La fleur mécanique

Although Constant officially dated this plastic sculpture to 1959, he had made a first version of it back in 1956. A photo from an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1956 shows that this version appears less skewed than it does today.

In addition to the form, the title of the work also underwent several changes. At the retrospective exhibition of Constant's work in Kunstmuseum Den Haag in 1965, the construction, in its present form, was exhibited under the title “Ruimteschip” (“Space Ship”).

It was not until the 1972 exhibition in gallery Daniel Gervis, Paris, that the work appeared for the first time under its current title “La fleur mécanique” (“Mechanical Flower”). A photo from the accompanying catalogue shows where the spaceship had landed, among the bushes of Constant's studio.

In 1993, Rijksmuseum Twenthe acquired “La fleur mécanique” at the auction of modern and contemporary art at Sotheby’s Amsterdam, where it is still in their collection today.