MAGNETISM AND ENERGY

Takis’ Foundation

K.E.T.EReasearch Center for the Art and the Sciences

MAGNETISM AND ENERGYIN GEROVOUNO OF ATTIKI

A WORKSITE OF ART AND SCIENCE

By Nicolas Stathoulis

November 2012

I have wondered many times where are the limits of art and science. A wide spirit prevails in both of them. They both set the preconditions for discovery. For consolidation. For putting into practice and taking advantage of new forms of creation for the benefit of humanity.

The art and the science contain asceticism. In this way, the endless possibilities of inspiration are activated.

They are two poles with a common origin… The human intellect. This exactly intellectual and creative osmosis, K.E.T.E had as the main target in 1988, when its instigator, the sculptor TAKIS, laid its foundation.

Here in Gerovouno I continue to wonder, during the 28 years of my visit, how the creative instict of every human becomes sharp. How exactly it is awakened. By which process every human will keep his spirit in vigilance.

Here in Gerovouno, there is a healthy world. I mean the way that the cell lives and reacts to its extermination. It reacts to the extermination thinking. Creating.

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Here in Gerovouno, the world of despair is not tolerated. The greatest artists and scientists reacted with this way. They did not lament for their time. But they put the brightest, the clearest compositions, the most intelligent experiments that their spirit could capture.

At the time of the first war VALERY creates JEUNE PARQUE. On the eve of the Spanish war LORCA creates ROMANCERO GITANO. MATISSE makes the nicest compositions of women and flowers, PICASSO discovers the magic and the warmth of the Mediterranean area,while AINSTAIN announces the first results of his theory. And here, in Greece, the poet, Giorgos Seferis , after a struggle in a world that sinks, reaches from the symbol of the wreck, at the most significant teachingof light. While the sculptor TAKIS, changes the concept of sculpture, giving it Motion, Sound and Light. Are these examples unimportant?

Here in Gerovouno, everything that passes its walls, is submitted to a process which is actuated by an invisible mechanism, driven by what? By the Platonic Geometrisi? By the Light? By the strong “ Magnetic Charges” that are contained within the walls? Tell it, as you want. However, nothing is random on this hill of Attiki which is 175 meters high above the sea level.

“No visitor came at K.E.T.E. without feeling this magnetic calmness that the place gaves to his body, claims the sculptor TAKIS, comfirming that he spent a lot of time searching with Liliane Lijn, for this specific hill, without having realized at first that Gerovouno was called Holy Mountain in ancient times.

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Indeed, at this point there was an ancient cemetery. Also, three damaged stoneware infantile graves of Mycenaean age were found there. But nearby, οn the hillside behind, many statuettes of the Cycladic Age were found by farmers who cultivated their land.

The archaeologists that were asked to certify the graves, confirmed the sculptor,TAKIS, that it is not possible to discover other findings, because over the centuries the hills around here have been eroded and stripped bare. These small graves are not significant for the Archaeological Service. But why a cemetery on this hill? Just because of the magnetic fields, it offered serenity to the souls of the dead.

The sculptor,TAKIS, in 1964, bought the hill Gerovouno. The first Magnetic sculptures,however, were created in 1956. What was ti that attracted his attention? Exactly, the Magnetic fields which are very strong. This coincidence cannot be random. Gerovouno was an inspiration to TAKIS. Moreover, his selection is not random. Since 1950, he devoted his work to motion that is produced by electrical or magnetic means.

In the meantime, TAKIS, permanently installed in Paris, carried his experimentations from the laboratory to the studio. The electromagnetic energy, the gravitational pull, the magnetism even in the liquid element and also the sound, the light, do not only occupy the scientific community, as these exactly elements constitute the raw material of the sculptures of the sculptor,TAKIS. At his Signals, coloured lights flash on metal bases and antennas. The missiles of war became “decoys” of Peace and Art in the same time. Thus, the first Signals were born and were placed in a row by him, here in Gerovouno.

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At his “Musical Sculptures”, the electromagnetic energy was used in order to be produced sound by the percussion of metal elements. Here in Gerovouno, the sculptor,TAKIS, used the electromagnets so as to create kinetic sculptures.

Here in Gerovouno, he has already inspired in the 80’s the Photovoltaic, where the light is converted into electricity and this in its turn into mechanical-kinetic energy through a motor.

Energy is not an end in itself in TAKIS’ work. It is the essence of his work. I am thinking, during the 30 years of my acquaintance with TAKIS, how his cosmopolitanism made him go along with the rest of the world, releasing his expression. With this exactly cosmopolitan disposition, he was combined with the revolutionary generation of Contemporary Art of Europe and America, without sacrifices. Only with benefits. It is exactly the energy, which attracted his attention. This energy has always the last word. Ηe is shocked by the most powerful forces of nature, he absorbs them perfectly, but in depth it remains untouchable.

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It is dawn. Gerovouno waits the light of the sun to caress the photovoltaic panels. To turn the ''Aeolian Signals''. To charge the collectors for the ''Light Signals'', which will light up when daylight is lost.

The world citizen Takis is from his cradle original. From an early age, he is humanist and naturist. With magnetism he feels as his colleagues from the past in the Ancient Myth. He imitates their mechanism. He bears the brunt of the team.

Here in Gerovouno the “Kinetic Art” was born. Here in Gerovouno were created the first sculptures, which are symbols. In this way, he made the myth of Contemporary Sculpture. With the exactly same process that the scientist composes his laws.

Here in Gerovouno the sculptor,TAKIS, with the fewer means, managed to have the best result.

A device, a lamp, a piece of magnet, a mathematical type, a sound at first, that after became a magnetic sound…

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Here in Gerovouno it was born the…Other…superior reality, which became inside him certainty. Thus his life acquired a special importance.

He devoted his whole life to compose the manifesto of a magnetism, which is unlimited, indelible, in an unprecedented invitation for constant action. It is the universe that speaks instead of religion. Here in Gerovouno the sculptor,TAKIS, created his own antidotes so as to approach modern people. Antidotes that were made by his sensitivity. Antidotes – Symbols, that dictate a new reality, more consistent with the truth.

Here in Gerovouno, TAKIS, changed himself into a source of spiritual powers. He became transmitter. The transmitter became an artwork. He became sound. He became Signal. He became jewel.

Original is the artist who goes contrary to his time. It is just because he sees the vision. Vision is the matching of the senses and the mind. This is what I learnt here in Gerovouno. This is the mystery that TAKIS’ artworks emit. This is why his art has not got limits. At the Art exists one time dimension. The memory is future and the future is memory, in the same time. The concept of death has no place here.

I do not know if the eternity is related to energy, but if it is lost … we are lost. I wondered many times during the 30 –and more- years of my acquaintance with the sculptor TAKIS, why he became an artist. I imagined thousands of reasons. At the beginning, he made the first artworks in order to give substance to his personality, which was at risk following the military occupation.

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After that, in order to satisfy an immoderate ambition. Later, in order to complete a world that he had started to create on his own. Today, I can see it. He just makes art in order to live. It is a confrontation of death. His art, his artworks, are bound up with his life. They are holly. They obey the instinct of his self-preservation.

Here in Gerovouno, I understood the load of this 175 meters high hill, which is located 19 meters higher up the hill of the Acropolis. If you join on the map of Argo in Attica the points: Megara- Marathon- Sounio, you will see that it is formed a triangle, in the middle of one side of which is exactly Gerovouno. Here is the strongest magnetic field of Attica. Because of this, here in Gerovouno, the Magnetism centres its limits. Here in Gerovouno, the Armony of two edges modulates your own magnetic field.

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K.E.T.E.Research Center for the Art and the Sciences

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Nicolas Stathoulis

He was born in Athens. He studied drama at the School of Pelos Katselis and journalism in Journalism Workshop.

At age of 23 he met the painter, Minos Argyrakis, with whom he became friends and they organized individual exhibitions.

In 1981, he met the sculptor, Takis, with whom he has been connected in a friendly and professionally way since then.

In 1983 he met the Patron of Art, Alexander Iolas, with the encouragement of whom he became his personal biographer.

In 1984 he met the painter Alexis Akrithakis, with whom he contituted an important part of the artwork of Berlin and post-dictatorship Greece.

Since 1983 he has worked as a cultural commentator in newspapers: Kathimerini, Vradini, Apogevmatini, Ependitis, and also in magazines: Ena, Status, Down Town, Blue, and in the media: SKAI 100,3, SKAI TV, Athens 9,84.

Since 1989 he has assembled one of the most complete archives for stolen artworks and forged artworks of private and public collections.

In 1996 he opened the gallery “Down Town Art Gallery Shop” in Psiri.

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Takis’ Foundation

Aeolien at K.E.T.E. - Gervouno

Lykabettus Akropolis

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Text Editing: Nikolaos Stathoulis

Photographs: Archive K.E.T.E. - Helias Nak

Technical Editing: Nikolaos Chasoulidis - xasou.gr