TAKIS: THE VOID

White Cube is pleased to present ‘The Void’, an exhibition dedicated to the relationship between the late Greek artist Takis (1925–2019) and the city of Paris.

November 21, 2024 – January 11, 2025

This exhibition, the first in Paris since Takis’ death in 2019, narrativises the artist’s immense contribution to contemporary art through a series of formative moments alighting from the ‘Signals’ series. Inspired though they are by the train signalling system and experiments with ironmongery Takis undertook in Montparnasse, South Paris, the spindly, antenna-like forms of the ‘Signals’ speak also to the Cycladic art of ancient Greece and his early work referencing Giacometti.

Comprising block bases from which extend tall stems, works in this extensive series are variously topped with scraps of electronical equipment, fragments of exploded bombs from the 1940s Greek Civil War, scythe-like arcs or working lights. Prescient for their time and orphic in nature, the ‘Signals’ channel ambient vibration with swaying and quivering in response to surrounding movement, as if feeding back the ambient energies of the room.

Takis was profoundly fascinated by the invisible machinations that animate modern life, yet his sculptures are also embodiments of ideas with distinct formal qualities and considered tactility. Centred around Takis’ principal concerns – from the interpersonal to the extra-physical – the selected artworks ratify the artist’s substantial contribution to the fields of art and scientific thinking, highlighting at the same time his lifelong endeavours.

Situating Takis within the context of his peers, friends and artistic activity in city of Paris, ‘The Void’ celebrates the pivotal moments that impacted the pioneering artist, points of reference to which he would return throughout the rest of his artistic career.