James Lee Byars

James Lee Byars ( born April 10, 1932 in Detroit, † 23 May 1997 in Cairo ) was an American artist.

Life and work

Byars studied in his hometown at Wayne State University from 1955 to 1959 art, psychology and philosophy. The early 50s, he attended the " Merrill Palmer School for Human Development ". He was interested in the myth, magic and madness. From 1957 he made several trips to Japan, including Kyoto. In 1960 he presented stone sculptures for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and led her 1967 The Gold Thread Parade ( parade gold thread ) in the morning in the Wall Street in New York. In 1969, he received an invitation to the " Hudson Institute " in Croton -on -Hudson in New York and founded the "World Question Center". In the same year he met Wittgenstein expert Elizabeth Anscombe, Oxford, and Joseph Beuys in Dusseldorf know. Since the early 1970s, the American artist was an international presence, particularly in Europe with performances, objects, sculptures and spaces.

In 1974 he was a guest of the Berlin Artists' Programme of the German Academic Exchange Service ( DAAD) in Berlin, where he ( The Golden Tower ) in the gallery Springer conceived the Golden Tower, which in several versions, including at Documenta 7 in Kassel, shown been. Works by James Lee Byars were also shown at the documenta 5, documenta 6 and documenta 8. 1980 and 1986 he participated in the Venice Biennale in 1986 and was called there " Poet of the Gondola " ( Poet of the Gondola ). On the show " Alchimia " he showed The Golden Tower with Changing Tops ( The Golden Tower with changing tips).

1994 ( the " magician of silence ") of the Wolfgang Hahn Prize awarded him. The Museum Ludwig, Cologne was awarded as a permanent loan from the Friends of the Museum THE PERFECT SMILE, the first intangible work of art in a museum.

James Lee Byars lived and worked in New York and Cairo.

Exhibitions (selection)

• 2013: Aarhus, ARoS: Small / Byars / Kapoor