Biography
• Len Lye, born Leonard Charles Huia Lye (5 July 1901 - 15 May 1980)
• A Christchurch, New Zealand-born artist
• Known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture.
• His films are held in archives such as the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific Film Archive at University of California, Berkeley.
• 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 first Pākehā 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.
Techniques
• Experimented with new colour processes such as Dufaycolor and Gasparcolor
• “Direct animation”, a method of painting, scratching and stencilling directly onto motion picture celluloid.
• Different materials and paints in order to achieve a surreal and experimental look that gave it a real surface so it didn’t appear merely as painted on.
A colour box
Lye began to make films in association with the British General Post Office, for the GPO Film Unit. His 1935 film A Colour Box, an advertisement for "cheaper parcel post", was the first direct film screened to a general audience. It was made by painting vibrant abstract patterns on the film itself, synchronizing them to a popular dance tune by Don Baretto and His Cuban Orchestra.
Comments
- Len Lye presented a mass of complex and jumbled movements through painting directly onto celluloid. This had the added effect of creating a greater sense of off-screen space, as if the patterns are streaming in and out of the frame. Furthermore, the dynamic shapes seem to dance to the popular Cuban music making up the soundtrack.
- Color films were still uncommon in the 1930s & there was considerable novelty to seeing streaks & shapes & shadows in all colors bouncing around on the screen.
Rainbow dance
• An advertising film for the Post Office Savings Bank, combines original live action footage of a silhouetted dancer (Rupert Doone) with graphic backgrounds and cartoon drawings.
• Increasingly began to incorporate more 'concrete' symbols within his films, yet did so in a rather idiosyncratic manner, continuing to formally experiment with music, colour and movement.
• Len Lye used a recurring silhouetted figure in the film, enacted by dancer Rupert Doone, and transformed the surrounding mise-en-scène into a colourful, shifting landscape, aided by the use of stencil patterns and deregistration effects.
• Rainbow Dance (1936) has an increased appeal by right of incorporating a human subject. It clocks in at just under four minutes, featuring the dancing & sportsmanship of Rupert Doone turned into surreal animation, partly an early example of rotoscoping.
Len Lye’s work
• Lye’s sense of movement was rooted in the physical, “the kinetic of the body’s rhythms”, not purely a matter of visual patterns.
• Lye’s cinematic “figures of motion” sublimated their commercial purpose by emphasising geometric and all-over abstraction and direct authorial inscription.
• His work appeals to more than just our visual sense, it appeals to our physicality, our sense of our selves and our own bodies. The kinetic sculpture in particular creates a visceral reaction in the viewer - you feel the sound of it echoing through your chest as it ‘performs’ its choreographed ballet of movement and sound. Fountain III (1976) is an enormous, slowly revolving over-arching bouquet of steel rods lit with theatre lights, and it made me feel simultaneously awed, amazed and slightly seasick as I walked around it.
Significance
• Len Lye is recognised as one of New Zealand's leading contemporary artists, film-makers, sculptor and kinetic designers.
• A major initiative, led by the New Plymouth District Council, the Govett-Brewster Gallery and the Len Lye Foundation to create a landmark centre celebrating the life and works of Len Lye required significant funding and support from both within Government, and abroad.
• Contribution in developed hand-crafted abstract cinema.
• Len Lye was a major influence on Walt Disney for Fantasia.
Bibliography
- Auckland City Art Gallery (1980) Len Lye: A personal mythology
- Bouhours, Jean Michel and Horrocks, Roger (ed) (2000) Len Lye, Paris, Edition Centre Pompidou.
- Curnow, Wystan and Horrocks, Roger (1984) Figures of Motion: Len Lye, Selected Writings'
- Horrocks, Roger (2002) Len Lye: A Biography, A
- Horrocks, Roger (ed) (2002) Happy Moments: Text and Images By Len Lye
- Kashmere, Brett (2007) "Len Lye" in Senses of Cinema
- Len Lye in Te Ara online encyclopedia
- Horrocks, Roger (2009) Art that Moves: The Work of Len Lye,
- Horrocks, Roger (ed) (2009) Body English: Text and Images By Len Lye
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