Yesterday, i had a short story on the Jean Michel Basquiat Retrospective in the Beyeler Museum. The next day, after that visit we visited the Tinguely Museum in the same city of Basel. The Tinguely Museum is not to be missed and is a museum which will appeal to young and old, because many of the works on display are interactive and can be turned on or off by the public. The Museum shop had something very special at that time…..they had in operation the original Meta-Matic No. 10 by Jean Tinguely which could be operated by the public. Only condition…..buy a sheet of paper and a token with the Tinguely shop.
The paper was the original right size and had a museumstamp on the back to certify the drawing.
The choice of colors was with the buyer of the drawing, but the progress itself was purely automated by the machine. One placed a color in the holder, let the machine do its work for a few seconds, placed a different color and let it work again……and so on. Until the time was up ( i remember it was about 2 minutes in total). A rare occasion on which me, my wife and my sister in law all made drawings. All drawings were certified by the Museum with a stamp on the back.
I bought some extra drawings for my FTN collection and these are now for sale at
Some years later we returned to the Tinguely museum, because we had seen some lovely Modern Art over there. Asking about the Meta-Matic No. 10 we learned that it had been removed from the shop area and was now in revision, because of the wear it had when used for making these drawings. My guess is these drawings at FTN-books are about the last drawings that will be for sale.
In any case they are very interesting to look at and to see what kind of abstract drawing a Tinguely machine can make.
wilfried
