With the brilliant special exhibition "À bruit secret. Hearing in Art", the Museum Tinguely is presenting an important show that explores the world of the human senses in an experimental way: It focuses on our auditory sense, which plays an important role in the multi-sensory experience of art, and makes it possible to perceive the variety of sounds in a more differentiated way.
Sculptures, installations, photographs, works on paper and paintings from the Baroque period to the present day will be on display, immersing the audience in various soundscapes of the world through multimedia artworks. They will encounter works in which the element of water, nature animated by plants and animals, language as the basis of communication and the dissonant noise of large metropolises play a role. Both historical works and works created especially for this exhibition by around 25 international artists encourage visitors to listen carefully and open up acoustic areas that normally remain hidden to the human ear.
Alexander Tillegreen, installation shot of "Phantom Streams" for O-Overgaden (2022), at the O-Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, 2022 © Alexander Tillegreen; Photo: Mikkel Kaldal
Among the exhibits in the show, alongside works by Isa Genzken, Nam June Paik and Jean Tinguely, are Marcel Duchamp's eponymous readymade "À bruit secret" ("With Hidden Noise") as well as exemplary works by Kurt Schwitters and the Italian Futurists Filippo Tommaso Marinetti or Luigi Russolo (who argued in 1913 in favor of using the shrill sound of "the tram, the explosion engine, the cars and the noisy people" as acoustic-aesthetic material), to use the shrill sound of "the streetcar, the explosion engine, the carriages and the noisy people" as acoustic-aesthetic material); Robert Rauschenberg's "Oracle" (1962-1965), a five-part assemblage of various found objects from which cacophonous radio noises can be heard and in which water even flows; the walk-in multimedia work "Espírito da floresta/Forest spirit Florest" (2017-2020) by Swiss artist, researcher and composer Marcus Maeder; or the newly realized audio installation "Il reno" (2023) by German sound artist Christina Kubisch.
until May 14, 2023
Installation view Museum Tinguely © Museum Tinguely, photo Christian Baur
New collection presentation
Everything is new at Museum Tinguely! For the first time since the founding of the museum, which houses the world's largest collection of works by Jean Tinguely (1925-1991) with over 130 sculptures and around 2,000 works on paper, a newly designed, extremely varied exhibition now presents a comprehensive overview of the work of the outstanding Swiss artist following a major renovation. The filigree, poetic early work and the explosive actions and collaborations of the 1960s can be experienced in an intensive way, as can the musical, monumental and dark late works. Supplemented by a number of key works on loan, a new overview of Tinguely's oeuvre is thus opened up, with his statement "La roue = c'est tout" serving as a common thread: the motif of the wheel not only runs through all of the artist's creative phases, it also stands for Tinguely's conviction that the constant change of time must find expression in art.
until spring 2025
