Daniel Spoerri

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• 1959, G58 and Hessenhuis, Antwerp 00:45

  Vision in Motion – Motion in Vision (21 March – 3 May 1959), the second major exhibition put on by G58 Hessenhuis, confronts the public with much newer art than the by then half-accepted Nouvelle Ecole de Paris. The idea of organizing a ‘great international manifestation’ around the theme of ‘Movement’ comes from chairman Marc Callewaert and painter Paul Van Hoeydonck. Their source of inspiration is Le Mouvement, the 1955 exhibition in Paris at the Denise René Gallery that launched kinetic art. But when Pol Bury is asked to participate, the story takes a radically different turn. He shifts the initiative towards a loose alliance of experimental artists who, with Jean Tinguely as pacemaker, would commandeer the Hessenhuis’s ample attic space.

• Jean Tinguely, (1925-1991) 02:45

  Swiss artist, sculptor, painter and draughtsman, born 22 May 1925 in Fribourg Switzerland – died 30 August 1991 in Bern Switzerland. Tinguely is known for his constructions that work like machines, but have no meaningful features. He was a representative of the kinetic art and was influenced by Dadaism and the mobiles of Calder. Of scrap metal he produced sculptures powered by engines, whose parts flung back and forth, rotated stomping and grinding. Tinguely made use of welded and bolted steel constructions, mainly powered by electric motors. The sight is particularly impressive, monumental, and the sound, however, relatively boorish and unsubtle. His funeral ritual - a joyous procession in which many of his noisy machines came along - grew to one of the most remarkable performances of the last century.