Takis Signal A
1970
Sculpture in painted steel and stone
Signed on the base
47.24 x 9.06 in ( 120 x 23 cm )

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Vassilakis Panayotis Takis is a sculptor, born in 1925 in Athens.

Coming from a wealthy family, he suffered enormously from the misery experienced by Greece: the Nazi occupation, the civil wars and the very tormented politics.

Takis, is a self-taught artist, he created his first sculptures in 1946. His sources of inspiration are Picasso and Giacometti.

As early as 1953, he lived between London and Paris, making numerous trips across Europe and the United States. During this period, he gave up modeling for metal: he would draw up his first “Signals”, because he remained impressed “by the radars, antennas and technological constructions which adorn the Calais station”.

The "Signals" consist of long iron rods and at the end of the recovered mechanical elements. It refers to industrial and railway landscapes, antennas and radars. It will add light, so electricity, and they will become more and more flexible. These "signals" earned him the start of notoriety and he made it through this, the meeting, Jean-Jacques Lebel and Erro. Takis combines elements of nature and physics in his works.

He returned to Greece in 1986, where he founded his foundation, the Research Center for Art and Sciences, near Athens.

Takis is considered one of the fathers of kinetic art.

He died on August 9, 2019.