LEN LEY'S SPARKLING NEW TEMPLE

From left: Interior of the foyer in the new Len Lye Centre. Photo: Patrick Reynolds; Len Lye’s Four Fountains in the Large Works gallery. Photo: Glenn Jeffrey

Virginia Winder investigates the ongoing efforts to upscale Len Lye’s kinetic sculptures, taking them to a scale the mercurial artist dreamed of, but wasn’t able to achieve in his lifetime.

Len Lye was a man with his eyes on the future. And one can imagine the exhilaration and “zizz” he would have felt had he been alive to see the opening of the $11.5 million Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth, the first art gallery in Australasia dedicated to a single artist. A sculpture in its own right and a stunning example of destination architecture, the building, which opened on 25 July, mirrors Lye’s work, especially his fascination with the reflective and kinetic properties of steel.

“My work, I think, is going to be pretty good for the 21st Century, why the 21st, simply that there won’t be the means till then to have what I want, which is enlarged versions of my works and big scale jobs which will have to be housed in their own temples,” wrote the Christchurch-born artist. He was speaking of his kinetic sculptures, which he designed to be made on a huge scale, like the 45-metre Wind Wand that sways on New Plymouth’s foreshore and the 12-metre Water Whirler, which dances on Wellington’s waterfront.

The Len Lye Centre, New Plymouth. Photo: Patrick Reynolds

Len Lye’s Grass, 1961-65. Photo: Glenn Jeffrey

Left: Len Lye’s Rotating Harmonic, 1960. This work is four feet high and Lye left plans, sketches and models to make it 40 feet high. Right: The Len Lye Centre’s cinema. Photo: Patrick Reynolds