Plant of Isis #C 13 1996

Takis made this sculpture, “Plant of Isis #C 13”, and you can see how he’s put together a kind of mechanical, almost sci-fi flower. There's this sense of reaching, an upward surge that's palpable in its stark lines. The texture here is crucial; it’s rough, industrial. The metal looks almost fossilized, like something dredged up from an archaeological dig in space. Think about that base, how it coils upwards, a spring ready to unleash energy. Then your eye travels up that slender rod to the glass orb at the top, like a delicate seed pod waiting to burst. It makes you wonder what Takis was thinking about, maybe not just nature, but technology and spirituality all mixed together. It reminds me a little of Yves Tanguy’s surreal landscapes, those weird, biomorphic shapes, but with this very distinct, machine-like twist. Ultimately, it’s about the dialogue between the organic and the inorganic, the past and the future, and all the possibilities that come from that tension.