Takis: White Cube Bermondsey, London

until 27 Jun 2021

There is a certain respect artists that put a large amount of physical effort in their work earn by default.

My knowledge of Takis’s work was mostly confined to the large scale kinetic sculptures that are often displayed outside museums in a sense as public art.

The beauty of this White Cube exhibition is that it is focused on smaller scale works instead.

Enormous scale often creates awe by its nature. Yet here, these smaller objects and the perfectly fitting puritan curation concentrate even stronger energies in the periphery of each one of these sculptures and into a mysticism that possibly no photo can do justice to.

First encounter, the plant-like creations, lonely, standing and swaying strong in their desertion, reminding me of Jarman’s garden, feeling me with love. How can metallic structures like these give out such warmth.

Amongst them, lights, nautical, warm even more warm, fill me instantly with calm; beacons that suddenly appear when you are lost; a comforting embrace.

Following, a room with works referencing Greece, his birthplace. Cycladic figurines reimagined, perfect torsos now golden on each end. The cycladic figure,standing, is actually representing a corpse. The golden torso, is broken. Reference maybe to the conflicting, confusing and complicated relationship emigres by choice have with their heritage or burdens.

Then, spheres. Worlds. Planets. Attracted to each other by magnets, forces, universes, geometrically beautiful, perfect.

And then, then you realise when you move to the next room, where the background sound you were hearing throughout, assumed soundtrack, eerie nonetheless, came from.

My heart skipped. The room with the sound machines. The room with the sound of the spheres. ‘Raw Music’. Recreating a cretan lyra maybe, the single string magnetic musical instruments create the soundtrack of the universe, of the afterlife, the underworld, the soul itself.

By manipulating plectrums made of metal that look like found on a field, a score repeats itself complimenting, discerning?? hypnotising.

This is the music I want to hear when I die. Ancient music, touching our core.

I wish he was accompanied by the beautiful otherworldly tunes from his magnetic sounds in his last journey. A last chord, physical sweetly embracing goodbye.



more info:
whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/takis_bermondsey_2021
www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/takis-2019
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/03/takis-review-magnetic-display-of-curiosity