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Definition: kinetic art from The Columbia Encyclopedia

term referring to sculptured works that include motion as a significant dimension. The form was pioneered by Marcel Duchamp, Naum Gabo, and Alexander Calder. Kinetic art is either nonmechanical, e.g., Calder's mobiles, or mechanical, e.g., works by Gabo, László Moholy-Nagy, and Jean Tinguely. The latter sort of kineticism developed in response to an increasingly technological culture.


kinetic art

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
A work of art that has movement or parts that are set in motion. The movement may be real or imagined. Movement may be mechanically powered (for example, by electricity, or air or water motion), or produced by the viewer moving past a work, or the work given the illusion of movement, such as op art , which appears to flicker. Kinetic art sometimes merges with other types of avant-garde art, including performance art , computer-generated art, mixed media, and Installation art . Leading kinetic artists include Alexander Calder , Bridget Riley , and Nam June Paik . In the 1920s Eastern European artists Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner began to experiment with sculpture that looked like machines. They named their work kinetic art in the ‘Realist Manifesto’, a manifesto of constructivism issued in Moscow. Gabo's work was made up of electrically driven wire constructions that illustrate the prevailing fascination for technology and industry among artists of the early 20th century. Other…
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Full text Article kinetic art

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
A work of art that has movement or parts that are set in motion. The movement may be real or imagined. Movement may be mechanically powered (for example, by electricity, or air or water motion), or produced by the viewer moving past a work, or the work given the illusion of movement, such as op art…
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Full text Article KINETIC ART

From 100 Ideas that Changed Art
Kinetic art-art that incorporates movement—disturbs the conventional balance between static artwork and motionless viewer. It also physically enacts pictorial metaphors such as “exploring space” or “balanced composition.” While retaining some of the age-old magic of mechanical artifice, modern…
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Full text Article Kinetic Art

From A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes
(c. 1920) Several artists between 1910 and 1920 – among them, NAUM GABO, ALEXANDER ARCHIPENKO, MARCEL DUCHAMP, and GIACOMO BALLA – came up with the idea of making art move, utilizing motors to propel their initially sculptural objects. In a famous 1920 manifesto, Gabo joined his brother Antoine…
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Full text Article kinetic art

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
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Full text Article kinetic art

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary
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Full text Article kinetic art

From The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language
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Full text Article kinetic art

From The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms
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Full text Article kinetic art

From Collins English Dictionary
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Full text Article kinetic art

From The Macquarie Dictionary
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Full text Article kinetics

From The Chambers Dictionary
the science of the action of force in producing or changing motion. [Gr kīnetikos , from kīneein to move] adj relating to motion or to kinetics; due to motion. adv. /kin-et'Ə-kōr/ n ( biol ) a paired structure within the centromere of a chromosome to which spindle microtubules become attached during…
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