Takis was born Panayiotis Vassilakis in Athens in 1925. His childhood was punctuated by successive totalitarian military regimes, be they German, Italian or domestic. In a struggling family striving first and foremost to survive, Takis’ penchant for fine arts was not well received. However, an undeterred, 20-year-old Takis conceived of himself as an artist, despite creating in a basement. Inspired by the likes of Picasso and Giacometti, he remained self-taught as a matter of principle.
Rather than being the product of an institution, Takis would rather be the product of a workshop. He founded his first workshop, Anakasa from Attica, in 1952 alongside peers and friends Minos Argyrakis and Raimondos. The works of this period consist of sculpted iron busts, blending modern and archaic referents.
Successive trips to Paris (1953) and London (1954), with their antennae, satellite dishes and radar, inspired Takis’ first kinetic sculptures, Signals, which are among the first of their kind in 20th century art. This first series, with its lights and movement, possesses a performative edge that Takis nurtured. From that point, he focused on exploring various invisible forces of motion and/or energy, such as magnetism, electricity, sound, light, wind, or sun. This research culminates in 1960 with a performance, The Impossible – A Man in Space, created in collaboration with South African poet Sinclair Beiles.
In 1968, he moved to Massachusetts in America on an MIT scholarship to study at the Centre for Advanced Visual Studies, which was a productive stretch of his career, where he explored limitless experimentation with electromagnetic, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic sculptures. Takis balanced creativity with politics through the foundation of the Coalition of Art Workers’ Union, which defended the right of the artist in the gallery circuit. His scientific initiatives found a home in his native Greece in 1986, where founded the Research Centre for Art and Science, officially inaugurated in 1993. In this environment, Takis continued to blend art and science, distinguishing himself through his exploration of the Fourth Dimension, that of invisible forces.
Takis’ recent solo exhibitions read as follows: Takis: Cosmos en Mouvement, SNFCC, Athens, (2021); Takis, White Cube Gallery (Bermondsey), London (2021); Takis, White Cube Gallery,Hong Kong (2020); Takis, Macba, Barcelona (2019); Takis, Tate Modern, London (2019); Takis, black and white, The fourth dimension, Galerie Xippas, Paris (2017); Les signaux et la quatrieme Dimension, Galerie Xippas, Geneva (2016); Takis, Champs Magnetiques, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015); The Fourth Dimension, De Menil Collection, Houston (Texas) (2015).
Takis passed away in 2019. Since then, the Research Centre for Art and Science has also served as the Takis Foundation.
