Who was Len Lye?
Who was Len Lye?
Len Lye biographer Roger Horrocks talks about Len Lye’s life and practice on Radio New Zealand. Leonard Charles Huia Lye is born in Christchurch, New Zealand on 5 July 1901; his childhood spent between Christchurch, Cape Campbell and Wellington before travelling to Sydney and Samoa as an adult, settling in London in 1926.
What kind of movies does Lye make?
In addition to working for the G.P.O Film Unit, Lye is commission by numerous commercial sponsors, producing Kaleidoscope (1935) for the Imperial Tobacco Company, the puppet-animation film Birth of the Robot (1936) for Shell-Mex and BP, and Colour Flight (1938) for Imperial Airways.
Where can I see lye’s work?
Outside the Govett-Brewster, Lye’s work is held in the collections of some of the world’s most prestigious institutions of modern art and major art museums. His sculpture and paintings are represented at Auckland Art Gallery, Albright-Knox (Buffalo), Art Institute of Chicago, Berkeley Art Museum, Te Papa and Whitney Museum of American Art.
What is Lye’s theory?
Lye was liberal and open-minded, reflected in his work by the many dualities of male/female, machine/organic, and most importantly, old/new. He developed an understanding of the ‘old brain’, primitive knowledge stored in our DNA as a counterpart to the modern, ‘new brain’ intellect.
