owners, collectors, museum curators and exhibiting institutions, but also of many friends. In multiple cases she used her own photographs to illustrate her texts.

>> Further reading

Ben Vautier. Is everything art?

21 October 2015 – 22 January 2016

Ben Vautier has been on the scene since the late 1950s as an artist, performer, organizer, linguistic inventor, and re-thinker of art. He is one of the pioneers of the Fluxus movement in Europe and, as a comrade-in-arms of the École de Nice, a close friend of artists such as Arman, Yves Klein and Martial Raysse. He is known for his text images, which, using brief, pithy phrases, equally question and challenge life and art. Museum Tinguely dedicates Ben Vautier’s first comprehensive retrospective in Switzerland. Alongside an overview of the first 20 years of his creativity, Ben sets up in Basel more than 30 rooms as he comments on various social, artistic, and political topics and takes a stance. In total, the show exhibits from 21 October through 22 January, 2016 far in excess of 500 works by the artist, who is still very active to this day.
>> Further reading

PRIÈRE DE TOUCHER – The Touch of Art

12 February – 16 May 2016

 

Can art be experienced by touch? What role has the tactile dimension in our experience of art? Museum Tinguely continues its series on the role of the human senses in the arts with a group exhibition presenting works focusing on the many facets of our haptic perception. The varied trail, encompassing many centuries, invites visitors to partake in direct tactile experiences and requires our ability of ‘embodiment’. Baroque allegories, the avant-garde with Marcel Duchamp, body-related art forms of the 1960s and 1970s (among others, Valie Export, Bruce Nauman), and contemporary positions (among others, Pipilotti Rist, Pedro Reyes, Ana Mendieta) form focuses of the exhibition.

>> Further reading

© Photo: Leonardo Bezzola, Bätterkinden

SAFARI IN RESTAURO. Restoration of Jean Tinguely’s “Le Safari de la Mort Moscovite” in the presence of museum visitors

18 April – 31 August 2016

 

On 3 September 2016 a parade will take place through the streets of Fribourg (CH) on the occasion of the “Grand Prix Tinguely” to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of Jean Tinguely (30.08.1991). Tinguely’s Le Safari de la Mort Moscovite (1989), Safari for short, which was understood by the artist as a “traveling sculpture”, will lead this procession, together with carnival floats, racing cars, and old-timers. Colleagues from the conservation and restoration department at Museum Tinguely are mean-while getting Safari ready for the road again. To this end various conservation and restoration measures are being performed on this work.

>> Further reading

Michael Landy. Out of Order

Michael Landy. Out of Order

8 June – 25 September 2016

 

Michael Landy (*1963) is one of the “ Young British Artists“ who made sensation from 1988 on. He appeared with installations in which fiction and real life conjoined in a troubling liaison. He became known to a wider public in 2001 with Break Down: In a shop in London, he drew up an inventory of all objects that belonged to him at that point in time, in order then to destroy them during a regulated process. Landy deals intensively with the function of art and artworks in society. Museum Tinguely is showing this artist’s first retrospective.

>> Further reading

20 Years of Museum Tinguely – Out of Order Day

20 Years of Museum Tinguely – Out of Order Day

Sunday, 25 September 2016, 11 am – 6 pm

 

On Sunday, 25 September 2016, Museum Tinguely is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a big party. On the final day of the temporary exhibition “Michael Landy. Out of Order” the Museum is inviting guests to a wide variety of attractions all about Jean Tinguely and Michael Landy in the Museum and in Solitude Park. In crowning conclusion, the EepyBirds will bring the day to a close with one of their spectacular Mentos & Coke Experiments.

>> Further reading

Music Machines / Machine Music

19 October 2016 – 22 January 2017

 

Tinguely’s sculptures always have an acoustic dimension, which was consciously composed and balanced by the artist as part of the works. They generate noises, sounds, and apparently random music. This musical side reached a climax with the four Méta-Harmonie music machines between 1978 and 1985. The exhibition will provide the unique opportunity to experience these large-scale and versatile sound boxes, which are at home in Karuizawa (Japan), Vienna, and Basel, in dialog with one another. They will form the stage for a broadly defined program of events and concerts devoted to the theme of mechanical music.

>> Further reading