Museum Tinguely Basel

Book excerpt: The Museum Tinguely, opened in Basel in 1996, is dedicated to the work of the artist Jean Tinguely (1925 –1991). The collection can for the most part be traced back to a donation by Tinguely’s widow, Niki de Saint Phalle, and contains sculptures, drawings, sketches and archived documents that record the accomplishments of the important avant-garde artist up until his later work. As a Swiss artist in Paris, Tinguely was a member of the Nouveaux Réalistes along with Yves Klein, Christo and Daniel Spoerri. His kinetic sculptures helped to shape the artistic awakening of his time, and with happenings such as Homage to New York, and the Studies for an End of the World he can be said to have been partially responsible for a radical expansion of the definition of art in the early 1960s. The catalog depicts all the sculptures in the collection as well as a generous selection of drawings and sketches. It encompasses a thorough biography, a text on the happenings and events in which Tinguely was involved, recently compiled directories as well as an essay on the restoration of the machine sculptures in the museum.