Takis
Takis was born in 1925 in Athens and was one of the pioneers of using magnetism in art in the late 1950s and early 1960s; he possessed a ‘magnetic vision’ of searching for the hidden forces of nature. He investigated the effect of electromagnets on light in his series entitled Télélumières and even produced magnetic music, using electromagnetic waves to attract a needle to repetitively strike a string.
The ‘Mur Magnetique’ series was was first conceived of in 1961 where objects are held a tiny distance away from a colour-field wall, both by nylon strings from above and by magnets from behind the wall. Takis asserts that the spectator should view the work obliquely as well (literally as well as metaphorically), as one can then make out the shadows of the protuberant magnets. The relationship, both spatial and magnetic, of the objects to each other and to the wall evokes the gravitational relationship between all people and with the earth. His magnetic walls represent a summation of his quest for true kinetic energy.