blowing bubbles

A long time fan of his work I was absolutely delighted that some of his animations are now available for viewing online at YouTube.com. For those of you who haven’t heard of Lye or haven’t seen his films, he was a New Zealand sculptor, photographer, writer and film-maker who worked with motion in various ways and was an early pioneer of colour film in the 1930s. His films are vibrant and usually playful.

From Wikipedia: “Lye was a maverick, never fitting any of the usual art historical labels. Although he did not become famous in orthodox terms, his work was familiar to many film-makers and kinetic sculptors – he was something of an “artist’s artist”, and his innovations have had an international influence. He is also remembered for his colourful personality, amazing clothes, and highly unorthodox lecturing style (he taught at New York University for three years).”

The films presented here are all “direct films” in which Lye painted, scratched and stencilled images directly onto celluloid. Other artists explored this way of working at the time, like Oskar Fischinger, but Lye went further into this direction than others. More information on Lye’s body of work and his life can be found on the official site of the Len Lye foundation.

“A Colour Box” (1935) & “Free Radicals” (1958)

“Particles in Space” (1979)

“Rainbow Dance” (1936)

Edit: And there’s more on Google Video!