Len Lye | |
|---|---|
 Lye in New York, 1966 | |
| Born | Leonard Charles Huia Lye (1901-07-05)5 July 1901 Christchurch, New Zealand |
| Died | 15 May 1980(1980-05-15) (aged 78) Warwick, New York, U.S. |
| Known for | Film,sculpture |
Leonard Charles Huia Lye (/laɪ/; 5 July 1901 – 15 May 1980) was a New Zealand artist known primarily for hisexperimental films andkinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives including theNew Zealand Film Archive,British Film Institute,Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and thePacific Film Archive atUniversity of California, Berkeley. Lye's sculptures are found in the collections of theWhitney Museum of American Art, theArt Institute of Chicago, theAlbright-Knox Art Gallery and the Berkeley Art Museum. Although he became anaturalized citizen of the United States in 1950, much of his work went to New Zealand after his death, where it is housed at theGovett-Brewster Art Gallery inNew Plymouth.
As a student, Lye became convinced that motion could be part of the language of art, leading him to early (and now lost) experiments with kinetic sculpture, as well as a desire to make film. Lye was also one of the firstPākehā artists to appreciate the art of Māori, Australian Aboriginal, Pacific Island and African cultures, and this had great influence on his work. In the early 1920s Lye travelled widely in the South Pacific. He spent extended periods in Australia and Samoa, where he was expelled by the New Zealand colonial administration for living within an indigenous community.
Working his way as acoal trimmer aboard asteam ship, Lye moved to London in 1926. He quickly enteredmodernist circles, exhibiting with theSeven and Five Society from 1927 until 1934, and becoming affiliated with theFootprints Studio.[1] Most notably, Lye exhibited in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition and began to make experimental films. Following his first animated filmTusalava, Lye began to make films in association with the British General Post Office, for theGPO Film Unit. He reinvented the technique of drawing directly on film, producing his animation for the 1935 filmA Colour Box, an advertisement for "cheaper parcel post", without using a camera for anything except the title cards at the beginning of the film.[2] It was the firstdirect film screened to a general audience. It was made by painting vibrant abstract patterns on the film itself, synchronising them to a popular dance tune by Don Baretto and His Cuban Orchestra. A panel of animation experts convened in 2005 by theAnnecy Film Festival put this film among the top ten most significant works in the history of animation (his later filmFree Radicals, not completed until 1979, was also in the top 50).
Lye also worked for the GPO Film Unit's successor, theCrown Film Unit producing wartime information films, such asMusical Poster Number One. On the basis of this work, Lye was later offered work forThe March of Time newsreel in New York. Leaving his wife and children in England, Lye moved to New York in 1944.
InFree Radicals he used black film stock and scratched designs into the emulsion. The result was a dancing pattern of flashing lines and marks, as dramatic as lightning in the night sky. In 2008, this film was added to the United StatesNational Film Registry.[3]
Lye continued to experiment with the possibilities of direct film-making to the end of his life. In various films he used a range of dyes, stencils, air-brushes, felt tip pens, stamps, combs and surgical instruments, to create images and textures on celluloid. InColor Cry, he employed the "photogram" method combined with various stencils and fabrics to create abstract patterns. It is a 16mm direct film featuring a searing soundtrack by the blues singerSonny Terry.[4]
As a writer, Len Lye produced a body of work exploring his theory ofIHN (Individual Happiness Now). He also wrote a large number of letters and poems. He was a friend ofDylan Thomas, and ofLaura Riding andRobert Graves (theirSeizin Press publishedNo Trouble, a book drawn from Lye's letters to them, his mother, and others, in 1930). The NZEPC (New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre) website contains a selection of Lye's writings, which are just as surprising and experimental as his work in other media. One of his theories was that artists attempt to reproduce themselves in their works, which he exposited in an essay complete with visual examples.
Lye was also an important kinetic sculptor and what he referred to as "Tangibles". He saw film and kinetic sculpture as aspects of the same "art of motion", which he theorised in a highly original way in his essays (collected in the bookFigures of Motion).
Many of his kinetic works can be found at theGovett-Brewster Art Gallery inNew Plymouth,Taranaki including a 45-metre highWind Wand near the sea. TheWater Whirler, designed by Lye but never realised in his lifetime, was installed onWellington's waterfront in 2006.[5] His "Tangibles" were shown atMOMA in New York in 1961 and are now found worldwide. In 1977, Len Lye returned to his homeland to oversee the first New Zealand exhibition of his work at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery at that time under the directorship ofRon O'Reilly. Shortly before his death in 1980, Lye and his supporters established the Len Lye Foundation, to which he gave his work.[6] The gallery is the repository for much of this collection, employing a full-time curator to ensure its preservation and appropriate exhibition.
Lye was a maverick, never fitting any of the usual art historical labels. Although he did not become a household name, his work was familiar to many film-makers and kinetic sculptors – he was something of an "artist's artist", and his innovations have had an international influence. He is also remembered for his colourful personality, amazing clothes, and highly unorthodox lecturing style (he taught atNew York University for three years).
The 21st century has seen renewed international interest in Lye's career with retrospectives held at thePompidou Centre, Paris in 2000,[7] an Australian touring exhibition organised in 2001 by theArt Gallery of NSW, Sydney,[8] atACMI, Melbourne in 2009,[9] and atIkon Gallery,Birmingham, UK in 2010.[10] Similarly, in New Zealand, surveys have been shown at theGus Fisher Gallery, Auckland in 2009, and City Gallery Wellington in 2013.The University of Auckland staged an operaLen Lye the opera, composed byEve de Castro-Robinson, about his life in 2012.[11][12][13]
Lye was married twice.His first wife was Jane (Florence Winifred) Thompson with whom he had two children:
In Reno, Nevada, in May 1948, Lye married his second wife, Annette "Ann" Zeiss (born 1910, Minnesota) on the same day he obtained a divorce from Jane. Ann was formerly married to Tommy Hindle, a British journalist.
He died inWarwick, New York, in 1980.[14]
In 1971 artistRay Thorburn met with Len Lye and on his return to New Zealand attempted to arrange an exhibition at the National Art Gallery but was rejected. The director of theGovett-Brewster Art Gallery Bob Ballard and local engineer John Matthews were more receptive resulting in Thorburn and Matthews going to New York to discuss an exhibition and the construction of a large workTrilogy with Lye.[15] In 1977 Hamish Keith, Matthews and Thorburn set in motion the formation of a non-profit foundation and in 1980 a Trust Deed resulted in the Len Lye gift to the gallery.[16] The Len Lye Collection and Archive consists of all non-film works in Lye’s possession at the time of his death in 1980, as well as several items that have been given to or otherwise acquired by the Foundation since. This body of work is extended by Len Lye works in the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (formerly the New Zealand Film Archive) is the repository of Lye’s film prints that are owned by the Len Lye Foundation, and viewing prints are also in the Collection at the Govett-Brewster. TheLen Lye Centre a dedicated gallery for the Len Lye collection connected to the Govett-Brewster was opened on 25 July 2015. This is the first gallery in New Zealand to be dedicated to a single artist.[17]
There are two documentaries about Lye:Flip and Two Twisters, directed byShirley Horrocks andDoodlin', and a DVD of Lye's talks illustrated with slides:Len Lye Talks about Art.
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