The Foundation has recently completed Convolutions, a large wall-mounted Sculpture that is currently on exhibition at the Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth .
Twenty eight metres of stainless steel strip, formed as a loop, is quietly propelled by a series of rollers protruding from the wall. The loop slowly winds and unwinds to form bulges and curves that resemble slowly changing, organic shapes. Convolutions is more akin to the slow and often imperceptible movement of the works of Belgium sculptor, Pol Bury, than the fast, frenetic movement we usually associate with Len’s sculptures. Yet its origins and aesthetic can be found in the artist’s fascination with organic life. Convolutions can be understood as a ‘drawing’ in space that is constantly forming and changing like the membrane of a small amoeba. It shows another direction in the artist’s consideration of movement – of slow organic, movement - the movement of cellular life usually only observed through a microscope.
In 2007 Len Lye Foundation reconstructed Ribbon Snake, a free-standing and smaller precursor to the larger Convolutions, for the Sydney Biennale exhibition, ‘Revolutions – Forms that Turn’. Ribbon Snake is two loops of plastic that quietly rotate in opposite directions. The strips accumulate as ‘cellular’ forms that grow and then shrink away.
Other works in the series, Spiral Frieze, Wall Serpent, and Double Bulge, are all based upon the same concept - the changing shapes and convolutions that occur when ribbons of plastic (or steel) are tensioned and eased by the varying forces that cause them to rotate.
Another variation of Convolutions, called Wall Serpent, is described by Len as: “a ribbon of thin, high tempered stainless steel of any length from forty to five hundred feet”. That is, the size of this wall sculpture could be enormous.
