Guy Brett

Michael Wellen

One of the most playful, innovative and eccentric artists of Postwar Europe,Takis (b.1925, Athens) was a catalysing figure in the artistic and literarycircles of Paris, London and New York from the 1950s onward.Pioneering a variety of sculpture, painting and musical structures, Takismade works that harness invisible natural forces. Perhaps best known arehis innovative 'telemagnetic' works, begun in the late 1950s using everydaymetallic objects that float in space through the use of magnets. Theseinvestigations and his fierce individualism won him the admiration of Beatwriters such as Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs and caused polemicswith his artistic contemporaries Yves Klein, Giacometti and Jean Tinguely.This publication will be the first English-language introduction to a keyfigure of Europe's post-war avant-garde and cultural underground. Througha combination of new essays and a key selection of primary sources, thispublication will foreground the artist's influence in contemporary art sincethe 1960s - and it's accessible and thematic approach will expand theaudience for this book far beyond the specialist.

Michael Wellen

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