The Museum Tinguely is an art museum in Basel, Switzerland, dedicated to the work of Swiss painter and sculptor Jean Tinguely (1925–1991).^[1][2] Designed by architect Mario Botta, it opened in 1996 on the banks of the Rhine.^[1] The museum holds the world’s largest collection of Tinguely’s works, ranging from early reliefs to large-scale kinetic sculptures.^[1][2]

The museum’s permanent display includes Tinguely’s kinetic sculptures, together with illustrations, photographs, and archival materials related to his life and work.^[3] Shortly after the museum opened, Niki de Saint Phalle donated more than 50 works from Tinguely’s estate.^[3] The museum also organizes temporary exhibitions that engage with other artists, including Tinguely’s contemporaries and modern practitioners.^[1][2]

In 2023, the Museum Tinguely introduced a new exhibition titled La roue = c’est tout, which revisits Tinguely’s pioneering contributions to kinetic art.^[4] Upon entry, visitors encounter Éloge de la folie (1966), a large-scale relief originally created as a stage design for a ballet production in Paris. The piece had been stored in a private collection for two decades before being acquired by the museum. The exhibition also includes early Méta-Mécaniques, scrap-based machines from the 1960s, large Méta-Harmonies, and documentation of Tinguely’s collaborations with other artists.^[4] Later that year, the museum hosted The Last Reality Show, a conceptual installation by playwright Boris Nikitin. The work featured a replica of the living container used in the first season of the reality television show Big Brother.^[5] Originally created in 2020 for a theatre production in Germany, the installation was presented as a walk-through exhibit. The museum described the installation as a counterpart to Tinguely’s engagement with the relationship between humans and machines.^[5]

• 👁 Museum Tinguely with the Roche Towers in the background, seen from a bridge over the Rhine
  
  Museum Tinguely with the Roche Towers in the background, seen from a bridge over the Rhine
• 👁 Schwimmwasser-Plastik (1980) by Jean Tinguely, in the museum park
  
  Schwimmwasser-Plastik (1980) by Jean Tinguely, in the museum park
• 👁 Gwendolyn (1966) by Niki de Saint Phalle, in the museum park
  
  Gwendolyn (1966) by Niki de Saint Phalle, in the museum park

• Chaos I
• List of museums in Switzerland
• List of single-artist museums
• Museums in Basel
• Stravinsky Fountain

• Museum Tinguely website
• Basel museums website

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