Takis (Vassilakis)

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[01] Evidence of the Unseen, Wayne Anderson

Fellow at CAVS in 1968
- CAVS begin in 1967, Gyorgy Kepes director

Kepes on Takis
"He is one of those rich, rare, lucky men who can wonder with the joyful confidence of a child, with the disciplined inquiry of a scientist, and with the questioning eye of an artist-poet."

to make visible the effect or presence of unseen but natural performance.

"Takis is a romantic man, intensely in love with nature. He seems to be courting the whole phenomenological world, as if it were undifferentiated by size, distance, or significance."

"A man coming late into our century may be aggravated by the new materials or awed to think of using them; he may adopt a romantic attitude or a coldly pragmatic one. But Takis, born into this century, is awed not by the materials but by the thought of how these achievements may be extended."

Takis feels that Duchamp set artists free from the work of art. Duchamp allowed natural forces to intervention between intention and art when he dropped the one meter long string to the earth
(this is referring to Duchamp's "Three Standard Stoppages", 1913)

- his work is not making images, but giving evidence of the unseen in nature
- his work must be seen as phenomenological, not visual form
- enriches our awareness of the world through perception

- Takis has been called a scientist and that his works are simple scientific demonstrations, not art
- but his demonstrations are poetic, not explanatory
- they are spiritual and not pragmatic


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[13] Hulten, The Machine, As Seen . . .

Tele-Sculpture. 1960

upright cylinder is an electromagnet, which switches off and on at regular intervals, it attracts the black spool and repels the white sphere. when off the black and white spheres attract each other

magnetism is less controllable and intangible that mechanical aparatus


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[07] Jack Burnam, Beyond Modern Sculpture 

[07, p270]
some of the Telemagnetic constructions are lethargic while others are aggressive based on the number of objects, the strength of the field

"I follow the indications of the materials, I do not dominate them, I hardly ever create. You must understand that. When I use a found object, a piece of some machine, it is to get away from art and nearer invisible forces."


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[23] Frank Popper, Origins and Development of Kinetic Art

since 1959 Telesculptures (magnetism)
since 1955 Signals (vibratory movement) 

originally built delicate constructions of iron and steel which moved based on apparently random air currents

making the forces which dominate our world perceptible on a human level