Renowned Greek sculptor Takis dies at 93

ATHENS, Greece – World-renowned Greek sculptor Takis has died aged 93, his foundation said Friday, August 9, just as London’s Tate Modern museum holds a major show of his work.

The poised stalks, colored lights, and moving balls of Takis’ creations made him a noted figure of the 20th-century “kinetic” art movement along with the US artist Alexander Calder.

The Takis Foundation that promotes his work announced his death in a tribute to him on Facebook, without giving any details.

It called him “a true pioneer, innovator and legend… A prolific and visionary mind, whose ingenuity, passion and imagination was endless”.

“Takis explored many artistic and scientific horizons, as well as music and theater, and redefined the boundaries in art,” it said.

Takis was born Panagiotis Vassilakis in a suburb of Athens in 1925.

In the 1940s he served in the Greek resistance to the Nazi occupation and lived through the difficult years of civil war that followed the war.

Inspired as a young artist by Picasso and Giacometti as well as by classical Greek sculpture, he moved to Paris in the 1950s.

He also spent time working in Britain and the United States, according to the foundation’s biography of the artist.

Aerials at a train station in France inspired his stalk-like Signals sculptures.

Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni hailed Takis’s “insatiable curiosity for the forces of the universe”, in a statement after his death.

Tate Modern says its current Takis show is the biggest exhibition of his work ever held in Britain. It runs until October 27. – Rappler.com