Panayiotis Vassilakis, known as TAKIS, is born in Athens in 1925.
His artistic path starts when he’s around 20 years of age in a basement workshop. In 1952 he creates his first atelier with his childhood friends and artists, Minos Argyrakis and Raimondos, in the area of Anakassa, Athens. Takis’ early sculptures are busts from plaster and sculptures from wrought iron inspired by ancient Greek culture as well as artists such as Picasso and Giacometti.
In late 1953 he departs for Paris. In 1954, arriving in Paris, he joins for a few months the Brancusi atelier. For approximately three years, he travels and lives between Paris and London, where he inspires and creates his first kinetic works. Impressed by the radar antennas and the technological creations that adorn the train station in Calais, France, he creates his first Signals.
From 1955 and until the end of 1965, Takis experiments with all environmental and natural elements that surround us, but are unable to be identified with the naked eye. He explores the forces and the energy of the magnetic fields, which become one of the foundations of the works in his artistic research. He experiments with electricity, sound and light. He creates Telesculptures and Telepeintures (Telepaintings), Telelumieres (Telelights), Cadrans, and Musicals.
In 1968, he moves to Massachusetts, where he is invited with a researcher’s scholarship from the University of MIT, and more specifically from the Center for Advanced Visual Studies. There, he creates a series of Electromagnetic sculptures. He studies the hydrodynamic energy and gives shape to his conception called Oscillation of the Sea, while he also inspires a series of Hydro-magnetic sculptures. Radical and subversive, during that time he co-founds the Art Workers Coalition, with the aim of defending artists’ rights against exploitation by galleries, curators and museums.
In 1974, having returned back to Paris, he begins creating his Erotic sculptures.
In 1986, he returns to Greece where he establishes the Research Center for the Art and the Sciences in Gerovouno, Attica, whose official inauguration takes place in 1993.
Despite being recognized for his musical sculptures, Takis also pioneers in the creation of scenery, as well as in the musical curation for plays and performances.
His works adorn the permanent collections of the most important museums of the world, such as the George Pompidou Centre for Contemporary Art in Paris, the MOMA in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. His work is also exhibited in the gardens of UNESCO as well as in La Defense, Paris, where the French government granted him the largest public space ever to be given to an artist in the history of Paris: 3500m2 for a “forest” of 49 Signaux Lumineux. He also participated twice in the Documenta in Kassel, once in the Venice Biennale and also in 1985 in the Paris Biennale, where he was awarded first prize. In 2001, the European Parliament awards the Takis Foundation-K.E.T.E. with an honorary plaque for the artist’s offer in the field of renewable energy with his pieces Electric Barrels.
He passed away in Athens, August 9 2019.

Solo exhibitions (selection)
2017 Takis, black and white. The fourth dimension, Xippas Gallery, Paris, France
2015 The Fourth Dimension, Menil Collection, Houston, USA
2011 Takis musicales, Festival d’Automne, Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris, France
2008 Magnetic Walls, Art Athina, Athens, Greece
2004 Takis e Acireale, Galeria Credito Siciliano, Sicily, Italy
2002 Takis 1974 – 2002, Sculptures to wear, Zoumboulakis Gallery, Athens, Greece
1995 Takis Retrospective, inaugural exhibition of Ergostasio, Fine Arts School of Athens exhibition hall, Athens, Greece
1994 Takis Retrospective, Fundacion La Caixa, Madrid, Spain
1990 Takis, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece
1988 Takis – Electra ’88, Stavros Mihalarias Art, Athens, Greece
1986 Takis: espace musical, Rath Museum, Geneva, Switcherland
1981 Trois totems – Espace musical, Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France
1979 Takis, Galerie Reckermann, Cologne, Germany
1977 Takis: sculptures 1955 – 1965, Galerie Trito Mati, Athens, Greece
1974 Takis, Galerie Iolas – Zoumboulakis, Athens, Greece
1972 Lignes parallèles, Alexandre Iolas Gallery, Milan, Italy
1967 TAKIS, Magnetic Sculpture, Howard Wise Gallery, New York, USA
1964 TAKIS. Dix ans de sculpture, Alexandre Iolas Gallery, Paris, France
1963 Telesculptures, telephota, telemagnets, Alexandre Iolas Gallery, New York, USA
1958 Signals, Hanover Gallery, London, UK
1955 Figures en Fer et Signaux, Furstenberg Gallery, Paris, France

Group exhibitions (selection)
2018 Τhe Greeks, Studio Gariboldi, Milan, Italy
2015 Sculptures along the lake side, Xippas Gallery, Artgenève, Rotonde du Mont-Blanc, Geneva, Switcherland
2013 Bienal do mercosul, Museu de Arte Do Rio Grande do Sul Ado Malagoli, Porto Alegre, Brazil
2004 En équilibre et en mouvement, Atomium, Brussels, Belgium
2000 Campos de Fuerzas. Un Ensayo Sobre lo Cinetico, MACBA σε συνεργασία με Hayward Gallery, Barcelona, Spain
1997 Made in France 1947-1997, 50 ans de création en France, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
1991 Objets trouvés d’artistes, Galerie du Jour Agnès B., Paris, France
1987 Takis, Minos, Raymondos, Medoussa Art Gallery, Athens, Greece
1985 Biennale de Frieders, Kunsthaus und Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany
1984 Le siècle de Kafka, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France
1979 Salon Grands et Jeunes d’aujourd’hui, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
1977 Rosc’ 77, An International Exhibition of Modern Art and Early Animal Art, Dublin, Ireland
1974 Within a Decade, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
1969 Electric Art, traveling exhibition, U.C.L.A. Art Galleries, Los Angeles, USA
1968 Works from the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation, Venise, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
1968 The machine as seen at the end of the mechanical age, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, USA
1967 Optical and Kinetical Art, Tate Gallery, London, UK
1962 Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
1960 Group Show, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
1957 Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France
1952 First International Exhibition, Delphi, Greece