This summer’s Len Lye exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Len Lye: The New Yorker,  explores Lye’s early years in New York – between his arrival in 1944 and the emergence of his kinetic sculpture, or ‘tangibles’, in the early 1960s.

With an extensive look into the Len Lye Foundation collection and archives, Len Lye: The New Yorker considers Lye’s activity in this important but often overlooked period. A selection of both well known and seldom shown films will illustrate the artist’s ongoing engagement with abstract cinema, showcasing both Lye’s relentless technical innovation and a restlessness in searching for new media to pursue his interest in movement.

Lye’s early, tentative steps as a kinetic sculptor will be explored through several works representative of Tangible Motion Sculpture, Lye’s 1961 kinetic performance at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Between these familiar poles of the artist’s practice, the exhibition will consider many other aspects of Lye’s work, including rarely seen paintings, drawings, photograms, writings and personal objects.


Curated by Paul Brobbel, Assistant Curator Len Lye.