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Italian Futuriam emerges
n the early 20th century, a group of Italian artists began a multi-sensational experimentation. These artists included Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero and Luigi Russolo. -
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The beginnings of kinetic art
Artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Vladimir Tatlin and Naum Gabo created their first works centering on mechanical movement and lumino-kinetics. Tatlin, as well as Aleksandr Rodchenko and Man Ray, also created the first mobiles (suspended, freely-moving sculptures). -
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World War I
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Dadaism emerges
In response to the destruction of the First World War, German artists began to develop a nihilistic, anti-aesthetic which came to be known as Dada. Alternative media such as Duchamp's "ready-mades" became the primary media of artists who aligned themselves with this new trend. -
The Russian Revolution
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Kinetic Constuction/ Standing Wave by Naum Gabo
Kinetic Construcion
Presented at the Tate in London. -
Monument to the Third International - Vladimir Tatlin
Particpating in the lively spirit of experimentation which emerged in Russia after her revolution, Tatlin produced a fusion of architecture, engineering, kinetic sculpture and abstract symbolism in celebration of the new Communist world order. -
PROUN - El Lissitzky
Eleazar Lissintzky produced a series of works, collectively entitled PROUN (an acronym for "project for the affirmation of the new" in Russian). These multimedia pieces incorporated light displays, sculpture and architecture and were produced in celebration of the new Soviet state. -
The Realist Manifesto (Moscow)
It is said to be in this manifesto that Naum Gabo coined the term "kinetic art" through his use of the term "kinetic rhythm". This manifesto, cosigned by Antoine Pevsner, has become one of the key texts of Constructivism. -
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Art becomes concerned with light and movement
Thomas Wilfred and Adrian Bernard Klein, alongside Ludwig Hirshfel-Mack and Kurt Schwerdtfeger, develop colour organs and projection techniques as they try to move towards the use of light and movement as artistic media. -
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Lichtrequisit/ Light Prop
Presneted at the Busch-Reisinger Museum. During his elaboration on this piece, Moholy-Nagy used the term "kinetic" often. Light Prop for an Electric Stage by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy -
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World War Two
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Art Informel emerges
This post-war, abstract Expressionist movement emerges in the early 1940s and legitimized the use of non-traditional materials in art during the 1950s and 60s. Since the "crisis of painting" in the 1970s, artists have increasingly turned to installation and alternative materials. -
Secondo Furturismo emerges
After the war, a new futurism was developed in Rome which experimented with aerobatic and smoke canisters. Again, art's affinity to technology was being tested and expanded. This movement emerged as the heroic art of the Machine Age. Simultaneously, artists like Umberto Boccioni and Anton Giulio Bragaglia began to play with multi-exposure photography to suggest motion in static images. -
Breakthrough and rapid expansion of kinetic art
Alexander Calder and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy had been concerned with artistic research into motion since the 1920s. Certain artists stand out as having played leading roles in the various developments which took place during this time. Some of these are...
Mechanical Movement: Pol Bury, Jean Tinguel, Nicholas Schoffer & Harry Kramer
The Mobile: Alexander Calder, Bruno Munari, Kenneth Martin IV & George Rickey
Lumino-Kinetics: Thomas Wilfred, Frank Joseph Malina, Nicholas Schoffer & Gyorgy Kepes -
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Consumer and Baby Boom
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Nicholas Schoffer's Lumino Dynamic Spectacles
Held in Saint-Cloud Park, Paris in 1954 and in Liege, 1961. -
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Schoffer's Towers
Schoffer exemplified the more architectural and urbanistic aspects of kinetic art's environmental concerns. He built spatiodynamic and cybernetic towers for exhibition in France (1954 and 1955) and a permanent tower was erected in 1961 in the Parc de la Boverie in Liege. -
The Yellow Manifesto and Le Mouvement
The Yellow Manifesto by Victor Vasarely was published on the occasion of the exhibition Le Mouvement at the Galerie Denise Rene in Paris. Vasarely frequently applies the term "cinetisme" in descriptions of his work and had been doing so since 1950. -
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Theatrical "happenings" occur in New York
Following the suggestions of composer, John Cage and choreographer-dancer Merce Cunningham, artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Alan Kaprow and Red Grooms developed theatrical "happenings" in New York, which set the stage for the Fluxus Movement: attempted to avoid the traditional gallery system and break down the seperation between art, public and life. -
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Kinetic art collectives emerge in Europe
Artistic collectives began to emerge, creating environments and installations which exemplified the more artistic use of the term "kinetic art". These included Zero Group (founded by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, Dusseldorf, 1958), Gruppo T (founded by Gianni Colombo, Milan 1960), USCO (founded by Gerd Stern, NY, 1962), La nouvelle Tendance (Paris) Gruppo P (Milan), Gruppo N (Padua), Groupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (Paris) and Dvizheniye (Moscow). -
Light Ballet
Produced by collective Zero Group. -
The legitimization of kinetic art
Wolfgang Ramsbott and Harry Kramer published a basic chronology of kinetic art and, in the years to follow, writings emerged by Rickey, Frank Popper and others. Important exhibitions dedicated to or featuring kinetic art proliferated across the USA and Europe. Constructivists, Rickey and Martin were inclined towards touc-, air- or heat-operated mobiles; Schoffer towards mechanical movement. Calder better identified with the Surrealists (and Dadaists), producing mobiles and mechanical works. -
A shift in intention
From the early 1960s, Op and kinetic art adopted from pop art the ironic critique of the high seriousness of traditional art. Instead, artists turned to a new and playful aesthetic of the everyday and ephemeral. This was exemplified by the work of Vassarley, Agam, Takis, Cruz-Diez and Riley. -
LreGroupe de Recherche d'Art Visuel (GRAV) founded
Founded by Julio Le Parc and others. The collective produced 'labyrinths' in Paris, New York and Eindhoven in an attempt to involve the spectator in both the creation of both the artwork and environment. -
Anthropometries et Symphonie monotone - Yves Klein
Performed at the Gallery Inter-nationale d'Art Contemporain, Paris. For the performance, models dipped themselves in paint to then imprint themselves on canvas, sometimes to monotone music. Other leading exponents of performing arts include Joseph Beuys, Hermann Nitsch, Robert Wilson and Laurie Anderson. -
Magnetic Bullet
Takis focuses on rendering visible hidden forces in nature. Around the same time, Piotr Kowalski turns his attention to the codification of common principles for technology and art, in an ironic vein. Also, Gerhard con Graevenitz, Enzo Mari and Bruno Munari focus on the principle of creative programming. -
The first "zero demonstration"
An outdoor, multimedia event involving audience participation, props and live action, organised by the Zero Group, after Gunther Ucker joined them the same year. -
Dvizdjenje (Movement) group founded
Founded by Lev Nusberg in Russia in pursuit of Suprematist and Constructivist notions of movement in art. Lettrisme and later Situationism developed from Surrealism, Dadaism, and radical student politcs in response to the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis and the invasion of Czechoslovakia. -
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Ideological focus towards environment
From the late 1960s through the 1970s, kinetic art was not considered meaningful unless related to the notion of environment. During this time, the architectural/ urbanistic use of the term "kinetic" was commonly distinguished from the more artistic (spaces occupied by both the spectator and the plastic statements). -
Neon first used as a principle structural material
Gyula Kosice, inspired by Lucio Fontana (Buenos). -
The decline begins
Kinetic art decreased in importance by thw 1980s. However, it's influence echoed in the reactivated notion of audience participation within the white cube.
