James Lee Byars (April 10, 1932 – May 23, 1997)[1][2] was an American conceptual artist and performance artist specializing in installations and sculptures,[3] as well as a self-considered mystic.[4] He was best known for his use of personal esoteric motifs, and his creative persona that has been described as 'half dandified trickster and half minimalist seer'.[5] Byars was born Detroit, Michigan, and died in Cairo, Egypt.
Byars' notable performance works include The Death of James Lee Byars and The Perfect Smile, and in terms of multiple sculptures, the many letters he wrote that were composed as decorated sculptures.[6]
Themes and motifs in his works
"The room you dare not enter is golden and gleaming, both sunset and sunrise. I like the fact that the current incarnation is dated right there on the wall label as 1994 – 2004. Is Byars, who supposedly died of cancer in Cairo in 1997, still alive? Or are some mysterious death-bed instructions being followed? Is someone channeling him? You thought art was about life. Wrong. In a sense, every artist’s every artwork is a memorial."[7]
— John Perrault, "James Lee Byars at the Whitney", 2004
Byars' works are often noted as constantly incorporating specific personal themes and motifs, leaning towards the esoteric while simultaneously being ritualistic and materialistic: Robert Clark, writing for The Guardian on the occasion of a Milton Keynes exhibition of his work, described it as 'impenetrably yet intriguingly hermetic'.[5] Most in particular was gold as a material, which served as an elemental identifier. As well as this, works of his demonstrate a fascination with the symbolism of numbers: Clark quotes in the same exhibition, referring to a specific piece of his, writing that he 'imbued the number 100 with symbolic significance, having made a symmetrical arrangement of 100 white marbles and draping 100 nude volunteers in a collective red garment'.[5]
A common theme in his works is perfection (especially upon the word 'Perfect'), which he extended into a personal journey that led to his ambiguously celebratory exploration of shapes, numbers and precious materials. A MoMA text explaining his oeuvre, in the context of his piece The Table of Perfect, noted that while it "looks pristine, it—like any other object—can only ever exist as a sign of perfection and can never embody the total concept."[4]
Byars was in 1972 the first artist invited to visit the physics laboratory CERN in Geneva—an event that was featured on the cover of the CERN Courier.[8] Later many artists have passed through the laboratory, since 2012 mainly within the framework of the Arts at CERN programme. Arts resulting from his visit to CERN was exposed at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2004 and is digitally available from the Harvard Art Museums.[9]
I think Byars had this Egyptian subtext through his work. [...] Ancient Evenings is to do with the ambition of the Pharaoh and the ambition of the nobleman to live again and again and again. So there's something about Byars that has always interested me in his work to do with its ambition to become pure gold and its failure to be pure gold. It's always a veneer. It wants to be something it can't be. And I love that about the work, I love the theatre of it.
Byars also showed fascination in predicting his own death and others' deaths.[11]
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions include:
1961 Willard Gallery, New York, NY
1964 1 by 50 Foot Drawing, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA
1967 The Giant Man of Water Soluble Paper and Dissolved on 53rd Street, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, NY
1968 Participatory Events with Communal Garments, The Architectural League of New York, New York
1970 The Gold Curb, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
1971 The Black Book, Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne, West Germany
1974 The Perfect Love Letter, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
1975 The Perfect Kiss, Pavilion Denon, Musėe de Louvre, Paris, France
1977 The First Total Interrogative Philosophy, Stădtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach, West Germany
1978 The Perfect Kiss, University Art Museum, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
1980 The Exhibition of Perfect, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
1981 The Perfect Kiss, The Perfect Cheek, The Perfect Fragrance, Foundation de Appel, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1983 Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
1983 Musėe d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
1984 The Perfect Quiet, ICA, Boston, MA
1985 Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne, West Germany
1985 Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY
1986 James Lee Byars - Palast der Philosophie/The Philosophical Palace, Kunsthalle Dűsseldorf, Dűsseldorf, West Germany
1988 Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY
1989 Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY
1989 James Lee Byars - The Palace of Good Luck, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy
1990 The Perfect Thought, University Art Museum, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA
1990 The Perfect Thought, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX
1992 Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden
1993 Sonne, Mond und Sterne, Wűrttembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany
1994 Graphische Răume Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
1994 James Lee Byars - The Perfect Moment, IVAM Centre del Carme, Valencia, Spain
1995 Fondation Cartier pour l'art Contemporain, Paris, France
1996 The Monument of Language - James Lee Byars, The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, England
1997 James Lee Byars - The Palace of Perfect, Fundaçao de Serralves, Porto, Portugal
1998 James Lee Byars - Four Early Drawings and a Black Figure on the Floor, Michael Werner Gallery, New York, NY
1998 The Arts Club of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2001 Letters to Joseph Beuys, Museum fur Kommunikation, Frankfurt, Germany
2003 The Moon Books: Above and Below, An Exhibition of James Lee Byars, Michael Werner Gallery, New York, NY
2004 James Lee Byars: Letters from the World's Most Famous Unknown Artist, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA[12]
2004 James Lee Byars: Life, Love and Death, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
2004 James Lee Byars: The Perfect Silence, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
2005 Barbican Art Gallery, London, England
2006 The Rest Is Silence: James Lee Byars, Perry Rubenstein Gallery, New York, NY
2006 The Rest Is Silence: James Lee Byars, Michael Werner Gallery, New York, NY
2006 The Rest Is Silence: James Lee Byars, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY
2008 Im [sic] Full of Byars: James Lee Byars - Eine Hommage, Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland
2008 Milton Keynes Gallery, London, England
2012 Klein / Byars / Kapoor, Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Nice, France
2012 ARoS Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark
2013 James Lee Byars: 1/2 an Autobiography, Museo Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico
2014 MoMA PS1, New York, NY
2014 FLEX, Kent Fine Art, New York, NY
2014 James Lee Byars, Random Institute, Zűrich, Switzerland
2023 James Lee Byars, PirelliHangar Bicocca , Milan, Italy
Group shows include:
1972 Documenta 5, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, West Germany
1977 Documenta 6, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, West Germany
1980 La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy
1981 Westkunst, Rheinhallen der Kölner Messe, Koln, West Germany
1982 Documenta 7, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, West Germany
1983 New Art at the Tate Gallery, The Tate Gallery, London, England
