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" (1987).
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.
For the Elysee Palace in Paris, with the request of
President Georges Pompidou Agam created in 1972 a whole environmental
of the Salon with the walls covered with polymorphic murals of changing
images, a kinetic ceiling, moving transparent colored doors and a
kinetic carpet on which he placed a sculpture. It embraces
viewers: they are no longer looking at a framed, fixed scene, but
rather are moving within an artistic space which changes constantly
according to their shifting position and point of view. Similar
attempt was made for the concert hall, Forum Leverkusen in Germany in
1970.
Agam created many environmental sculptures, including
"Hundred Gates" in the garden of the residence of the President of
Israel in Jerusalem, "3 x 3 Interplay" installed at the Julliard School
of Music at the Lincoln Center and "Wings of the Heart" at J. F.
Kennedy airport in New York. In 1984 he made a sculpture "Beating
Heart" for the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. In 1988 Agam
created a transparent torah ark for the Hebrew Union College in New
York, and monumental multidimensional sculpture at the Crystal Palace
Hotel in Nassau, Bahamas.
In 1987, he created a memorial at the Wailing Wall in
Jerusalem for the victims of the holocaust. In 1991 he created a
sculpture 'Tree of Life" and a room for meditation at the Haidrah
Yeshiva at the Wailing Wall Plaza in Jerusalem. He also made 14 stained
glass windows for the Holocaust study center of Emunah Women of America
building in Jerusalem.
In the new district of La Defense in Paris, Agam created
a monumental musical fountain (1977) with its pool made of polymorphic
mosaic surface. It is comprised of 66 vertical water jets
shooting water up to 14 meters; the fountain was further enhanced with
the addition of five new triple tulip jets in 1991. Another
fire-water fountain was inaugurated in 1991 at the Tampa Convention
Center in Florida. Other monumental works, include the painting
of the entire building facade of Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles (1984)
and 36-floor Villa Regina building in Florida (1983). He made a
large mural for the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York, a
commission gained through an international competition, in 1984.
His kinetic sculpture "Star of Peace" was presented as
the Ben-Gurion Award for an Outstanding Contribution to Understanding
Between the Peoples of the Middle East to President Anwar Sadat, Prime
Minister Menachem Begin and President Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Agam has delivered lectures concerning his theories and
experiments at many art schools, conventions, universities and museums,
and during the year of 1968 he was a guest-lecturer at Harvard
University, where he conducted a seminar and course "Advanced
Exploration in Visual Communication".
International recognition has been widespread: Prize for
Artistic Research at the Sao Paolo Biennale (1963), Chevalier de
l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1974), Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy,
Tel Aviv University (1975), Medal of the Council of Europe (1977),
Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (1985), Sandberg Prize from
the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1985), Palette d'Or at the International
Festival at Cagnes-surMer (1985), and the Grand Prize at the First
International Biennale in Nagoya, Japan, ARTECH '89 (1989).
He has participated in shows all over the world and has
had many one-man exhibitions, including the retrospective exhibition
held at the Musee National d'art Modeme in Paris (1972), which was then
shown at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Stadtische Kunsthalle in
Dusseldorf, and Tel Aviv Museum. Another large-scale
retrospective exhibit was held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York
(1980).
He had a large one-man exhibition at the Museum of
Pontoise (1975), the Palm Spring Desert Museum, California, on an
occasion of the inauguration of the museum (1976), the Museum of Art
Birmingham, Alabama (1976), the Museo de Arte Modemo, Mexico (1976),
the National Museum of Art, Cape Town, South Africa (1977). The
retrospective exhibition was held at the lsetan Museum in Tokyo,
Daimaru Museum in Osaka and Kawasaki City Museum in Japan (1989), and
at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires Argentina
(1996). He also held an exhibition "Selected Suites" at the
Jewish Museum, New York (1975) and has had many one-man shows in art
galleries since 1953.
His visual education method and non-verbal educational
system, meant to increase the creative and intellectual abilities of
the children by the usage of visual alphabet as a mother tongue, is
implemented in pre-schools and kindergartens in Israel. In 1996,
Agam was awarded the Jan Amos Comenius Medal 1996 from the UNESCO "for
having devised a particularly effective method of visual teaching for
children."
Saper Galleries has been representing the artist Yaacov
Agam since 1978.
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