Cadran, 1980

Vassilakis Takis   Emerging artists

Panagiotis ‘Takis’ Vassilakis, born in 1925, is a Greek sculptor. A self-taught artist, he began to sculpt in 1946. He subsequently left Greece for London, then Paris.

His work was influenced by the invention of the radar in 1955, together with his discovery of kinetic art, followed by magnetic fields in 1958. Hence, electromagnetism, which the artist likens to the ‘fourth dimension’, is an essential feature of many of his sculptures. The 1960s saw the addition of a musical dimension to his pursuit of the invisible, leading him to create pieces which combine magnetism and sonorous vibrations.

A retrospective exhibition of his art, held at the Palais de Tokyo, attested to the impressive recognition achieved by Takis’ work, which, besides, has featured in the Pompidou Centre’s permanent collections since 1984.