Yaacov Agam

Yaacov Agam ( (b. 1928) is an Israeli sculptor and experimental artist best known for his contributions to optical and kinetic art.

Biography

Yaakov Agam was born Yaakov Gipstein on 11 May 1928 in Rishon LeZion, then Mandate Palestine. His father, Yehoshua Gibstein, was a rabbi and a kabbalist.

Agam trained at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, before moving to Zürich, Switzerland in 1949, where he studied under Johannes Itten (1888-1967) at the Kunstgewerbe Schule, and was also influenced by the painter and sculptor Max Bill (1908-1994). In 1951 Agam went to Paris, France, where he still lives.

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 Nouvelles.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, Carlos Cruz-Díez, Pol Bury, Alexander Calder and Jean Tinguely.

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...
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