25. 11. 2020–8. 11. 2019 Artwork to go / Slavko Tihec - Aquamobile

Artwork to go / Slavko Tihec - Aquamobile
100+ Highlights from the UGM Collection

Every week, take the "artwork to go" from our gallery, which you can also get to know through the audio description here or the video here. As the third "artwork to go", we present Aquamobile by artist Slavko Tihec.

Slavko Tihec is one of the most important sculptors in the history of Slovenian art. He was a pioneering force in Slovenia, introducing constructivist and kinetic sculpture and incorporating technology into his work. As a passionate researcher of new materials and technological processes he developed several series that gave expression to new developments – like streamlining the process, abandoning any allusion to objects, and emphasising neutrality – culminating in the Aquamobiles minimalist mobile sculptures created in the late-1960s.

Most Aquamobiles are white, generally cube-shaped containers filled with water, in which coloured, buoyed components float about. This Kinetic Object consists of circular straps of varying diameters. Their ascending and descending movement around the centre is powered by an electric motor and the force of gravity. As the sculptor himself said, he was interested in depicting the laws of physics, which he perceived as the motor of the world, the “forces of eternity”. The slow, inimitable motion still inspires today, and can have a contemplative effect, while confirming the notion that no matter how experimental a work it can come, over time, to enter the canon.