Page 24 - Studio International - July 1966

Agam : the perceptible absence of the 'image'

by Frank Popper

We sometimes consider that 'reality' lies in the totality of The means employed by Agam are well known to
simultaneous happenings. In general, we cannot hope to mystics of all times and all civilizations: to conjure up the
know or see or feel the entire present. Yet in art, in existence of an unknowable whole by its absence.
aesthetic or spiritual thought, an indication of the entire- Now if this 'secret' knowledge had remained on a purely
ness of reality is envisaged. What Agam has attempted in `ideological' level, Agam would not have become one of
his works, after careful and repeated meditation on both the foremost creators of our time. In fact, this 'knowing'
the aesthetic and the spiritual levels, is to distinguish be- about our physical, psychological and spiritual universe
tween the feeling for the 'real' and the conventional has been transformed into tangible plastic propositions
attitude of expressing the 'real'. involving the most important concepts of time and move-
ment.
The key to these propositions lies precisely in the evoca-
tion of an absence, and in particular in Agam's will to go
beyond the perception of definite forms. The variety
which has been apparent in his work ever since his first
one-man show in Paris in 1953, came again as a pleasant
surprise to anyone who visited two important exhibitions
of movement in art which took place last year: Art and
Movement at the Museum of Tel-Aviv in May, where
Agam showed nine of his works, and Light and Movement
at the Kunsthalle, Berne, in July, where he exhibited
fifteen works. The comprehensive nature of this research
was stressed in an important exhibition by Agam at the
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery in New York this May.
Now what is particularly striking in Agam's endeavours
is a parallelism between the different phases of his own
development and the prise de conscience which the spec-
tator is expected to pursue in stages in front of each of his
works.
A first stage in demonstrating the perceptible absence of
the image is implicit in the vanishing and recurring
physical structures of Agam's 'transformable paintings',
where the different phases are marked by a conscious
act, a creative participation of the spectator. In the fol-
lowing stages (contrapuntal, polyphonic and metapoly-
phonic paintings), structural intervals as in music corre-
spond to the spectator's movement, which becomes a
constituent element of the work of art. The different
phases are given by the various states of the image. It will
be punctuated, lengthened, shortened, etc., as the move-
ment of the spectator develops. An interesting feature
here is the correlation between the conscious choice of the
positions and the determination of the virtualities of the
work as circumscribed by the will of the artist.
In any case the dominant aspect here is also the trans-
formability of the image, a necessary metamorphosis—
which is diametrically opposed to the use of motion to
animate a given form.
The fundamental research into motion allows an excit-
ing glimpse of time as a characteristic element of reality.
The present is opposed to the eternal, and Agam describes
time as that 'which always exists but never comes again'.
Tactile paintings can be regarded as an expression of
the totality of the previous experiments with time, move-
ment, image, and their absence. The form is replaced by
nothingness, whereas previously forms replaced forms.
Now the form no longer exists but has to re-become.
The involvement of many senses—in the first place the
kinetic one, but also vision, tact, and hearing—have made
possible for the spectator types of participation which
cover an impressive number of aesthetic categories rang-
Dessin spacial (Spatial design) 1966
Transformable painting Metallic elements mounted on wood ing from the play instinct to the most elevated transcen-
x 17+ in. dental values.