« Afraid of Movement ». Entropy and kinetics in Homage to New York

Homage to New York is recognized as a pivotal work in Jean Tinguely’s career and as one of his most aesthetically significant pieces. Considered by art historians and critics as both playful and complex, the happening addresses fundamental themes such as immateriality, time, movement, automation, overproduction, and apocalypse. My presentation seeks to reconcile these various interpretations through a new reading of the concept of entropy and its significance for kinetic art in the 1960s.