James Lee Byars was born in Detroit in 1932. An early interest in sculpture and oriental art took him to Japan and the far East before returning to Europe and creating a strong body of work which might be regarded as “romantic minimalism”. By the 1970s he was regarded as one of the USA’s most important conceptual artists.
He was best known for a series of slight performance art actions (such as giving a brief smile to the world after emerging from a museum window) as well as very large and very small sculptural works. The use of paper (and particularly unusual papers) in editions and printed material was also a regular motif. Some of Byars’ works are just a few millimetres in size, others were the size of entire streets.
Byars also created unique letters for many of his friends and these constructions – often written in an unusual “starry” hand – are usually regarded as unique works by the artist on par with his sculptures. They are keenly collected.
Byars suddenly died in Cairo in 1997. His grave is a simple one – and its monument does not match the artist’s pure aesthetic – a final irony.
This collection of over 100 unique works, editions, documents and ephemera display a width of Byars’ artistic endeavours. It has been collected over 15 years by curator Paul Robertson and is currently in the hands of Unoriginal Sins. We will be displaying the entire collection here in this section of the website.New items will be added all the time – do check back.
WHITE MASS. 1995.
Koln: Art-Station Sankt Peter, 1995 21 x 21cm, closed side – which opens up to a 63 x 63cm four winged cross. The white card has blind embossing and additionally printing in white/cream so that the text is very hard to read. The text is by Heinrich Hall. Found within the folded construction is a 10.5 x 15cm, 2pp map of the exhibition and short texts about content. Fine condition – this was both print edition and exhibition catalogue at the same time.
PERFECT IS MY DEATH WORD. 1995. CATALOGUE RAISONNE WITH REPRINTED EPHEMERA.
Bremen. Neues Museum Weserburg, 1995 21 x 21cm folder which opens out to a cross. White card. 56pp inserted sheets and booklets in envelopes. The catalogue raisonne for Byars’ books, editions and ephemera. CD mounted inside. One of 1,200 copies. Fine.
UNTITLED (1995). RELIC AS UNIQUE WORK
Relic. White porcelain circular dish, diameter 27.4 cm, filled with bread crumbs. This piece was created by J.L.B. for invited guests at the dinner offered by the Fondation Cartier pour L’Art Contemporain after the opening of his show at the restaurant “La Contre-Allée”, Paris, 1995. Fine.
BYARS. KUNST HEUTE NR 16. 1996.
Koln, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1996 21 x 15cm, 86pp plus card covers. A single number of the "Art Today" series of books which has an interview (In German) with Joachim Sartorius. B/w images of works. Not a great example - a former library book the covers are creased, have some marks from past adhesive and internally there are former library markings/stamps. Really a reading copy.
WHAT IS QUESTION? RESPONSES FROM FRIEDHELM MENNEKES HEINRICH HEIL WILLIAM CHARLTON JEAN-MICHEL RIBBETTES GIVEN AT THE TEMPLE OF THE FOUR WINDS CASTLE HOWARD NORTH YORKSHIRE 8TH MARCH 1996
Halifax, UK: Henry Moore Institute, 1996 30 x 20cm, 32pp in black embossed covers. One colour and one b/w tipped on photographs. Artist’s book where Byars asked the open-ended title question of four European thinkers: their Responses are reproduced in the original language and in English. The event took place during Byars’ display of his large scale sculptural work ‘The Monument to Language’ – which is reproduced herein. Slight wear to the thick black wrappers with minor damage at top and bottom of spine.
WATERISTHEHIGHESTGOOD…… c. 1996.
N.p.: n.p., n.d. (c. 1996)
21.8 x 21.8cm, 1pp. Small offset leaflet with a text by Byars (which was originally printed by a dot matrix printer to allow it to be small) in the middle of the sheet in a square shape. We are unable to find other details of this item and any help in identifying it would be gratefully received. VG.
