Switzerland Guide
Basel
Museum Tinguely
The outstanding Museum Tinguely occupies a building designed by the celebrated Swiss architect Mario Botta that is a work of art on its own terms. Jean Tinguely, who was born in Fribourg in 1925 and died in Bern in 1991, is perhaps Switzerland's best-loved artist, a maverick postmodernist who broadened the confines of static sculpture to incorporate mechanical motion. Living for years on a farm in the Swiss countryside with his long-time partner and fellow artist Niki de St-Phalle, Tinguely used scrap metal, plastic and bits of everyday junk to create room-sized Monty-Pythonesque machines that – with the touch of a foot-button – judder into life, squeaking, clanking and scraping in entertaining parody of the slickness of our modern performance-driven world. Most are imbued with an irreverent sense of humour (Klamauk, or Din, is a moving tractor complete with banging bells and cymbals, smoke, smells and fireworks), but some, such as Mengele Dance of Death, are darkly apocalyptic.
Address: In Solitude Park under the Wettsteinbrücke
Opening time: Tues– Sun 11am–7pm
Price: Fr.10
Website: www.tinguely.ch