Page 57 - Studio International - December1996

Electromagnetic 1964 Even the Signals which marked an important break-
Electric coil and cork ball
36 in. high x 22 in. diameter through retained allusions to the animal and insect
world; the illuminated antennae, some 12 or 15 feet
high, simulated the fantasy of a science-fiction world
when grouped together in the dark, their yellow or blue
beacons flashing away. The group of Signals now on view
in London represents the end of this preoccupation. Takis
himself admits the limitation of the form, especially since
the development of his Musical-Magnets. In 1964 he said,
`My last Signals took the form of electric antennae, like
lightning conductors. But they still remained symbolical,
they constituted a modern hieroglyphic language which
had to be translated to be understood ...Ah, if only with
an instrument like radar I could capture the music of the
beyond... If this object could capture and transmit
sounds as it turned, my imagination would be crowned.
But was it possible?'
Takis has now answered the question.
Just as it is important to emphasize that Takis is not a
scientist, so is it necessary to dissociate his work from the
decorative encrustations of Op-art. The idea of mathema-
tically calculated patterns is alien to Takis. He is not
interested in visual interplay, and certainly not in the
mechanical repetition of shapes.
Takis clearly aims at what might be termed spiritual
levitation; he proclaims Daedalus 'as the greatest artist
3 White Signals 1961 of all centuries... and his masterpiece Icarus'. The idea
Steel and timing boxes of the artist as man of action, if only intellectual or
120 x 150 in. high
philosophical action, comes closest to his ideal. ... The
decadence of art' he once said, 'began with the Golden
Age of Pericles. Phidias and Praxiteles created for the
eye's pleasure' ; the latter phrase is clearly denigratory.
Primitive and oriental art, including the No theatre,
aim principally not at the eye but at something near the
solar plexus, at the nerve-ends which register sensations.
Like the oriental religions, and indeed all mystics, Takis
seeks detachment from the material world. But he rejects
the mere lulling of the senses, the escapism of Op-art. He
often refers appreciatively to 'nakedness' in art, a lack of
dressing up, the exposure of vital elements. Thus his own
work has gradually been stripped of image or evocative
associations. The new magnetic-music panels are simple,
functional machines, not augmented by the beauty of the
visible parts. Takis, indeed, differs from the No play or
the arts of the Orient in this refusal to please the eye of
the beholder. His, in a sense, is art brut, like that branch
of modern architecture which believes in the aesthetic
and spiritual honesty of showing the technical means of
its achievement.
Speaking for myself I find a powerful visual quality in
these panels. The needle, for instance, when attracted to
the magnet vibrates like a symbol of human nervousness
and fear, appearing to be grasped—an illusion reinforced
by the piercing shriek from the stretched wire. The sug-
gestion of captive and captor, with all its allusions to the
cruelty of the natural is present for me. Perhaps Takis,
seeking an oriental detachment, has in fact revealed again
the Greek genius for poetic tragedy.
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