Page 32 - Studio International - July/August 1967

The spectator handles objects, chooses where to go, takes
his own decisions. The logical conclusion of this latter
trend is the 'gaming room' of the GRAV group or the
`day in the street' organized on the 19th April, 1966, in
Paris; passers-by were invited to forget their usual pre-
occupations and take part in a number of distractions
(bursting balloons, walking on springs etc.). The aim was
to obtain the active participation of men who are weary
of urban society and to break for a moment the pattern
of routine life. Half-way between these two trends, other
artists such as the Zero group and the Group T at the
Eindhoven exhibition, prefer to offer unusual poetic
Happenings in which the spectator is able to escape for a
short while from the rhythm and tensions of everyday
life. Finally a special type of environment on the indivi-
dual level is offered by Julio Le Parc in the shape of
`prepared' glasses which enable the wearer to see behind
him, while distorting, decomposing and colouring
reality. These glasses which transform the field of vision
into a perpetually changing spectacle are—like the mir-
rors mentioned earlier—advanced works which demon-
strate the extent to which the very notion of the art-object
has undergone transformation.
We have seen that the main current in contemporary
art since 1950 has been to throw doubt on the value of
static art; in this context it is worth emphasizing the
significance of a large number of experiments which have
been concerned with one of the essential aspects of modern
life— the invisible. Several artists have based their work on
the awareness that many phenomena of our daily life,
e.g. electricity, atomic energy, sound waves, cannot be
perceived by the naked eye. In 1956 with cyst 1 Nicolas
Schöffer conceived an independent, mobile sculpture,
the movements of which are controlled by an electronic
brain which is sensitive to variations in colour, light and
sound. In 1959, Takis, who had been working since 1955
on his moving Signals, completed his first tele-magnetic
sculpture inspired by the sight of a moving radar antenna
on an airfield, and began to explore the many possibili-
ties offered by the electro-magnet (he was followed in
these experiments, albeit on a modified plane, by Len
Lye and Boriani). In a composition by Takis, interest
does not centre on the material elements—plugs, spheres
or nails—which constitute the visible structure of the
work, but on the vacant spaces which separate these
elements. He is interested in the secret tensions of nature—
tensions which are captured in these works with their
vibrating magnetic currents.
At present Takis is completing in London a massive
edition of one of his Signals, 5,000 copies of which are to
be produced. This is yet another significant aspect of the
fundamental change which art has recently undergone.
Kinetic art accepts the multiplication of its compositions,
provided that each individual copy is rendered different
by movement (all the more so if the principle of trans-
formation is inherent in the structure of the work). It is
sufficient to place side by side two identical Vibrations by
Soto or two continual mobiles by Le Parc to realize that
either the different position of our gaze or the independent

Takis First multiple, edition of 5000, made in England and due
to go on sale this autumn at a price of £10.