James Lee Byars: The Angel

“Beauty originates where the possibilities of reality meet with the necessities of the ideal.”
 
Timothy Taylor Gallery is proud to announce the first solo gallery exhibition of James Lee Byars in the UK.  This posthumous exhibition will recreate ‘The Angel’, one of Byars’ most breathtaking installations, as well as other works.
 
‘The Angel’, 1989, was made possible by Byars’ discovery of a Murano glass-blower who could create in glass the lightest perfect spheres of air. ‘The Angel’ incorporated 125 of these spheres into a floorpiece of exceptional beauty. It offers to the viewer a brief glimpse of perfection on earth.
 
Born in 1932 in Detroit USA, Byars studied art and philosophy and presented his first exhibition in 1955 in which he emptied his parents’ house and exhibited large spherical stones. In 1958 Byars went to Japan where he lived for several years, before living in New York, Florida and Venice, Italy. The artist died in Egypt in 1997.
 
James Lee Byars made performances and exhibitions throughout the world including the 39th Venice Biennale, documenta 5, 7 & 9, institutions such as the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven; the Museum Ludwig, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf, and Kunstverein Stuttgart in Germany; the Castello di Rivoli in Italy; Centre Georges Pompidou, the Fondation Cartier, and the Louvre in Paris; La Máquina Española, in Madrid; the Solomon R Guggenheim, The Metropolitan Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in the USA amongst others. One year prior to his death Byars had his first UK performance with the Henry Moore Foundation.
 
The art of James Lee Byars does not fall into easy artworld categories. Although above all a conceptual artist, Byars’ work is driven by the aim of achieving moments of perfection and absolute beauty. His work is a mixture of sculpture, installation and theatrical performance taking inspiration from both Western and Eastern philosophical tradition. The materials are always intrinsically sensuous; his private performances were rarely recorded; his letters to friends such as Joseph Beuys are beautiful yet almost illegible. James Lee Byars’ work was inseparable from his enigmatic life and personality.