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[Archival audio (22 secs): Len Lye Sounds of Sculpture]
[Narrator] While Len Lye's sculptures, such as Trilogy Trilogy (A Flip and Two Twisters),
are often on display at the Govett Brewster Art Gallery, Len Lye is best known in New
Plymouth for his Windwand moving sculpture, which stands in a prominent position on the
city's coastal walkway. Unveiled in 2000 to mark the new millennium,
the 45-metre-high Wind Wand soon became a local icon. The delicate-looking 20cm shaft
is made of fibreglass and carbon fibre, and supports a clear plastic globe that is 2 metres
in diameter. At night the globe emits a soft red glow. In light winds the wand sways gently,
but in strong winds it can bend up to 20 metres. Len Lye first made wands in 1960. At the time,
he was living in New York, and created a series of 10-metre-high wands in a children's playground
in Greenwich Village. 'They're as graceful as dancers,' observed an enthusiastic bystander,
'it's like making the motion of wind visible'. Born in 1901 in Christchurch, Len Lye grew
up in Wellington where he found the energy of the city's wind's fascinating. Later, he
recalled a Wellington morning that prompted an epiphany:
[Len Lye quote] It had been raining all night, and there were these marvellous fast little
skuddy clouds in the blue sky. As I was looking at those clouds I was thinking, wasn't it
Constable who sketched clouds to try to convey their motions? Well, I thought, why clouds,
why not just motion? Why pretend they are moving, why not just move something? All of
a sudden it hit me -- if there was such a thing as composing music, there could be such
a thing as composing motion. After all, there are melodic figures, why can't there be figures
of motion?' [Narrator] Lye devoted the rest of his days
to 'composing motion' in a variety of media. His next attempt, in Toronto six years later,
highlighted the construction problems his kinetic sculptures presented. The Toronto
company assigned to make his wand failed to follow his instructions and the resulting
sculpture didn't work properly. Within two years the shaft began to crack and it was
taken down. Lye did not allow the Toronto fiasco to dull
his enthusiasm, but the technical challenges his works posed meant that few were built
in his lifetime. The first New Zealand exhibition of his work, at the Govett-Brewster Gallery
in New Plymouth, was not held until 1977, just three years before his death.
Recent technological advances have allowed Lye's more complex works to be realised. The
Len Lye Foundation has continued to make his sculptures utilising new materials and innovative
computerised control systems. During the 1990s, the design of yacht masts for the America's
Cup allowed the Foundation to achieve the right combination of glass fibre and resins
to successfully create the shaft used in Windwand. The Water Whirler, conceived by Lye in the
1970s, can be seen on Wellington's waterfront. Computerised controls allow a waving wand
to spray water in three different directions while the shaft dances and whirls.
While Wellington's Water Whirler is Lye's most dramatic public sculpture, his collected
works belong to the Len Lye Foundation and his collection and archive are housed at New
Plymouth's Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, which is building a special wing for the display
of his works. Over 30 years after his death, Len Lye is
enjoying greater prominence. Not only is his work better understood, but more of his kinetic
sculptures are being built. And because of the Len Lye Foundation's work, we are likely
to see more of his sculptures in public places, especially in New Plymouth.