The Long Dream of Waking: New perspectives on Len Lye

Recognised internationally as one of the twentieth century’s great modernist innovators, New Zealand artist Len Lye is most famous for his avant-garde experimental films and for his astonishing and playful kinetic sculptures. Always fascinated by the interplay of movement and light, this extraordinary artist also expressed himself in photography, drawing, painting and poetry. During his lifetime he was better known in the art capitals of North America and Europe than in the country of his birth, but that has changed since the establishment of the foundation dedicated to his works at New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and particularly following the opening, in 2015, of the impressive and much-admired Len Lye Centre. In this timely collection of essays, writers from New Zealand and overseas consider Lye’s assured place in modern art from a variety of fascinating and thought-provoking angles. He thought of his creations as emerging from “the long dream of waking’. And thanks to this collection of essays, we too can be drawn into his long dream and come to see his remarkable achievements through fresh eyes.