Nicolas Schöffer, Motorized Kinetic Sculpture 'Minisculpture' Op Art Denise Rene Galerie Paris, 1969

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kinetic object, with mirror-polished stainless steel on painted stainless steel base, electrical system with electronic motor. published by Éditions Denise … Read more kinetic object, with mirror-polished stainless steel on painted stainless steel base, electrical system with electronic motor. published by Éditions Denise René, Paris


Nicolas Schöffer (Hungarian: Schöffer Miklós; 6 September 1912 — 8 January 1992) was a Hungarian-born French cybernetic artist.
Schöffer was born in Kalocsa, Hungary and resided in Paris from 1936 until his death in Montmartre in 1992. He built his artworks on cybernetic theories of feedback interactivity primarily based on the ideas of Norbert Wiener. Wiener's work suggested to Schöffer an artistic process in terms of the circular causality of feedback loops.
Schöffer's kinetic art sculpture "CYSP 1" from 1956, that made use of electronic computations developed by the Philips Company, is considered the first cybernetic sculpture in art history. The sculpture is set on a base mounted on four rollers, which contains the mechanism and the electronic brain. The plates are operated by small motors located under their axis. Photo-electric cells and a microphone built into the sculpture catch all the variations in the fields of color, light intensity and sound intensity. All these changes occasion reactions on the part of the responsive sculpture.
Sound recordings from Schöffer’s Kinetcik spatiodynamic sculptures sourced from the DVD of an exhibition at Espace Gantner, France, 2004, titled Précurseur de l’art cybernétique, as well as various internet videos. The Lumino and Microtemps, 1968 and 1961 respectively, were not intended as sound sculptures, yet the noises they produce are definitely part of their appeal, not unlike Jean Tinguely’s machines. His career touched on painting, kinetic sculpture, architecture, urbanism, film, TV, and music. Indeed he collaborated on music with Pierre Henry. All of the artistic actions of Schöffer were done in the pursuit of a dynamism in art.
This interest in artistic dynamism was originally initiated by the Cubo-Futurists and then intensified and solidified by the Russian Constructivism artists, such as Naum Gabo, Anton Pevsner, Moholy-Nagy and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack. All these artists were concerned with opening up the static three-dimensional sculptural form to a fourth dimension of time and motion. And this was the intention of Schöffer as well. This was published by Denise Rene Galerie in Paris in the 60s they pioneered and championed Cinetique and Op Art and showed works by Yaacov Agam, Jean Arp, Carlos Cruz-Diez, George Rickey, Jesús Soto, and Sobrino amongst other masters of that school of art.
His work was included in the exhibit Retrospect: Kinetika 1967 masterpieces of kinetic light art and op art by Nicolas Schöffer, Julio Le Parc, Martha Boto, Heinz Mack, Vasarely, Enzo Mari, and Lily Greenham, among others. The exhibition brings to life the way in which technology, cybernetics and visual research found their way to the other side of the screen and into art in the 1960s.
A historical point of reference is provided by Kinetika, the first international op art exhibition in Austria, which took place in 1967 at the Museum of the Twentieth Century, the predecessor of today’s 21er Haus. The director at the time, Werner Hofmann, brought international avant-garde art trends to Vienna that saw their point of departure in rationale and not in genius. See less