Visual Arts »

By Stew Mosberg

L'araignee rouge (The Red Spider) 1976 Alexander Calder - Paris, France

The year was 1913 when French-born, American Dada artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) created a piece of art using found objects. He would call the work, and others that followed, “readymades.” One of them, the upside down urinal titled Fountain and signed “R. Mutt,” is considered by many to be among the most important works of art of the 20^th century.

The very first of the found objects that Duchamp combined was comprised of a bicycle wheel, a fork, and a kitchen stool. Its most notable aspect was that the assembly actually moved, at least when it was manually turned. As such, it is considered to be the original piece of kinetic art. Duchamp invented the entire class of “readymades” to challenge assumptions about what constitutes a work of art, and in some instances referred to their construction as “kinetic.”

All kinetic art depends on motion for its effect and the movement can be provided in many ways; through wind, electricity, solar power, or sound waves; sometimes by relying on an interactive bystander cranking a handle. With today’s more sophisticated technology, artists are finding innovative methods to make art spin, shift, transform, and otherwise delight.

Some ten years after Bicycle Wheel, László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) created an elaborate contraption that he named a Light-Space-Modulator. The device was used for demonstrating both plays of light and manifestations of movement. Moholy-Nagy explained that he had designed the machine to create pools of light and shadow so he could study their movement.

With the new, broader definition of art, the ability to add movement to their work gave artists greater room for expression and experimentation.

Swiss-born Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, known as “metamechanics.” His most infamous work, a self-destroying sculpture titled Homage to New York was exhibited in 1960 at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), but it only partially self-destructed. A later version fortunately achieved the desired result and might even be considered an early form of performance art.

Soon afterward, kinetic art attained accepted status as an art medium. In keeping with the Dada movement, Tinguely’s work satirized the mindless overproduction of material goods in the advanced industrial society.

Alexander Calder (1898-1976) and George Rickey (1907-2002) both had training in engineering, and it was Calder’s “mobiles” (a term he adopted from Duchamp) and Rickey’s large-scale outdoor sculptures that brought them fame and pushed the concept into the mainstream. Rickey’s minimalist approach to kinetic sculpture was more subtle and serious looking than Calder’s, but it is Calder who is most associated with the art form; he produced his first mobile in 1934.

A contemporary of Calder and Rickey is Israel-born Yaacov Agam (b. 1928). Agam’s work often combines abstract art with movement, and might include viewer participation with the use of light and sound. In 1964, he published his artistic credo, which in part describes the kinetic art concept. In it he wrote, “My intention was to create a work of art which would transcend the visible, which cannot be perceived except in stages, with the understanding that it is a partial revelation and not the perpetuation of the existing. My aim is to show what can be seen within the limits of possibility which exists in the midst of coming into being.”

Kinetic Steel 9 Foot Rooster, Fredrick Prescott

Another early practitioner of kinetic art is Ronald Mallory (b. 1939). His most famous works during that period incorporatedmercury and acrylic, with fascinating results. His own definition of his art also describes the intentions of kinetics. Accordingly, he wrote, “I believe art must be creation itself. It must design itself. It must break away from tradition. It has been a natural evolution for me to make the transition from painting as I knew it. Working with the newest discoveries in chemistry, computer imagery and materials has become so much a part of our age. My work therefore has become organic in concert with my attempt at ‘controlling’ its innate nature to create a finished work. It is like a seed in the earth; it must evolve, it must change and become a collaboration (sic) between nature and man; synchronized, harmonious, beautiful.”

At the Autumn Arts Festival in Durango, Colorado this past September, Santa Fe metal sculptor Fredrick Prescott exhibited several large whimsical animals, most of which are designed to be outdoors. Although he works in a variety of sizes and themes, Prescott said the steel animals corralled at the corner of College Drive and 2^nd Avenue in Durango were not the largest of his pieces; some weigh 1,000 pounds or more and are as big as a full size elephant. As if their bright colors and fanciful stances aren’t enough, the heads are balanced perfectly on a fulcrum so that when touched gently they will bob for minutes at a time; even a stiff breeze will provide the amusing movement. In principle, while they are simple forms of kinetic art, there is nothing simple about them. That is one of the wonders of kinetic art, while it might look simple in some forms, it requires a keen understanding of physics; just another example of art and science melding with wondrous results.