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About Artist:
Agam is one of the pioneer creators of the kinetic movement in art as well as its most outstanding contemporary representative. Agam was born in 1928 a son of a Rabbi of Rishon LeZion (Israel), who devoted his life to the study of Jewish religious matters and wrote books. Agam considers himself somehow as a visual continuation of his father's quest for spirituality. Agam studied at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem, and in Switzerland at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule and the Zurich University. After arriving to Paris in 1951, Agam held his first one man exhibition with a great success in 1953 This exhibition consisted totally of kinetic, movable and transformable paintings, which actually was the first one-man show in art history exclusively devoted to kinetic art. A passionate experimenter, Agam deals with such problems as the 4th dimension, simultaneity and time in the visual, plastic arts, and has extended his experiments to application in the fields of literature, music and art theory. His works express a concept that breaks away with the established way of expressing reality in limited, static way. In his works, he strives to demonstrate the principle of reality as a continuous "becoming" rather than static "graven image." His paintings "Double Metamorphosis 11" in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and "Transparent Rhythms 11 "in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. give the best example of his polymorphic painting. His works are placed in many public places including "Communication x 9" on the Michigan Avenue in Chicago (1983), "Communication: Night and Day" at the AT&T building in New York (1974), "Super Lines Volumes" at the Pare Floral in Paris (1971), and his murals "Peace" and "Life" arc installed at the Parliament of Europe in Strasbourg (1977). Agam has expressed the new concepts in monumental works as in his "Jacob's Ladder" which forms the ceiling of the National Convention House in Jerusalem He created a "floating museum", including all the artworks for public areas and cabins, for the Carnival Cruise Line's luxury cruise ship "Celebration" (1 987). His fire-water fountain in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv (1986) streams water, fire, and music -elements of flux and life which cannot be static - as its colored elements rotate in this multidimensional monumental work.
History:
Yaacov Agam has left an indelible imprint on the course of history in the 20th century with his creations of kinetic and constantly changing art. The pioneer of the kinetic art movement, Agam is wholly dedicated to art in movement by integrating the fourth dimension of time as a factor in his art. His interactive works have impressed audiences of various nationalities, ages, and walks of life. His monumental sculptures and fountains are installed all over the world. Born to an Orthodox Jewish family, Agam studied st the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem, and then in Zurich, Switzerland. He attended classes with Johannes I tten wt the Kunstgeverbeschule and also with Prof. Siegfried Giedion at the Universoty there. He is also very active in the field of visual education and has written a series of books on visual language for use in schools. Agam has expanded the graphic arts beyond the limit of static images. Agamographs, named after its creator, are composition in which images change constantly. The images appear and disappear; the viewer never sees the whole picture at one time. With the creation of the Agamograph, Agam conveys the dimension of time, the fourth dimension. Agam has advanced, renewed, revolutionized and expanded the graphic art form. The Agamograph enables the viewer to interact, explore and stretch his own view in the artwork.
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