Rebecca Baumann: Once more with feeling at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre

Rebecca Baumann's Once more with feeling in Set in Motion. an exhibition exploring light, sound and motion through the work of Len Lye and four contemporary artists. Read more...
Image: installation view of Rebecca Baumann's, Once more with feeling (2014)

Len Lye Centre opens to great acclaim

The much-anticiapted Len Lye Centre opened over the weekend alongside the refurbished Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. Controversy has swirled around the Centre ever since it was first mooted, dividing the city council, as well as citizens, into opposing camps. However, the new mirror-finished building is now proving to be a hit with locals, with just under 8,500 people visiting over the weekend - and this from a city with a population of 69,000.

Image: entrance to the new Len Lye Centre, designed by Auckland-based architect Andrew Patterson

Len Lye Centre: a building inspired by the movement of light

The new Len Lye Centre will open in new Plymouth on 25 July alongside the refurbished Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. The complex will combine a museum of contemporary art with New Zealand's first institution dedicated to a single artist, the pioneer filmmaker and kinetic sculptor Len Lye. Designed by Patterson Associates, the new Centre features a mirror-finished, light-reflecting facade inspired by the movement of light in Lye's sculptures and films - a pitch-perfect research and exhibition centre for an artist who once said: "My work I think is going to be pretty good for the 21st century."
Image: Len  Lye Centre designed by Patterson Associates, Auckland

Len Lye advocates ousted in local government election

Supporters of the Len Lye Centre, which was given the green light by the New Plymouth District Council during Harry Duynhoven's time as Mayor, will be wondering what to make of the election results. Dynhoven was trounced by incoming Mayor Andrew Judd, a vocal opponent of the Centre, and councillors John McLeod and Shaun Biesiek, who teamed up with Judd to oppose the project, were re-elected. The Len Lye Centre team took a hit with the loss of Lance Girling-Butcher (chair of the Council's Len Lye Committee) and Maurice Betts and Phil Quinney (both advocates for the Centre) who were not re-elected.
Image: Len Lye, Rainbow Dance (1936) film still

$4m windfall for the Len Lye Centre

The plan to build a Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth received a boost today with the announcement by the The Minister for the Arts, the Hon. Christopher Finlayson, that a $4m grant has been approved from the Government's Regional Museums Policy for Capital Construction Costs. The new centre is to be designed by the New Zealand architectural firm of Patterson Associates.  
Image: Len Lye, Self Portrait (With Night Tree), 1947