Jean Tinguely - Homage to New York (1960)

I am subscribed to the South London Gallery who issue small publications every month addressing some very interesting issues. This month in reference to Michael Landy's 'art bin' they mentioned Jean Tinguely who's I decided to do some further research on. Here is a short video of the work which made the most significant impression on Landy.

Jean Tinguely - Homage to New York (1960) from Stephen Cornford on Vimeo.

To grasp what he’s getting at here, one needs to appreciate Landy’s long-standing love affair with the Swiss Dadaist/performance artist, Jean Tinguely, who died in 1991. In 1982, Landy caught a Tinguely retrospective at Tate and the anarchic energy of the show, coupled with the joyous response of the audience, made a deep impression on his teenage mind. “There were machines you could ride or throw balls into; there were others where, if you put your foot on a pedal, they did a manic dance,” he explains. “They were all made out of junk, so aesthetically they were quite ugly-looking, but I was a textile student, collecting and making patterns out of junk. It was a revelation.”

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