Kinetic art

Kinetic art is a movement in which motion is the defining means of artistic effect: works either genuinely move — by means of motors, air currents, magnets or manual intervention — or create the illusion of movement through optical effects. The origins of the tendency reach back to the Constructivist experiments of Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner and to Marcel Duchamp's 'Bicycle Wheel' (1913). Kinetic art flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, building on the mobile, which Alexander Calder had been making since around 1930 — a suspended moving sculpture so finely balanced that the slightest breath of air sets it in motion. Other key figures include Jean Tinguely, with his self-destroying machines, Jesús Rafael Soto and Julio Le Parc. Kineticism is closely interwoven with Op art, in which movement is simulated by static geometric patterns. The art of movement reflected a fascination with technology, energy and time as an artistic dimension, dissolving the traditional idea of sculpture as a motionless, eternal object and drawing the viewer into a dynamic, changing spectacle.