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.
Haute-Normandie: Editions Vitriol, 1999 17 x 14cm, unpaginated in cream silk covered boards and in original black plastic slipcase with hole. Monograph and exhibition catalogue with one full colour images of Byars. Text is white on white. VG but the choice of silk was unfortunate as it seems to sweat and stick to the plastic slipcase. The whole in a pink paper wrapper with gold closure sticker.
Edinburgh: Heart Gallery, 2007 10.5 x 15cm, 2pp. Announcement card with a text and one work reproduced (a plate of shaped bread) in colour verso. The first retrospective in Scotland of Byars’ work – much of this collection was shown at that time. Fine.
Mexico/Koln/NYC: Museo Jumex/ Walther König/MoMA PS1, 2014. 24 x 17cm, 302pp plus plasticised wrappers. Monograph and exhibition catalogue for a large scale retrospective that began in Mexico but travelled to the USA. Colour and b/w images throughout. Texts in Spanish. VG+.
