Yaacov Agam
Encyclopedia
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
and experimental artist best known for his contributions to optical and kinetic art
Kinetic art
Kinetic art is art that contains moving parts or depends on motion for its effect. The moving parts are generally powered by wind, a motor or the observer. Kinetic art encompasses a wide variety of overlapping techniques and styles.-Kinetic sculpture:...
.
Biography
Yaakov Agam was born Yaakov Gipstein on May 11, 1928, in Rishon LeZion, then Mandate PalestineMandate Palestine
Mandate Palestine existed while the British Mandate for Palestine, which formally began in September 1923 and terminated in May 1948, was in effect...
. His father, Yehoshua Gibstein, was a rabbi and a kabbalist.
Agam trained at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design is Israel's national school of art, founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz. It is named for the Biblical figure Bezalel, son of Uri , who was appointed by Moses to oversee the design and construction of the Tabernacle ....
in Jerusalem, before moving to Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
, Switzerland in 1949, where he studied under Johannes Itten
Johannes Itten
Johannes Itten was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus school...
(1888–1967) at the Kunstgewerbe Schule, and was also influenced by the painter and sculptor Max Bill
Max Bill
Max Bill was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer.Bill was born in Winterthur...
(1908–1994). In 1951 Agam went to Paris, France, where he still lives. He has a daughter and two sons, one of whom is the photographer Ron Agam.
Artistic career
Agam's first solo exhibition was at the Galerie Graven in 1953, and he exhibited three works at the 1954 Salon des Réalités NouvellesSalon des Réalités Nouvelles
The Salon des Réalités Nouvelles is an association of artists and an art exhibition in Paris, focusing on abstract art.A first exhibition with the name was held in 1939 in Galerie Charpentier, organised by Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Nelly van Doesburg and Fredo Sidès.In 1946 the Salon was...
.
He established himself as one of the leading pioneers of kinetic art at the Le Mouvement exhibition at the Galerie Denise René in 1955, alongside such artists as Jesús Rafael Soto
Jesús Rafael Soto
Jesús Rafael Soto was a Venezuelan op and kinetic artist, a sculptor and a painter.He was born in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela. He began his artistic career as a boy painting cinema posters in his native city...
, Carlos Cruz-Díez
Carlos Cruz-Díez
Carlos Cruz-Diez is a Venezuelan kinetic and op artist. He lives in Paris. He has spent his professional career working and teaching between both Paris and Caracas. His work is represented in museums and public art sites internationally...
, Pol Bury
Pol Bury
Pol Bury was a Belgian sculptor who began his artistic career as a painter in the Jeune Peintre Belge and COBRA groups. Among his most famous works is the fountain-sculpture L'Octagon, located in San Francisco....
, Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...
and Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
.
In 1964, Agam wrote his artistic credo, unchanged since then.
“My intention was to create a work of art which would transcend the visible, which cannot be perceived except in stages, with the understanding that it is a partial revelation and not the perpetuation of the existing. My aim is to show what can be seen within the limits of possibility which exists in the midst of coming into being.”
Agam's work is usually abstract, kinetic art, with movement, viewer participation and frequent use of light and sound. His works are placed in many public places. His best known pieces include "Double Metamorphosis III" (1965), "Visual Music Orchestration" (1989) and fountains at the La Défense
La Défense
La Défense is a major business district of the Paris aire urbaine. With a population of 20,000, it is centered in an orbital motorway straddling the Hauts-de-Seine département municipalities of Nanterre, Courbevoie and Puteaux...
district in Paris (1975) and the "Fire and Water Fountain
Fire and Water Fountain
The "Fire and Water Fountain", also commonly referred to as the "Dizengoff Square Fountain", is a Tel Aviv landmark in the center of the Dizengoff Square. Dedicated in 1986, the fountain is a kinetic sculpture, the work of the Israeli artrist Yaacov Agam.The fountain was developed by Agam for ten...
" in the Dizengoff Square
Dizengoff Square
Dizengoff Square is an iconic public square in Tel Aviv, on the corner of Dizengoff Street, Reines Street and Pinsker Street...
in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
(1986). He is also known for a type of print known as an Agamograph, which uses lenticular printing
Lenticular printing
Lenticular printing is a technology in which a lenticular lens is used to produce images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as the image is viewed from different angles...
to present radically different images, depending on the angle from which it is viewed. The lenticular technique was executed in large scale in the 30' x 30' (9.14 M x 9.14 M) "Complex Vision" (1969) which adorns the facade of the Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...
.
Agam had a retrospective exhibition in Paris at the Musée National d'Art Moderne
Musée National d'Art Moderne
The Musée National d'Art Moderne is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. Created in 1947, it was then housed in the Palais de Tokyo and moved to its current location in 1977...
in 1972, and at the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
in New York in 1980, among others. His works are held in numerous museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, sometimes referred to simply as "The Milly", is an art museum located on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, within the university's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. It was founded in 1881 as the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, and...
.
He is the subject of two documentary films by American filmmaker Warren Forma
Warren Forma
Warren Forma is an American filmmaker and author, best known for his "Artists at Work" documentary film series and book on European and American painters and sculptors in the 1960s and 1970s, his 1973 novel The Falling Man, which contrasts the violence of 1920's Ireland and 1940's Harlem, New...
: "Possibilities of Agam" (1967) and "Agam and..." (1980).
In 1996 he was awarded the Jan Amos Comenius Medal by UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
for the “Agam Method” for visual education of young children.
In 1999 he designed and created the winner's trophy for the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest 1999
The Eurovision Song Contest 1999 was the 44th Eurovision Song Contest, held on 29 May 1999 in Jerusalem, Israel after Dana International won the contest the previous year in the United Kingdom. The venue for the contest was the International Convention Center...
which was held in Jerusalem.
In 2005, he was voted the 195th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet
Ynet
Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...
to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.
In 2009, at age 81, Agam created a monument for the World Games in Kaohsiung
World Games 2009
The World Games of 2009 took place in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, from July 16, 2009 to July 26, 2009. The games featured sports that are not contested in the Olympic Games....
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
titled “Peaceful Communication with the World”. It consists of nine 10m high hexagon pillars positioned in diamond or square formation. The sides of the pillars are painted in different patterns and hues, totaling more than 180 shades. One side of each pillar is also lined to segment the structure into sections, so that children's perception of the pillar will change as they grow, because they will see a different pillar at a different height.
One of Agam's more notable creations is the Hanukkah
Hanukkah
Hanukkah , also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE...
Menorah
Menorah
The menorah is described in the Bible as the seven-branched ancient lampstand made of gold and used in the portable sanctuary set up by Moses in the wilderness and later in the Temple in Jerusalem. Fresh olive oil of the purest quality was burned daily to light its lamps...
at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in New York City, sponsored by the Lubavitch Youth Organization. The 32-foot-high, gold colored, 4,000 pound steel structure is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the World's Largest Hanukkah Menorah. It uses real oil lamps, which are lighted every year during Hanukkah, with the aid of cherry-picking machines.
Agam is one of the highest-selling Israeli artists. In a Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
New York auction in November 2009, when his “4 Themes Contrepoint” was sold for $326,500, he said: “This does not amaze me ... My prices will go up, in keeping with the history I made in the art world.” A year later, his “Growth”, an outsize kinetic painting done in oil on a wood panel, which was shown at the 1980 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, estimated at $150,000 to $250,000, sold for the record-breaking sum of $698,000.