Yaacov Agam, the Israeli artist who was recognized around the world as one of the founders of the kinetic art movement and whose work became a treasured part of the country’s culture, died on Sunday at the age of 98.
His funeral will take place Monday at the Rehovot Cemetery at 5:00 p.m. and his body will lie in state at the Agam Museum in Rishon Lezion from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Culture and Sport Minister Miki Zohar released a statement on X/Twitter on Sunday: “I was deeply saddened to receive the news of the passing of the artist Yaakov Agam, recipient of the Israel Prize and one of the most prominent and influential Israeli artists in the world.”
“Agam was a groundbreaking artist who gave Israeli creation a unique and inspiring language. His artistic legacy will continue to illuminate and influence generations of creators in Israel and around the world. On behalf of the Ministry of Culture and Sport, I extend condolences to his family, friends, and all art lovers in Israel.”
Born Yaacov Gibstein in Rishon Lezion on May 11, 1928, Agam’s work combined color, movement, light, and viewer engagement into an iconic style, one that was easily enjoyed by onlookers of all ages, no matter how much they knew about art. His works, often built around shifting perspectives, seemed to change depending on where the viewer stood, inviting the viewer into a dialogue with the art.
In 2026, he received the Israel Prize for Visual Arts: Painting, Sculpture, and Photography, Israel’s highest cultural honor. The prize committee praised his decades-long contribution to Israeli and international art and said he had broken the boundaries of traditional visual art while pioneering new languages in kinetic art and Op Art, a style that uses shapes, patterns, colors, and lines to create optical illusions.
Agam’s best-known Israeli work was the Fire and Water Fountain in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square, a kinetic sculpture that combined vividly colored images, movement, water, and music. Although it was eventually removed, restored, and later returned without all its original elements, it remained one of the most recognizable public artworks in Israel.
“My aim is to show the visible as possibility in a state of perpetual becoming,” Yaacov Agam said, in a widely referenced quote.
Arrested by the British in 1946, later moved to Paris
Agam was born into a religious family, the son of Rabbi Yehoshua Gibstein and Kandel Yocheved Gibstein. As a child, he studied in a religious school. When he was a teenager, he was arrested by the British during the Black Sabbath raids of 1946 and held for several months at the Latrun detention camp.
He went on to study art at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, where he was a student of Mordecai Ardon. Later, he studied in Zurich with Johannes Itten, one of the central figures associated with the Bauhaus movement, and moved to Paris, where he lived for decades, in the 1950s.
Early in his career, Agam helped develop Op Art, and at 27, he showed colorful wooden reliefs in the landmark Paris exhibition Le Mouvement, alongside such artists as Marcel Duchamp, Jean Tinguely, and Alexander Calder, that featured works whose appearance changed according to the viewer’s position, a technique that became his trademark.
Although most of his art was abstract, Agam repeatedly connected the concepts behind his work to Jewish thought and mysticism.
Over the decades, his works were exhibited and installed around the world. He had retrospectives at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1973, and at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1980. His works were also displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and other major museums.
In Paris, he created works for the Élysée Palace and a musical fountain at La Défense. In Israel, his works include Jacob’s Ladder at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, the colorful façade of the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv which can be seen from the beach, and Eighteen Levels at the Israel Museum’s Billy Rose Art Garden, as well as works at Sheba Medical Center, Beilinson Hospital, Bar-Ilan University, the President’s Residence, and the Western Wall plaza.
He also designed stamps, created the “Agamograph” display technique that used Plexiglass, developed a visual education method for young children, and designed the trophy presented by Dana International to the winner of the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest in Jerusalem.
Permanent institution dedicated to Agam’s work
In 2017, the Yaacov Agam Museum of Art opened in his hometown of Rishon Lezion, giving Israel a permanent institution dedicated to his work.
Agam was also honored internationally, receiving the first prize for artistic research at the São Paulo Biennale in 1963 and several French honors, including commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
He married his late wife, Clila, in Paris in 1954. They had three children, including photographer Ron Agam and musician Oram Agam. His brother, Hanania Gibstein, served as mayor of Rishon Lezion.
His art is enjoyed on a daily basis by people strolling all over Israel and many cities around the world. The director of the Agam Museum, Gilad Meltzer, was quoted on the Tel Aviv Museum of Art website as saying, “In the spirit of the artist, a visit to the museum will encourage a multiplicity of views and points of view, emphasizing the universal language of art and the unique and groundbreaking qualities of his work.”
Basia Monka contributed to this report.
Source:
www.jpost.com
