14 quotes
To attempt to hold fast an instant id doubtful.
untitled statements in 'Zero 3 (1961)
They'll all pee blue for one week to ten days, for about the duration of the show. The first opening I've enjoyed!
To me art is a form of manifest revolt, total and complete. It's a political attitude which doesn't need to found a political party.
The relationship of art and play: to play is art - consequently I play. I play enraged.
Jean Tinguely (1959)
There is no death! Death only exists for those who cannot accept evolution. Everything changes. Death is a transition from movement to movement. Death is static. Death is movement. Death is static. Death is movement.
untitled statements in 'Zero 3 (1961)
Currently, my machines are black and sometimes gentle, if not sexy or exuding a contained violence; I finally found the technical means for accomplishing this.
During my nightmarish time in a coma, 11 days long, you kept appearing in my dreams, wild, you and Slava, like gypsies & always too late. You were a two-man orchestra & we were always looking for you and waiting for you.
Let us contradict ourselves because we change. Let us be good and evil, true and false, beautiful and loathsome. We are all of these anyway. Let us admit it by accepting movement. Let us be static! Be static!
untitled statements in 'Zero 3 (1961)
Time is movement and cannot be checked. Time passes us and rushes on, and we remind behind, old and crumbled. But we are juvenated again and again by static and continuous movement. Let us be transformed! Let us be static! Let us be against stagnation and for static!
untitled statements in 'Zero 3 (1961)
In a letter to Franz Meyer, spring 1965; Quoted in: "Jean Tinguely: Santana Bascule, 1966" at tinguely.ch, 2014.
Static, static, static! Be static! Be static! Movement is static! Movement is static! Movement is static because it is the only immutable thing - the only certainty, the only unchangeable. The only certainty is that movement is static.
Static static, static ! (1959)
I wanted something ephemeral, that would pass like a falling star and, most importantly, that would be impossible for museums to reabsorb. I didn't want it to be 'museumised'. The work had to pass by, make people dream and talk, and that would be all, the next day nothing would be left, everything would go back to the garbage bins.
We are still very much annoyed by out-of-date notions of time. Please, would you throw away your watches! At least toss aside the minutes and hours. Obviously we all realize that we are not everlasting. Our fear of death has inspired the creation of beautiful works of art. And this was a fine thing, too. However, our only eternal possession will be change.
untitled statements in 'Zero 3 (1961)
Be yourself by growing above yourself. Don’t stand in your own way. Let us change with, and not against, movement. Then we shall be static and shall not decompose. Then there will be neither good nor evil, neither beauty nor unsightliness, neither truth nor falsehood. Conceptions are fixations. If we stand still, we block our own path, and we are confronted with our own controversies.
untitled statements in 'Zero 3 (1961)