[spectre] ART MACHINES – MACHINE ART (Modified by Geert Lovink)

[cornelia sollfrank]

The Museum turns into a Production Hall
ART MACHINES   MACHINE ART
Basel, March 5 – June 29, 2008

Opening Tuesday, March 4, 2008, 18.30 hrs

 We all agree that art is created by artists. But what happens when 
machines start producing art? Do artists become simple engineers? What 
lies behind the artist’s withdrawal from the creative act, and what is 
its bearing on the originality and the uniqueness of the artwork? What 
can we then consider as the artwork: the machine, the final product or 
the process of creation? The exhibition jointly conceived and 
elaborated by Katharina Dohm of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and 
Heinz Stahlhut of the Museum Tinguely, Basel, opens with a presentation 
of Jean Tinguely’s drawing machines dating back to the 1950s followed 
by art machines down to the present day; all of these have a common 
feature: they produce their own art. These machines created by Angela 
Bulloch, Olafur Eliasson, Damien Hirst, Rebecca Horn, Jon Kessler, Tim 
Lewis, Lia, Miltos Manetas, Cornelia Sollfrank, Antoine Zgraggen and 
Andreas Zybach transform the Museum Tinguely, Basel, into a production 
hall. Depending on the mechanical process involved, visitors may keep 
certain works such as drawings produced by Jean 
Tinguely’s Meta-Matics and certified stamped sheets produced by Damien 
Hirst’s or Olafur Eliasson’s machines.

 “People’s basic trust in machine activity, the basis of our industrial 
revolution and our affluence, is fundamentally alien to art’s 
self-understanding; and so art was very reticent to use machines to 
create itself. But to create a machine as an artwork and to shift 
responsibility to it for the development of further works of art 
abrogates the artist’s autonomy and transfers creativity to an 
apparatus. This raises an issue that is very much in vogue in view of 
today’s permanent shifting frontiers between the individual and 
technology.” (Guido Magnaguagno, Director Museum Tinguely and Max 
Hollein, Director, Schirn) 

„If one accepts the general assumption that artists, not machines, are 
the originators and creators of works of art, then the discrepancy 
between the two could not be greater. For while the machine is 
conceived with an aim toward qualities like repeatability of production 
processes, art, as traditionally understood, is characterised by 
uniqueness. Tied to this is the idea of the artistic individual as a 
creative genius. And this concept gives rise to the question – serious 
as well as ironical – posed in this exhibition.” (Katharina Dohm and 
Heinz Stahlhut, curators of the exhibition) 

To create a machine as an artwork and to entrust it with the 
responsibility of developing further artworks is a radical step. It 
means delegating creativity to a piece of equipment. Do such art 
machines then possess a “soul”? Indeed, they develop a dynamic of their 
own and enable the creation of an artwork that is an independent work – 
but they lack the capacity to lead the work to its conclusion. The 
machine with its automatic process does not posses the faculty of 
decision nor the possibility of selection. What is produced are 
mechanical works of art lacking the factor finality, but they are 
nevertheless a fundamental avowal of and testimony to the sovereignty 
of the machine and the basic belief in the possibilities of creative 
production beyond the act of the individual. 

The exhibition „Art Machines Machine Art” opens with 20th century works 
by Jean Tinguely that raise the issue of the machine as an independent 
creative apparatus in the most original manner. His Méta-Matics that 
were first exhibited in Paris in 1959 and earned him his international 
renown are motor-driven drawing machines that enable the spectator to 
produce abstract drawings. The discrepancy between the material 
character of the Méta-Matics and their function, which is to produce 
art, can well be interpreted as an ironic comment on the overriding 
belief in those days in technical progress. It further also translates 
a reflex of the art context of the 1950s: the mechanically produced 
drawings are in keeping with the Tachist style in painting and thus 
reduce ad absurdum the idea of gestural abstraction as the direct 
expression of an artistic individual. This work group doubtless forms 
the historical basis of the exhibition. Grouped around it is a 
selection of works that share a common trait: the creative act is 
delegated by the artist to the machine – a process that was only 
possible at the end of the second world war when a generation of young 
artists appeared on the scene and broke with one of the best kept 
taboos of European art: the concept of the original work of art. The 
selection reflects this process in the most various art media such as 
painting, drawing, sculpture, video and ends with the greatest “art 
machine” ever, the World Wide Web, without, however, affording a 
definitive answer.

The visitor to the exhibition will encounter machines such as Rebecca 
Horn’s Preussische Brautmaschine and Michael Beutler’s 
installation Proper en Droog that concluded production before the 
exhibition’s opening, whereas Roxy Paine’s SCUMAK #2 produces 
throughout the duration of the exhibition, in this case organic-like 
sculptures. The drawing machines Making Beautiful Drawings by Damien 
Hirst and The endless study by Olafur Eliasson both require the 
involvement of the visitor and pose the basic question as to the 
relationship between onlooker and artwork. Whilst a physical phenomenon 
is at the source of Eliasson’s work, Hirst addresses the issue of the 
creative genius. Andreas Zybach’s Sich selbst reproduzierender 
Sockel contrary to its title does not auto-reproduce but requires an 
input by the visitor in the same manner that Angela Bulloch’s Blue 
Horizon needs an external impulse to begin drawing. Jon Kessler’s video 
installation Desert produces sunsets without end, and Tim 
Lewis’ Auto-Dali Prosthetic non-stop scrawls signatures. Pawel 
Althamer’s Extrusion Machine (Bottle Machine) produces blasphemous 
plastic bottles; thanks to Antoine Zgraggen’s Grosser Hammer and 
his Zerquetscherin the visitor can get rid of unwanted objects, and Tue 
Greenfort’s Mobile Trinkglaswerkstatt transforms glass bottles into 
drinking glasses. Finally, with the works of Lia, Miltos Manetas and 
Cornelia Sollfrank the “Méta art machine” enters into play – the World 
Wide Web – extending the possibility of democratising art production, 
as did Tinguely’s works in the 1950s.

The relationship between artist, artwork and onlooker is the theme, but 
not always at the basis of all the exhibits. The art machine enables 
furthermore the participation of the public and mass-produced art, thus 
breaking significantly with the aura of non-reproducible art. Even 
though the onlooker is not directly involved in the creation of some of 
the works, he/she does gain an insight into its production and is thus 
led to reflect on the issue as to where the work of art begins. The 
artist, however, will never disappear completely from the work of art. 
The art machine remains a tool as long as it functions within the 
parameters of the artist. It is only if and when it starts to act 
independently and react to situations autonomously that the whole 
question of authorship can change. The creativity of the art machine is 
apparent only when it works without control and haphazardly. The 
machine may be able to produce without the presence of the artist but 
it cannot exist without the artist’s concept.

An exhibition of the Museum Tinguely, Basel and Schirn Kunsthalle 
Frankfurt. Curators: Heinz Stahlhut (Museum Tinguely) / Katharina Dohm 
(Schirn). 

Participating artists: Pawel Althamer, Michael Beutler, Angela Bulloch, 
Olafur Eliasson, Tue Greenfort, Damien Hirst, Rebecca Horn, Jon 
Kessler, Tim Lewis, Lia, Miltos Manetas, Roxy Paine, Steven Pippin, 
Cornelia Sollfrank, Jean Tinguely, Antoine Zgraggen, Andreas Zybach.

Catalogue: Art Machines Machine Art. Ed. Katharina Dohm, Heinz 
Stahlhut, Max Hollein and Guido Magnaguagno. Preface by Max Hollein and 
Guido Magnaguagno, Texts by Katharina Dohm and Heinz Stahlhut, and 
Justin Hoffmann and in-depth comments. German-English edition, c. 160 
pages, c. 130 col. & b&w illustrations, hard cover, Kehrer Verlag, 
Heidelberg, ISBN 9 783939 583400 (Price: CHF 49).

Museum Tinguely Paul Sacher Anlage 1 – CH 4002 BASEL – www.tinguely.ch

Press Release and images available for download on the Internet 
site www.tinguely.ch 

For further information:

Annja Müller-Alsbach, Curator. Tel.: 00 41 (0)61 688 26 18. 
E-mail: annja_e.mueller-alsbach at roche.com

Laurentia Leon, Press Office. Tel.: 00 41 (0)61 687 46 08. 
E-mail: laurentia.leon at roche.com