Page 56 - Studio International - December1996

Takis's new sculpture

Charles S. Spencer

Born Athens 1925; made Takis's new series of Musical-Magnets are oblong white studio the look of a workshop-laboratory, Takis is the
first sculpture 1946; lived in panels on which long needles or wooden balls, suspended old alchemist philosopher seeking new ways to old
London for various periods
in 1954-8; in Paris 1954-66; by wire, move between a natural magnet and an electro- truths. He has had no scientific training and refutes any
again resident in London magnet. There is no question of an elegant mobile suggestion that he is trying to prove or discover facts.
1966; studied briefly at imitating nature, in the manner of Calder, or the ingratia- Eternal rather than infernal machines is what he is
Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris,
and Royal College of Art, ting prettiness of junk-machines or kinetic structures. after, putting us into mesmeric-cum-spiritual states, not
London; exhibited Institute Sound is created by contact with a wire drawn across far from the inarticulated mysteries of ancient rituals.
of Contemporary Arts, the panel—a kind of primitive string instrument. The Many commentators have isolated 'energy' as the
London, 1954; first one-man
exhibition, Hanover Gallery, actual sound, like a controlled shriek, is exactly equiva- creative impulse behind his work. To Takis energy is the
London, 1955; one-man lent to the high-pitched exclamations of the Japanese unseen force in nature, the most important one. To de-
exhibition, Indica Gallery, No theatre. Takis cannot completely control them since scribe this energy by depicting a flower or a tree is
London,
November- December 1966. they depend on intervals resulting from the interaction irrelevant to the complex and dramatic sequence of their
of the two kinds of magnet. With the wooden suspensions, life span. The biologist, unlike the artist, examines and
the sound—this time the effect of wood on wood, one of analyses the source and effects of this energy, just as the
the most primitive forms of music or rhythm—is produced scientist-engineer creates energy for functional purposes.
by the repercussion of interrupted movement. Some These motives and purposes are alien to Takis the artist,
panels combine both kinds of sound—string and percus- who has no wish to uncover physical truths but to sug-
sion. gest the presence of invisible energy.
The magnetic interplay precludes any arrangement or It has taken some years for Takis to isolate this inner
orchestration of the intervals of time—such as one expects energy, to eliminate what he regards as the irrelevant
from European speech or music, or, on another level, externals. In his early sculpture limbs or components
European art. Takis finds this a negation of the sense of were often flexible, their involuntary movement imita-
mystery and awe. He quotes Plato's suggestion that the ting nature. His Idols or Flowers suggested a similar
Below
Takis in his studio artist turns the invisible into the visible, and talks of irrational power, with moveable projections affected by
creating a sense of mystery which 'lifts the spectator out vibration. With the use of electric power these objects
Right of the ordinary state'. took on the look of complex junk sculpture or Dadaist
Electromagnetic 1961
Electrical coil and cork For all his involvement in the 'space age', in the para- assemblage, reminiscent of Tinguely, still with figurative
20 in. high x 12 in. diameter phernalia of science and engineering, which gives his associations with idols or archaic gods.