Israeli kinetic art pioneer Yaacov Agam dies at 98

Yaacov Agam, the internationally known Israeli artist and winner of the Israel Prize, died on Sunday at the age of 98. No funeral arrangements have been announced yet. Agam was widely recognized as one of the founders of kinetic art.

Born in Rishon LeZion in 1928 as one of seven children, he studied in a Heder as a boy, later at the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem, and then in Zurich and Paris, where he lived from the 1950s onward. He first became known for Op Art, which uses optical illusions. At age 27, he presented colorful wood reliefs in the “Movement” exhibition in Paris.

In the 1970s, Agam created sculptures combining water, fire and music, including the “Water and Fire” fountain in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square. He also developed the “Agamograph” technique using Perspex, designed stamps, invented a writing system called “Agamim,” created a visual-education program, and worked with the Weizmann Institute on the “Agam Program” for early-childhood visual thinking. His work was shown in many exhibitions worldwide, including retrospectives at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

In 1972, at the invitation of then Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, he placed works at the Élysée Palace in Paris and created a musical fountain in La Défense. In 2009 he exhibited the mirror work “Beyond Reality” in Paris and Basel. A museum of art bearing his name opened in Rishon LeZion in 2017. He received honorary doctorates from Tel Aviv University and the College of Management, the Israel Museum Prize in 1985, and this year’s Israel Prize in art on Independence Day. He leaves three children from his marriage to the late Klila; his brother, Hanania Gibstein, served as mayor of Rishon LeZion from 1969 to 1983.