Pioneering sculptor Takis dies at age 93

World-renowned Greek sculptor and installation artist Takis has died, the art and science research foundation he founded in 1986 has announced. He was 93 years old.

Born Panagiotis Vasilakis in Athens in 1925, Takis moved to Paris in the 1950s to pursue his passion and create his first kinetic sculptures, which are the subject of an ongoing exhibition at the Tate in London.

His interest in magnetic energy and the forces of nature deepened in the mid-1950 and early 60s, leading him to the 1960 career milestone, when he performed "L'Impossible - Un Homme dans l'Espace" (The Impossible - Man in Space) with South African poet Sinclair Beiles at the Iris Clert Gallery in Paris.

A scholarship from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took him to the United States in 1968, where he created his first electromagnetic sculptures and started experimenting with...