Yaacov Agam
2 +3 = 4, 1981
1981

Name: 2 +3 = 4, 1981
Brand: Yaacov Agam
Price: 15000 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Yaacov Agam 2 +3 = 4, 1981 offers another excellent example of the artist’s ability to induce the illusion of movement through color and pattern. By combining a multicolor palette with rhythmic forms, Agam manages to evoke a dynamic force in a static medium. The black and white patterned background coupled with the horizontal orientation of this piece creates the illusion of undulating movement. Such an illusion not only brings the colors forward but lends them an almost three-dimensional presence. The colors in this work seem to be the fractured parts of whole forms, as if the black and white background were deflecting the colors like a prism. For instance, the indigo and orange colors towards the lower half of the composition would create circular forms if their fragments were placed together. Staring into Yaacov Agam 2 +3 = 4, 1981 induces an almost hypnotic effect as color and form seem to pulse in and out of the flat surface. Hand-signed by Yaacov Agam (Rishon LeZion, 1928 - ) in the lower right corner, this polymorphic graphic sculpture is numbered from the edition of 180. About the Framing: Framed to museum-grade, conservation standards, Yaacov Agam 2 +3 = 4, 1981 is presented in a complementary moulding and optical grade Plexiglas.

Creator:

Yaacov Agam (1928, Israeli)

Creation Year:

1981

Dimensions:

Height: 35.43 in (90 cm)Width: 24.81 in (63.02 cm)

Medium:

Mixed Media

Movement & Style:

Op Art

Period:

1980-1989

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Palo Alto, CA

Reference Number:

Seller: 73211stDibs: LU1567210764342

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Yaacov Agam

Influenced by his upbringing in Judaism as well as the teachings of the Bauhaus, Yaacov Agam is a pioneer of kinetic art as well as the Op art movement and is often credited with introducing geometric abstraction to his home country of Israel.

Born in Rishon LeZion, Palestine — now part of Israel — the son of a rabbi, Agam found that the spiritual world had a major influence on his art practice, as did the sand dunes he grew up watching as they constantly shifted with the wind. This perpetual movement would inform his work, whereby riveting, prismatic compositions that transform from different perspectives, patterns that generate optical effects and sculptures that move with a passing breeze all reflect the gradual changes in nature.

Agam studied with Israeli painter Mordecai Ardon at the Bezalel School of Art in Jerusalem in the 1940s before traveling to Zurich where he trained with Swiss Expressionist painter Johannes Itten and was inspired by the abstract work of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky.

One of the innovative techniques Agam developed was the Agamograph, which uses lenticular printing so that multiple images, which are revealed as the viewer moves around the piece, can be seen on a single work. His art has regularly involved the spectator as a participant, whether it’s the 1972–74 room-size kinetic installation he created for the Elysée Palace that’s now in the Centre Pompidou in which a gleaming abstract sculpture is surrounded on all sides by polychromatic lines or it’s public art like the 1986 Fire and Water Fountain in Tel Aviv with circles of vibrant panels that offer varying colors from every angle.

In 2018, the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art opened in Rishon LeZion, showcasing six decades of Agam’s influential work that engages with perception through color, shape and form, from paintings, prints and installations to new experiments in interactive digital art.

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