agosto 08, 2016 - Museum Boijomans

Previously Unseen Work by James Lee Byars at Boijmans

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Previously Unseen Work by #jamesleebyars at Boijmans.
James Lee Byars (Detroit 1932 – Cairo 1997) was a nomadic artist. Born in America and profoundly influenced by ten years in Japan, he was received in Europe with open arms. At first he made primarily performance art, but later produced more tangible works as well – these were always extreme in size and execution. He made a film lasting just one second and used ingenious folding techniques so that a letter in a small envelope could sometimes be unfolded into a strip several metres long. The letters from the early years are the focus of the first exhibition. #museumboijmans Van Beuningen is showing objects and sculptures Byars made in the last years of his life in the exhibition that opens on 18 June.
Flor Bex and Wies Smals, I & II  05.03.2016 – 29.05.2016  This exhibition features the unusual letters that Byars sent to Flor Bex of Antwerp’s International Cultural Centre and to Wies Smals, founder of De Appel art centre in Amsterdam. The letters provide a great deal of information about the artist and his artworks. Although Byars used various kinds of paper in a variety of shapes from circles to triangles, hearts and strings, he usually worked in the characteristic colours of red, pink, gold and black. Among the first to support Byars and to promote his work, Flor Bex and Wies Smals were in contact with him from the early 1970s.
Carlos Becerra, III 18.06.2016 – 25.09.2016 This exhibition features a selection of artworks from the collection of the poet, artist and collector #carlosbecerra. He and #jamesleebyars met in the early 1990s in Brussels and forged a strong friendship and relationship of trust. Becerra was closely involved in James Lee Byars’s last project, ‘The Death of James Lee Byars’, in which he went in search of the perfect death. The tangible results are drawings, designs, models and more than four hundred photographs that Becerra took of each stage of the preparation.
James Lee Byars’s Tower Project In 1983 #jamesleebyars was in #museumboijmans Van Beuningen for ‘The Philosopher of #rotterdam Sits in the Tower’. Inspired by other cultures in which philosophers occupy prominent places, Byars wondered whether #rotterdam, following in Erasmus’s footsteps, might be ready for a new philosopher. During this project Byars made a work and a thinking space in the museum tower.