One of the most original artists to have emerged from New Zealand, Len Lye (1901-1980) had a passion for movement from an early age. This fascination shaped his urgent and pioneering films and kinetic sculptures and contributed to his remarkable work in painting, photography and writing. Lye had a big idea - that movement could be the basis for a completely new kind of art - and he devoted much of his life to it.

‘Kinetic art is the first new category of art since pre-history,’ he boldly claimed in 1964. What did he mean by this? And how does his work in film and sculpture bear it out? Roger Horrocks, author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed 2001 biography of Lye, makes a powerful case for the artist’s originality and the relevance of his ideas today. Lye’s ‘big idea’ illuminates not only his own work but the ‘mystery of movement’ in all forms of art - from dance to film - and in our own lives. Here Horrocks traces these connections and tells us much that is new about Lye, including behind-the-scenes information about how the artist dreamed up and applied his new methods of film-making and created his kinetic sculptures. He also covers the remarkable story of how Lye’s unfinished projects are being built in New Zealand today and the controversy this has sometimes aroused.

Appropriately for a book about movement, Art that Moves includes a DVD with four of Lye’s best films and footage of his sculpture in action. It also contains a new eighteen-minute film directed by Roger Horrocks, a dramatic portrait of Lye in his early years.

Author Biography

Emeritus Professor

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