Yaacov Agam () (born 11 May 1928) is an Israeli sculptor and experimental artist widely known for his contributions to optical and kinetic art. Biography Yaacov Gibstein (later Agam) was born in Israel, which, at that time was called Mandate Palestine. His father, Yehoshua Gibstein, was a rabbi and a kabbalist. Agam trained at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, before moving to Zürich, Switzerland in 1949, where he studied under Johannes Itten (1888–1967) at the Kunstgewerbe Schule, and was also influenced by the painter and sculptor Max Bill (1908–1994). In 1951 Agam moved to Paris, France, where he still lives. Artistic career Agam's first solo exhibition was at the Galerie Craven, Paris, in 1953, and he exhibited three works at the 1954 Salon des Réalités Nouvelles and at the Le Mouvement exhibition at the Galerie Denise René, Paris, in 1955. Agam's work is usually abstract, kinetic art, with movement, viewer participation and frequent use of light and sound. His works are placed in many public places. His best-known pieces include Double Metamorphosis III (1965), Visual Music Orchestration (1989), the fountain at the La Défense district in Paris (1975) and the Fire and Water Fountain in the Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv (1986). He is also known for a type of print known as an "Agamograph", which uses barrier-grid animation to present radically different images, depending on the angle from which it is viewed. The lenticular technique was executed in large scale in the square "Complex Vision" (1969), mounted on the facade of the Callahan Eye Foundation Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. Agam had a retrospective exhibition in Paris at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in 1972, and at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1980, among others. His works are held in numerous museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. He is the subject of two 20th century documentary films by American filmmaker Warren Forma: Possibilities of Agam (1967) and Agam and... (1980). In 1996, he was awarded the Jan Amos Comenius Medal by UNESCO for the "Agam Method" for visual education of young children. He designed and created the winner's trophy for the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest that was held in Jerusalem. In 2009, at age 81, Agam created a monument for the World Games in Kaohsiung, Taiwan titled Peaceful Communication with the World. It consists of