Len Lye early life in New Zealand
Drawing on a range of scholarly texts, examine the work of “Len Lye” and discuss how his early life in New Zealand influenced his work.
What do you need to write in this essay (Len Lye’s essay) :
Len Lye (1901-1980)
– Write about – Born: Christchurch, New Zealand.
Educated Wellington Technical College, New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts.
Acclaim as experimental and documentary film maker; sculptor.
Worked for (and produced works commissioned by) the GPO in Britain; US current affairs television The March of Time.
Produced groundbreaking works influenced by and on the movements of modernism, primitivism and avant garde art.
The precursor to the music video – interested in the relationship between visual and musical forms.
Died: Warwick, New York, 1980
– Do not talk a lot about canon or film canon of Len Lye.
– Write about his influences of New Zealand (how Len Lye’s early life effected through all his works or his films, give examples as well). Including his freedom, and how he works with his friends or group.
– Write about his early life effects his works or films :
Born in Poverty; spent time in foster homes; did not get a high school education
Late teens gain scholarships to study art.
Began learning about new movements in politics, art and philosophy that would strongly influence his work.
– Write about his early interests :
Tribalism (Primitivism).
Rejection of Western-centric ideas relating to perspective and realism.
HIS UPBRINGING IN NZ BOTH ENCOURAGED AND PROBLEMATIZED THESE INTERESTS
– Write about his influences :
Art: Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, Henri Gaudier-Brezeska; later the Constructivist, Futurist and Cubist schools.
Literature: Erza Pound; later Gertrude Stein and other literary experimenters.
Politics and Science: Marx, Freud.
– Write about his travel and Tusalava:
Leaves NZ in 1922: first Sydney (begins experimenting with film) later the UK.
Becomes part of the growing avant garde movement in London.
1929: makes Tusalava, first experimental film.
– Write about how he works with his friends or his group. And he works with the GPO – 1933-37: Employed as Film Officer for the General Post Office (under John Grierson).
Made short animations, played before cinema screenings; represented artistic/modernist paternalism of the time.
Made two significant animations: Colour Box (1935), Rainbow Dance (1936), Birth of a Robot (1936). Why is this Work Significant?
The embrace of art and technology as a multimedia form; a then-novel marriage of image and music.
A new way of film production; a very pure example of auteur theory.
A bridge between commercial and non-commercial forms.
Is this work make him famous? Or what is a significant to Len Lye?
– Write about Len Lye as Documentary Maker :
1940s: Employed by the Ministry of Information in UK.
Made several innovative films about soldiers experience of war, notably Cameraman at War (1943).
Brought his knowledge of form and movement to war documentary genre; a further example of boundary-breaking vision.
– Write about his works in USA and in New York and Free Radicals film :
1944: Relocated to New York, became director for The March of Time newsreels.
Still involved in avant garde art scene; burgeoning interest in still photography, sculpture.
1958: Produced Free Radicals film.
– Also write about the significant of Free Radicals film :
One of the most celebrated experimental films ever.
Return to primitivism and minimalism.
Len Lye’s concept of ‘Old Brain’ cognition (rejection of western-centrism).
– Write about his 1960s onward :
Interest in movement resulted in production of kinetic sculpture.
This time the incorporation of elements (air, rain) into the consumption of the work.
Examples: Wind Wand (New Plymouth); a Flip and Two Twists.
– Write about Len Lye and New Zealand :
New Zealand culture fostered and rejected Lye; gave him an awareness of space, light and movement; but stifled by the conformist society of early 20th Century
– Write and mention about how New Zealand is an interesting country and it is a country that far away from the rest of the world and that’s why it effects his works or films.
– Write about colonial power of New Zealand and how it effects his works or films.
– Write about how New Zealand is out of European countries and that’s why Len Lye rejected Europeaness.
– Write about how Len Lye rejects Europeaness, as Len Lye anti-European, as he rejects about Art History of European.
This is the reason why he tends to produce an African Style – his contradiction. (Please write and mention about this because it is VERY IMPORTANT (THE MOST IMPORTANT)
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