User:Justin Kirby/Jim Whiting

Jim Whiting (born 1951) is a British artist/sculptor, considered by the art critic and former museum curator Julian Spalding to be the "craziest successor" to kinetic artist Jean Tinguely. He was born in Paris and spent his early childhood in Salisbury Zimbabwe before returning to the UK with his family in 1959. He studied Electronic Engineering & Systems control at Queen Mary College and then sculpture at St Martins School of Art after a foundation at High Wycombe Art College.

Whiting's first major installation was in 1979 at The Hayward gallery in London, while he was tutoring at theArchitectural Association. His Business Machine featured alongside work by Helen Chadwick and Genesis P-Orridge as part of the new contempories summer show there. Other shows of his animated figurative works followed, including: Purgatory at British museums, galleries and festivals; and Heavenly Bodies on the roof of the Royal National Theatre in 1981. He received International recognition in 1984 after his robot-like sculptures were featured dancing in the Herbie Hancock's Rockit music video directed by duo Godley & Creme, winning the first MTV Video Music Award for Best Art Direction. Hancock was later quoted as saying that Whiting's "pure kinetic art" was the art he'd most like to own.

Whiting's Mechanical Theatre was commissioned in 1987 by Andre Heller for his Luna Luna art/amusement park in Hamburg, along with installations and contributions by, among others, Salvador Dali, Jean Tinguely, Joseph Beuys, Sonia Delaunay, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf. From 1988 to 1992 he took his Unnatural Bodies show on tour, exhibiting in Cologne, Zürich, Berlin, Glasgow, Linz (Ars Electronica) and also as the Tower in London's Broadgate.

In 1994 he created a waggon installation for Klaus Littman’s Arttrain, which was exhibited at stations in Switzerland, France and Germany along with work by Bernhard Luginbühl, Jean Tinguely, Daniel Spoerri and Ben Vautier.

His work has now been incorporated into his Bimbotown venue based in the Spinnerei (Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei), a former factory in Leipzig that now hosts cutting edge art in dozens of eclectic galleries and artists' studios. . Originally launched in 1993 in Basel, Bimbotown moved to Leipzig in 1996 where Whiting continues to host parties, which The Guardian newspaper recently described in a round up of the best of Germany as "a mix of music, theatre and lots of crazy stuff by artists from all over Europe".

In 2007 a new version of his Mechanical Theatre was commissioned for the Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal Worlds) theme park in Austria, which was conceived by Andre Heller and features work by famous modern artists. He continues to exhibit his installations in Europe, as well as collaborate on theatrical performances.

Bibliography

• Scoggins, Sam (Director) Heavenly Bodies RCA Department of Film & Television (1982), BFI Database 22961
• Alter Image (featuring Jim Whiting) After Image, Channel 4 (June 9th, 1983] BFI Database 654993
• Miller, Nigel (Director) South of Watford: Jim Whiting (Documentary) JWT (1986) BFI Database 483642
• Jim Whiting: Unnatural Bodies Galerie Klaus Littmann Basel (1988)
• Clarke, Stuart (Director) Unnatural Bodies Wild Dream Films (1992) BFI Database 492436
• Spalding, Julian Eclipse of Art: Tackling the Crisis in Art Today Prestel (2003) p. 37 ISBN 9783791328812
• Spalding, Julian The Best Art You've Never Seen:101 Hidden Treasures From Around the World Rough Guides (2010), p. 196-7 ISBN 9781848362710

External links

• Bimbotown
• Herbie Hancock Rockit music video
• Herbie Hancock: "Rockit" from the 1984 Grammy Awards
• Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal Worlds): Jim Whiting