Len Lye
Len Lye (born July 5, 1901 in Christchurch , † May 15, 1980 in Warwick , New York ; actually Leonard Charles Huia Lye ) was a New Zealand sculptor , artist , writer and filmmaker .
Life
During his youth he lived in Samoa for a while ; In 1926 he moved to London, where he joined the artist group Seven and Five Society, to which several painters and sculptors had come together. He lived in London until 1944.
Lye became an early pioneer of artistic experimental and color film in the 1930s ; he used the Gaspar Color process, which the Hungarian chemist Bela Gaspar had invented. Central to this process was a spectrograph , a camera that breaks the light down into its spectrum and creates a monochrome image for each light color. Three monochrome images were then combined into a new color image. Lye used the process to combine existing black and white film material and photo stencils in brilliant color symbolism.
As a filmmaker, Len Lye created “direct films” that managed without a camera: in Free Radicals (1958) he used black film material and scratched the coating. The result was a dancing pattern of glowing lines and structures reminiscent of dramatic lightning bolts in the night sky.
Lye should experiment again with the possibilities of "direct film" at the end of his life. In various films he has used a wide variety of methods (he has worked with dyes, stencils, spray guns, felt pens, postage stamps, combs and surgical instruments) to create images and structures on celluloid . In Color Cry (1952) he created abstract patterns by combining photograms and various stencils and fabrics.
As a writer he left an extensive work in which he developed his theory of HIM - Individual Happyness Now (Personal Happyness Now ). He also wrote a large number of letters and poems. He was a friend of Dylan Thomas and Robert Graves (who edited the prose collection No trouble with Laura Riding in 1930 ). The NZEPC (New Zealand Electronic Poetry Center) website contains a selection of his writings, which are as diverse and experimental as his work in other media.
Lye was also an important kinetic sculptor. He understood his films and kinetic sculptures as equal aspects of the “art of movement”, to which he devoted himself in his essays in a highly original manner (summarized in Figures of Motion ). Many of kinetic Lyes work can be found today in New Plymouth in the region Taranaki in New Zealand , including the Govett Brewster Gallery. On the Coastal Walkway, New Plymouth's coastal promenade, one of his largest sculptures towers 45 meters into the sky: Wind Wall
Lye was a loner who is difficult to classify into the usual art-historical categories and styles. Although he did not become famous, many filmmakers and kinetic sculptors knew his work - he can be considered an “artist for artists” and his innovations exerted international influence. His contemporaries remember a colorful personality who wore surprising clothes and his unorthodox style of speaking (he taught at New York University for three years ).
Art historian and Lye's friend, Roger Horrocks, has dedicated a biography to him, Len Lye ; there are two documentaries about him: Flip and Two Twisters and Doodlin ' ; the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris published Len Lye , a collection of essays by international art critics.
Movies
- Particles in Space (1979)
- Free Radicals (1958, revised 1979)
- Tal Farlow (completed posthumously, 1980)
- Rhythm (1957)
- Color Cry (1952)
- Kill or Be Killed (1942)
- When the Pie Was Opened (1941)
- Musical Poster Number One (1940)
- Swinging the Lambeth Walk (1940)
- North or Northwest (1938)
- Color Flight (1937)
- Full Fathom Five (1937)
- Trade Tattoo (1937)
- Birth of a Robot (1936)
- Rainbow Dance (1936)
- A Color Box (1935)
- Kaleidoscope (1935)
- Peanut Vendor (1934)
- Tusalava (1929)
literature
- Len Lye: Figures of Motion. Selected Writings, ed. by Wystan Curnow and Roger Horrocks, Oxford University Press / Auckland University Press, 1984. ISBN 0196479967
- Len Lye, ed. by Jean Michel Bouhours, Edition Center Pompidou: Paris, 2000. ISBN 2844260349
- Roger Horrocks: Len Lye: A Biography, Auckland Univ. Press: Auckland, 2002. ISBN 1869402472
- Len Lye: Happy Moments Text and Images By Len Lye, ed. by Roger Horrocks, The Holloway Press: Auckland, 2002. ISBN 0958231338
Exhibitions
- 2019 Len Lye. Motion Composer . Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland
Web links
- Doodlin '- Impressions of Len Lye . Govett Brewster Art Gallery,accessed May 27, 2018.
- Work overview (English)
- Len Lye in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Roger Horrocks: Len Lyle. Auckland Univ. Press 2015. Chapter 16
- ↑ https://www.tinguely.ch/de/ausstellungen/ausstellungen/2019/len-lye.html
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Lye, Len |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Lye, Leonard Charles Huia (real name) |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | New Zealand sculptor, artist, writer and filmmaker |
DATE OF BIRTH | July 5, 1901 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Christchurch , New Zealand |
DATE OF DEATH | May 15, 1980 |
Place of death | Warwick (New York) , United States |