Exhibition, 12 Feb 2016 - 16 May 2016

Prière de toucher - Le sens tactile de l'art

Tinguely Museum, Basel, Switzerland

Museum Tinguely is pursuing the project of an exhibition series with which it sheds light on the complex theme of the five human senses and their portrayal in art up to the present day.

The exhibition is centered around the sense of touch and the haptic system as a possibility of aesthetic perception, and it throws up a series of questions at the same time: How do we perceive tactile art? What happens when our skin suddenly plays the main role in the experiencing of art? Even without direct physical contact with the beholder, can artworks appeal to their sense of touch? Can tactile experiences be described and translated into images? Works from entirely different eras testify to an understanding of art that includes the tactile dimension. Tactility has increasingly become a deliberately employed design element since the mid-20th century.

The anthropometry Sans titre by Yves Klein was created in the context of a performance during which naked, female models applied paint to their bodies in order leave behind a body imprint by pressing themselves onto the canvas. His idea for a Sculpture tactile, which he formulated in around 1957 in the form of a sketch and model, remained unknown for a long time; its reconstruction was only undertaken posthumously, in 2014. It opens up a special tactile experience to visitors.