Yaacov Agam

Yaacov Agam is one of the forefathers of kinetic art and of optical illusions in 20^th century art. His major innovation, back in the 1950s, was the introduction of time and movement into visual art. Agam was thus one of the first artists to create a sweeping change in the relations between viewer and artwork. He produced an experience of formal transformations that unfold in time, and have the quality of a visual game. Agam composed abstract, relief-like works characterized by a continuum of geometric forms and contrasting colors, which separate and unite intermittently depending on the observer's point of view. In this manner, he blurred the traditional boundaries between painting and sculpture. The work exhibited here is typical of Agam's works from the 1970s, and was created in conjunction with the execution of his monumental work in the lobby of the Tel Aviv Museum. Agam views his works as related to Judaism and to spiritual ideas, and to all that is constantly becoming and changing: "The key to my work is the attempt to give a plastic definition to a Jewish perception of realism that extends beyond religion, and to create an opening that allows for a new approach to reality."

Born in Rishon LeZion, 1928; lives and works in Paris and Israel