Museum Tinguely

The Tinguely Museum, built directly on the Rhine to plans by Ticinese architect Mario Botta, houses the largest collection of works by Jean Tinguely (1925–1991), one of the most innovative and most important Swiss artists of the 20th century. The permanent exhibition presents an overview of four decades of his creative activity, from the artist’s early beginnings in the 50s with motorised reliefs, through to the large-scale sculptures and mechanical sculptures of the 1980s. Regular special exhibitions showcase a broad spectrum of artists and themes of the 20th and 21st century, based on Tinguely’s ideas: Presenting those that inspired him such as Marcel Duchamp und Kurt Schwitters, contemporaries such as Arman, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yves Klein and also current trends. www.tinguely.ch

This museum greets you in the following languages: D/F/E
Opening 1996

Current exhibitions

La roue = c'est tout New permanent exhibition

08.02.2023 - 08.02.2025

According to Tinguely, ‘we live in a wheeled civilisation’. Even today, our lives are shaped largely by the relationship between man and machine and the resulting dependencies that Tinguely deconstructed with such relish. Now, for the first time since the museum was founded, its enlarged collection of Tinguely’s own works is to return to the great hall.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E

Temitayo Ogunbiyi You will follow the Rhein and compose play

18.10.2023 - 14.01.2024

For the first time in Switzerland, Museum Tinguely presents a two-part project by Temitayo Ogunbiyi (born 1984), an artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. Since May, a work from Ogunbiyi’s Playground series has been installed in Solitude Park. In a playful presentation, the exhibition then offers a comprehensive overview of Ogunbiyi’s practice, featuring works made since 2016 as well as objects made specifically for the show. The exhibition is created in collaboration with Culturescapes 2023 Sahara.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E

Delphine Reist. ÖL [oil, olio, huile]

18.10.2023 - 14.01.2024

Work structures the life of the individual and society as a whole. In Reist’s art, things take on a life of their own, offering their views on the movement and rhythm of production: suddenly noisy drills, leaky printers, window blinds controlled by an invisible hand. At Museum Tinguely, the Geneva-based artist presents works that refer directly or indirectly to oil as an energy source, painting material and lubricant, as well as to its fluid physical properties.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E

Marcel Scheible all around Basel | art in public spaces

01.11.2023 - 31.03.2024

Film presentation in the phone booth. We come across art in public spaces not only on urban squares and as part of fountains, but we can also be surprised by discovering it at unexpected places. all around Basel | art in public spaces puts a spotlight on artworks that we might easily fail to notice. In short documentary films, artists and curators share their passion for art to be found outside of the walls of the museum and take us along for an exploratory expedition through the city.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E

Next exhibition(s)

The Last Reality Show. Boris Nikitin

06.12.2023 - 21.01.2024

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Big Brother was the first reality show to be aired simultaneously on television and the internet. The container was a democratic utopia, dystopia and work of popular Conceptual Art rolled into one. To mark the twentieth anniversary of the first season of Big Brother, the Basel-based artist and theatre director Boris Nikitin has created an almost exact replica of the original container. The container is empty, its inhabitants having long since left.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E

Otto Piene. Paths to Paradise

02.02.2024 - 12.05.2024

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Otto Piene (1928−2014) aimed high with his art: to shape a more harmonious, peaceful, and sustainable world. His expansive view explored new media and projected aesthetic forms and experiences into new spatial realms. Structured thematically, the monographic exhibition traces his utopian vision as expressed in works from his most significant series and projects in conversation with his lifelong practice of sketching.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E

Mika Rottenberg

05.06.2024 - 03.11.2024

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Mika Rottenberg’s art humorously confronts us with the absurdity of our excessive production of commodities. Her films are colourful and painterly, celebrating a surreal poetry whose protagonists often resemble cogwheels in a fantastic machine. In this way, they recall Tinguely’s poetic critique of consumerism expressed in his poetic “machines inutiles”. The exhibition shows a representative selection of Rottenberg’s films and installations, as well as new drawings and interactive kinetic works.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E

String Figures / Fadenspiele /Jeux de Ficelle

20.11.2024 - 09.03.2025

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String figures can do many things: they tell stories, they pass the time, they make the unsayable showable, they connect people. Whatever else they may be, they have often been explored by artists, ethnologists and theorists: as an aesthetic practice, as something to collect, as a non-Western way of thinking. The exhibition looks at ways of playing together on the ruins of our history.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E

Fresh Window. The Art of Display & Display of Art

04.12.2024 - 11.05.2025

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For decades, there have been close links between the histories of art and shop window display. Besides Jean Tinguely, many other artists have designed pioneering window displays. Conversely, window displays frequently feature as a motif in artworks or serve as a stage for performances and actions. The exhibition will explore this eventful relationship from its beginnings to the present day, while artistic interventions in shop windows in Basel extend the show into public space.

The exhibition is documented in the following languages: D/F/E
Guided tours are offered in the following languages: D/F/E