Yaacov Agam

Yaacov Agam was one of the leading figures of Op Art. Born on 11 May 1928 as Yaacov Gipstein (died on 21 June 2026), he studied first in 1946 under the Bauhaus pupil Mordecai Ardon in Jerusalem and later under the renowned Bauhaus teacher Johannes Itten in Zurich. Clearly inspired by the Bauhaus’s colour and colour theories, and particularly under the influence of Max Bill, he began his artistic career as early as the 1950s. His work is characterised in particular by kinetic pictorial objects and sculptures. Using colour-and-form grids as well as prisms made of acrylic glass, the artist created works that usually look different from every angle and appear to move.

Yaacov Agam is defined by his »prismagraph« artworks. His »Night Lights« is a perfect example of this technique: The artist places eight triangular plexiglass prisms over a colored screen print in a way that covers its colored parts. The plexiglass prisms do not conceal the colors, however, but rather cast the colors onto the prisms’ two exterior surfaces, creating a twinkling effect when the observer walks past the work or when the eye wanders over it.

»What I need is what brought me my success: contact, the comforting feeling that a dialog has come about between me and my audience, and that my works destroy shape to convey a meaning.«

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