| Agam, Yaacov (1928- ), Israeli artist, one of the foremost developers of the 20th-century form of sculpture called kinetic art, which involves moving rather than static forms. From the outset, Agam's aim was to create a spontaneous reaction between viewer and artist, and he has continually developed the art form through the use of new materials. Agam was born Yaacov Gipstein in Rishon LeZiyyon, Palestine, now in Israel. Beginning in 1946 he studied under Israeli painter Mordechai Ardon at the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem before going to study in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1949, and then at the Academy of Abstract Art in Paris in 1951. He first experimented with movement in the early 1950s, he held his first one-man show in 1953, and he participated in the first international exhibition of kinetic art at the Denise René Gallery in Paris in 1955. His work was shown at the Paris Biennale exhibition of 1959 and at the 1963 São Paulo Bienal exhibition in Brazil, where he won first prize. Agam's works invite the viewer to explore. In his early pieces, which did not move, the more the viewer moves around a piece, the more of that piece is experienced. These works are often based on a screen of fan-folded metal, in which each plane is painted in an abstract pattern that links that plane to the next. Additional elements behind can be seen through perforations and gaps so that colors and shapes constantly shift as the viewer changes position. Double Metamorphosis II (1964, Museum of Modern Art, New York City) is a fine example of this kind of work. Equally characteristic are Agam's later works, many of which invite the viewer to manipulate different parts of the sculpture. The Thousand Gates (1972), situated outside the Israeli president's official residence in Jerusalem, is one such work, which in addition, throws a deliberate pattern of constantly shifting rectangular shadows. Agam's search for spontaneity has led him to use a wide range of media, such as sound, light, and water. These elements came together in the musical fountain he created for the business development of La Défense, Paris (1976). The large scale of Agam's work and his international reputation has resulted in many public commissions, including Three Times Three (1971), a sculpture at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. His work derives much of its fascination from his use of traditional Jewish abstract symbols in the context of experiment and innovation. |
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