Before Len died in 1980, he formed the Len Lye Foundation, a charitable Trust charged with looking after his art works and heritage. One requirement of the Foundation is to conserve and maintain his works and to make them available to the people of New Zealand and the world. Over the years, Nga Taonga Sound and Vision have done a superb job preserving Len’s films, transferring them to digital formats and making them available to film co-ops and art galleries around the world.
A more challenging request from Len was for the Foundation to construct the sculptures he was unable to complete in his lifetime.
Len’s ideas for sculptures were often ahead of their time. He famously said on the CBS television documentary in 1969, ‘The Walls Come Tumbling Down’ that:
“My work is going to be pretty good I think for the 21st century. Why the 21st? It’s simply that there won’t be the means until then …to have what I want, which is enlarged versions of my work”.
The ‘means’ Len is referring to is the knowledge of motors and materials available to him in the 1960s. He knew this technology would one day support scaled-up versions of his work. He’s also referring to the cost of making kinetic sculpture. These costs were often beyond his means. John Matthews a mechanical engineer and business man based in New Plymouth and a lifelong supporter of Len and his work offered him a life line. For decades John has funded the development and construction of Len’s unrealised works. A full-scale Trilogy was one of the first and the ‘millennium’ Wind Wand, 150 feet tall, remains a focus on the New Plymouth foreshore 22 years after it was installed.
In 2018 Susan Hughes, Chairman of the Foundation, took over the responsibility of funding the research, development and construction of the unrealised works. She set up the TEAM ZIZ!, crowdfunding account with the modest aim of raising $50,000 to fund one sculpture per year for three years. To date this has proved successful. The first project, Wand Dance, expanded Len’s Bell Wand into an ensemble of seven ‘dancers’, scaled to the artists wishes. (we’ll feature this work as a news item at a later date).
The second work, Sky Snakes, constructed in 2020 and exhibited at the Len Lye Centre proved so popular with over 5,600 coming to see the work that the season was extended. This work is similar to the single Sky Snake Len first displayed at the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo in 1965.
Sky Snakes is extended to seven ‘snakes’, each suspended from the ceiling, hanging out of reach yet close enough to feel their presence as they twist and twirl. They are programmed (choreographed) to perform a dance, led by the central ‘snake’ and building in intensity to a finale. Children and uninhibited adults dance to the shadow patterns cast on the floor and the gyrating forms overhead.
Our thanks to all those who contributed to the TEAM ZIZZ! fundraiser and who helped bring about this re-construction.
Thank you also to Christchurch based artisan, Bruce Aitken, who built this work and several other of Len’s sculptures.
