James Lee Byars Libros

Over the course of sixteen years, Joseph Beuys received more than a hundred letters from James Lee Byars without ever writing back himself. Byars sent a wealth of elaborately designed letters to very different people, but among them, Joseph Beuys was the only artist Byars' letters enthrall with their immense variety of materials, forms, and ideas -- as they are not written with an eye towards receiving an answer, they constitute a part of his day-to-day artistic routine Proposing a much more interesting notion than the standard artist-audience or author-reader relationship, these letters posit and immediate addressee and yet at the same time propose his absence. In an effort to create a form of contact transcending the transitory, the ephemeral, and even the presence of a physical body, Byars' letters revolutionized traditional structures of ownership and being in the arts. The complete set of letters reproduced in this publication contains reflections on Byars' own work and that of Beuys, and musings about the creative process, and its inverse, death.

In 1956, James Lee Byars rented a sod farm for a midnight, full moon exhibition of his abstract figure sculptures; guests viewed the work from sleds pulled over snow. In 1959, he abandoned durable materials for paper and fabric. In 1965, a nun performed his A 1,000-Foot Chinese Paper at the Carnegie International. The wondrous story of James Lee Byars begins in 1932 and ends in 1997, and its unique synthesis of Conceptual art, Minimalism, and Fluxus reflects an unending striving for beauty and perfection. The story passes by way of Japan, a place where Byars lived for many years, and where he combined the formal and symbolic aspects of Noh theater and Shinto rituals with elements of Western science, art, and philosophy, developing an appreciation for the transient, ceremonial character of performance as an essential quality of his art. Over his lifetime, he was known for works characterized by an extreme simplicity of form and material that simultaneously appeared astonishingly luxurious. Life, Love, and Death presents a critical review of Byars' oeuvre and traces his development as an artist from his formative period in Japan to his later years in New York--ranging from his performances and works on paper and fabric devoted to the theme of life, to his splendid late sculptures in gold, marble, and velvet which deal with death as the embodiment of perfection.

The second volume of James Byars' autobiography explores the artist's extensive body of work, featuring 125 diverse pieces including sculptures, costumes, and films. It provides insights into his creative process through various forms of documentation, such as correspondence and live performances, along with previously unpublished materials. Contributions from notable figures like Magalí Arriola and Peter Eleey enrich the narrative, making this volume a comprehensive resource for understanding Byars' artistic legacy.

Der Band umfasst über 180 Bilder von Byars’ Performances, Installationen, Skulpturen und Briefen. Dokumentiert und analysiert werden Schlüsselideen seiner künstlerischen Praxis aus dem Zeitraum 1969 bis 1976, als er der belgischen Kunstszene eng verbunden war. Der Titel des Buches verweist auf eine von Byars’ bekanntesten Performances in Antwerpen, bei der er die Luft küsste. Über die Galerie Wide White Space lernte Byars seine Künstlerkollegen und Freunde Marcel Broodthaers und Joseph Beuys kennen. Neben dem Transkript eines Vortrags, den James Lee Byars 1970 am Nova Scotia College hielt, bietet der Band auch sechs neu verfasste Textbeiträge, darunter einen Essay von Viola Michely über Joseph Beuys als lehrenden und Byars als nicht lehrenden Künstler. Text: Magali Arriola, Bart De Baere, Lotte Beckwé, James Lee Byars, Jacques Charlier, Melanie Deboutte, Anny De Decker, Isi Fiszman, Els Hoek, Viola Michely, Yves Petry