The Machine As Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age (MoMA) - August 23rd, 2024

The Museum of Modern Art staged the exhibition “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age” from November 27, 1968 to February 6, 1969. The exhibition, curated by Pontus Hultén of Moderna Museet, included over 200 examples of machines and machine reflective artworks. “The Machine” included works by Duchamp, Picabia, Tatlin, Klee, Giacomeeti, Moholy-Nagy, Belmer, Rauschenberg, Schwitters, Grosz, Keinholz, and many others. Machine objects featured included a Bugatti “Royale” (1931), the “Boot Hill Express” (created by fitting a Chrysler engine into the glass body of an antique horse-drawn hearse); and the Lumière Brothers “Cinématographe” (1895), one of the earliest examples of a camera.

“The title of the book reflects a crisis within technology itself, at a time when machines that imitate man’s muscles are being supplanted by electronic and chemical devices that imitate the processes of the brain and nervous system”

218 pages; 240 illustrations
9.75 x 8.5 in
Rivet-bound in tin can steel
Cover fabricated by beer-can manufacturer, PLM AB.
*Mint, extremely rare

The catalog includes an essay by Billy Klüver, who cofounded Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) with Fred Waldhauer, Robert Rauschenberg, and Robert Whitman in 1967. Klüver’s 5,000-word essay details his collaboration with Jean Tinguely on “Homage to New York,” an elaborate self-destroying machine which ‘committed suicide’ in the Sculpture Garden at MoMA in 1960.