Taxing times for TAKIS at MACBA Barcelona
I dedicate this post to my daughter Anna. The trip was her gift to me.
I am very grateful for having shared this experience with her.
I met the artist called TAKIS for the first time in Barcelona. Oh yes, when travelling was still an option I went to Barcelona. It was in 2020, but fret not, it was back in February, and although the world was getting nervous, the threat still seemed so far away.
Yet, what was to come was already tangible. Queues were shorter at all sights around Barcelona, but we actually didn't join any, not even the very short ones. Luckily, the places we had chosen to visit (it is always a question of having to make a choice if you only have a few days in Barcelona) weren't the very popular ones.
We picked two museums, the Picasso museum (which we caught early in the morning once we discovered it was right around the corner from our breakfast cafe) and the MACBA - Barcelona's contemporary art museum. In a city where people flock to see Gaudi's art nouveau work, MACBA is a fantastic option to avoid queues.
The building that houses MACBA was purposely constructed between 1991 and 1995 to the design of American architect Richard Meier. It is situated in El Raval district, not far from the Mercat de la Bouqueria, the famous market just off the shopping avenues Las Ramblas. In fact, as one approaches the museum through the rather narrow streets lined by old buildings from the direction of Las Ramblas, it is a pleasant surprise to suddenly step onto Carrer dels Angels, the wide open square which MACBA overlooks.
It is a beautiful modernist building, reminiscent of Corbusier architecture, with clear lines and a harmonious combination of contrasting geometric forms. Once you enter, you find yourself in an atrium that spans three floors which makes for a light-flooded interior. The ramps leading to the upper floors running along the window front of the facade give up numerous views of the busy forecourt – a popular meeting place for skaters which apparently attracts skateboard enthusiasts from all over the world.
Yes, but what about that guy Takis I hear the impatient ones among you ask. Well, the exhibition that was very simply titled 'TAKIS' was what had made me put MACBA on our Barcelona programme. I had not heard about him before, but what I read in the exhibition description on the MACBA website intrigued me and I wanted to see his work.
Panagiotis Vassilakis, or Takis as he was known, was a pioneering Greek kinetic artist, born in Athens in 1925, who passed away only last year. His artistic career spanned 70 years and, amazingly, he was entirely self-taught. Initially he was influenced by Giacometti and Picasso as well as the classical Greek sculptures that surrounded him. His early works clearly reflect Giacometti's influence in their elongated, almost emaciated, forms.
When he moved to Paris in 1954, where he taught himself to weld, forge and cast metal, he produced sculptures akin to early Greek Cycladic and Egyptian art. He joined Brancusi's atelier for a few months but it was only when he met avant-garde artists like Yves Klein and Jean Tinguely that he started experimenting with kinetic sculptures.
Those were also the times when important developments in science and technology emerged. Man started to explore space and the forces of the universe, which impacted Takis and his art. Influenced also by the American Beat poets he started questioning mainstream culture and developed his very own radical approach to art, combining a scientific with a philosophical approach.
In 1958, in what the Tate called his "literal light bulb moment", Takis, while waiting at a train station, was observing the signal lights, antennas and aerials around him. That was how his famous 'Signal series' of sculptures and sculpture groups was born: thin rods, set on a solid base and topped with various industrial remnants - often found objects - bending and moving freely by capturing the invisible energy of the surrounding air. In fact, walking around the installations of "Signal" sculptures in this exhibition left me with the impression of looking into a forest or, in the case of the smaller sculptures, across fields of swaying grass. The movement of these sculptures produces barely audible sounds, sounds that Takis likened to the sounds of nature, the wind, the sea, the humming of insects.
In 1959, in a further step to capture "unseen energies" in his work, Takis started to incorporate magnetic energy fields into his sculptures. By creating his fascinating "magnetic walls" he managed to defy gravity. These amazing three-dimensional installations consist of painted canvas panels (usually in one single colour) which conceal the powerful magnets that keep metal objects suspended in space, trembling and dancing in front of the canvas' plane, yet never touching it.
Experimenting further with magnetism and by combining magnets with musical strings, he added the dimension of sound to his work. The sounds now produced were no longer the subtle sounds of nature of his "Signal" sculptures. Artworks, titled "Gongs" and "Musicales", produce serene and eerie humming sounds that seem to be out of this world.
Indeed, with these works, Takis left Earth and attempted to capture the sounds of the cosmos. He took the ancient philosophical concept of the "Music of the Spheres" (=a theoretical framework to understand how stars and planets interact with one another) quite literally by suspending large metal spheres from the ceiling and then swinging them like a pendulum across musical strings.
Takis' artistic interpretation of the "Music of the Spheres" as well as another work titled "Gongs" were installed at the end of the exhibition space at MACBA, and were only activated at certain intervals. Therefore, the visitors gathered and waited in anticipation until a gallery attendant switched on the mechanisms and the sounds entered the space via amplifiers. Now, these were sounds that you don't just hear, you experience them. They seem to enter your body and then resonate within you. This is art that draws you in and makes you participate, whether you are ready for it or not.
Takis experimental works are extraordinary. We look at them with curiosity, we learn about physics, we get to understand the interaction of magnets with metal, or how the sounds are produced. Nevertheless, Takis' art is not about gadgets or mere science. It is an expression of his philosophical search for beauty in the universe. We appreciate the aesthetics of his sculptures but we also react to them.
These kinetic masterpieces hold us entranced, they surprise us with their playfulness or unsettle us with their sounds.They make us aware of what is around us, of what is there although we can't see it. And how prophetic is that?
You can still visit MACBA virtually and find out more about Takis - and how his sculptures work - here and here.
More video experiences of his work can be found here and in this clip from the TATE.
Do have a look at them as they will help you to better understand what I was describing.
As always click through the photo gallery below to see the full version of the pictures and read the captions.
