Edited with text by Magali Arriola, Peter Eleey. Text by Ana Janevski, Shinobu Sakagami, Pan Wendt. Conversation with Jocelyn Miller, Robert Landsman, Sandra Lang-Landsman.
The long-anticipated second volume of James Lee Byars’ wide-ranging oeuvre
Pbk, 6.5 x 9.25 in. / 160 pgs / 65 color / 308 duotone / 243 bw. | 6/24/2025 | Awaiting stock $60.00
Edited with text by Vicente Todolí. Text by Jordan Carter, Sarah Kislingbury, Alexandra Munroe, Maurizio Nannucci, Gabriele Detterer, Shinobu Sakagami.
A sumptuous display of Byars’ mystical sculptures and installations, including the gilded tower displayed at the Venice Biennale
Pbk, 7.5 x 12 in. / 272 pgs / 150 color. | 6/4/2024 | Out of stock $59.95
Edited by Lotte Beckwé. Text by James Lee Byars, Magali Arriola, Bart De Baere, Jacques Charlier, Melanie Deboutte, Anny De Decker, Isi Fiszman, et al.
Pbk, 8 x 11.5 in. / 144 pgs / 62 color / 118 bw. | 2/19/2019 | In stock $39.95
Published by Walther König, Köln/MoMA PS1/Museo Jumex. Edited with text by Magali Arriola, Peter Eleey. Text by Ana Janevski, Shinobu Sakagami, Pan Wendt. Conversation with Jocelyn Miller, Robert Landsman, Sandra Lang-Landsman.
The spiritually inclined work of American artist James Lee Byars (1932–97) ranged from highly refined objects to extremely minimal performance and events, and books, ephemera and correspondence that he distributed widely among friends and colleagues. Fascinated by death and the afterlife, Byars wrote his 1/2 Autobiography in 1969 at the age of 37, about half the average male lifespan at the time. For his first major posthumous survey in the US, the 2014 exhibition at MoMA PS1, curators Magalí Arriola and Peter Eleey decided to produce a catalog in two “halves,” playing on his “1/2 Autobiography”: a catalog of the exhibition itself, including new scholarship, and a sourcebook of primary documents. 1/2 An Autobiography, Exhibition Catalog is the second part of this reverential survey. This volume reveals the full scope of the artist’s work through 125 sculptures, costumes, performable paper works, films, ink paintings, correspondences, ephemera, live performances, documents and previously unpublished material.
Published by Marsilio Arte. Edited with text by Vicente Todolí. Text by Jordan Carter, Sarah Kislingbury, Alexandra Munroe, Maurizio Nannucci, Gabriele Detterer, Shinobu Sakagami.
American artist James Lee Byars (1932–97) combined motifs from Eastern cultures, such as Noh theater and Zen Buddhism, with the ideologies of Western philosophy. Published on the occasion of the exhibition held at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan, this catalog presents a wide selection of emblematic works that blend geometric forms with precious materials such as marble, velvet, fine wood and gold leaf. It delves into Byars’ practice through detailed entries on the works on display written by the scholar Sarah Kislingbury, illustrated by a wide selection of historical images. The volume includes an essay by curator Jordan Carter on the relationship between Byars’ works and performances, a text by curator Alexandra Munroe on the artist’s correspondence in the context of the Fluxus aesthetic and an essay by art historian Shinobu Sakagami on Byars’ relationship with Japanese culture.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Lotte Beckwé. Text by James Lee Byars, Magali Arriola, Bart De Baere, Jacques Charlier, Melanie Deboutte, Anny De Decker, Isi Fiszman, et al.
The Perfect Kiss contains more than 180 images of James Lee Byars' (1932–97) performances, installations, sculptures and letters, focusing on work conceived between 1969 and 1976, when he was closely associated with the Belgian art scene.
Published by Walther König, Köln/MoMA PS1/Museo Jumex. Edited by Magali Arriola, Peter Eleey. Interview by David Sewell.
”I see my autobiography as an arbitrary segment of so many pages of time, of things that I have paid attention to at this point in my life,” wrote James Lee Byars (1932–1997) in 1969. He was then 37, about half the average male lifespan at the time, and accordingly thought it appropriate to write his “1/2 autobiography.” Byars’ art ranged from highly refined objects to extremely minimal performance and events, and books, ephemera and correspondence that he distributed widely among friends and colleagues. Today, more than 15 years after his death, assessments of his art must negotiate Byars’ performance of his charismatic self in his life and art. For his first major posthumous survey in the US, exhibition curators Magalí Arriola and Peter Eleey decided to produce a catalogue in two “halves,” playing on his “1/2 autobiography”: a catalogue of the exhibition itself, including new scholarship, and a sourcebook of primary documents. 1/2 an Autobiography, Sourcebook constitutes the latter volume--a reference guide filled with photographs and documents drawn from a variety of archival sources, including The Getty Research Institute, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives, MoMA and Byars’ own papers. This volume also includes a series of previously unseen interviews that artist and art historian David Sewell conducted with Byars in the late 1970s in preparation for a book that was never published. These discussions cover a number of Byars’ major projects, among them The World Question Center, The Holy Ghost and the artist’s time at CERN.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited by Heinrich Heil. Text by Heinrich Heil, Gabriele Uerscheln. Photographs by Claudio Abate.
This elegant volume collects Claudio Abate’s photographs of works by James Lee Byars (1932–1997) as installed at the Benrath palace in Düsseldorf and its surrounding parkland. This regal setting for Byars’ white marble and stone spheres and fabric works makes for an ideal backdrop, as Abate’s photographs so beautifully demonstrate.
Published by Kerber. Edited by Susanne Friedli, Matthias Frehner. Text by Thomas McEvilley, Viola M. Michely, Peter J. Schneemann, Nicola Müllerschön.
James Lee Byars--who was born in Detroit in 1932 and died in Cairo in 1997--was one of the twentieth-century art world's most unusual and elusive figures. Enamored with the imaginary and fleeting, pitting the immaterial against the material, Byars was not just an artist, he was a visionary and a dandy, who, always seeking perfection, knew how to cast a spell over his audience through his enigmatic performances, installations and sculptures. Using sandstone, marble, glass and gold, Byars created classical sculptural forms like spheres, circles, gates and columns. Im Full of Byars reveals his work to be a symbiosis of Fluxus, Minimalism and Conceptualism, that has lost none of its mystery or poetry with time. The volume includes a selection of sculptures, installations and never-before-seen documentation of his performances.
Published by Walther König, Köln. Essays by Thomas McEvilley, Friedhelm Mennekes and Barbara Catoir. Foreword by Henrich Heil.
The works of influential cult artist James Lee Byars explore themes of death, transformation and transience, and are deceptively simple in form, yet pack a tremendous existential punch. Legendary for his performances, sculptures and installations across the U.S. and Europe, Byars today can be seen to have pioneered a stance that combined dandyism with a generous spirituality. Explored here is one of his last pieces, The White Mass.
PUBLISHER Walther König, Köln
BOOK FORMAT Clothbound, 8 x 8 in. / 96 pgs / 24 bw.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 6/15/2005 Out of print
DISTRIBUTION D.A.P. Exclusive Catalog: FALL 2005 p. 170
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9783883756189SDNR30 List Price: $55.00 CAD $65.00
Published by Hatje Cantz. Edited by Klaus Ottman. Essays by Viola Michely and Martina Weinhart.
In 1956, James Lee Byars rented a sod farm for a midnight, full moon exhibition of his abstract figure sculptures; guests viewed the work from sleds pulled over snow. In 1959, he abandoned durable materials for paper and fabric. In 1965, a nun performed his A 1,000-Foot Chinese Paper at the Carnegie International. The wondrous story of James Lee Byars begins in 1932 and ends in 1997, and its unique synthesis of Conceptual art, Minimalism, and Fluxus reflects an unending striving for beauty and perfection. The story passes by way of Japan, a place where Byars lived for many years, and where he combined the formal and symbolic aspects of Noh theater and Shinto rituals with elements of Western science, art, and philosophy, developing an appreciation for the transient, ceremonial character of performance as an essential quality of his art. Over his lifetime, he was known for works characterized by an extreme simplicity of form and material that simultaneously appeared astonishingly luxurious. Life, Love, and Death presents a critical review of Byars' oeuvre and traces his development as an artist from his formative period in Japan to his later years in New York--ranging from his performances and works on paper and fabric devoted to the theme of life, to his splendid late sculptures in gold, marble, and velvet which deal with death as the embodiment of perfection.
James Lee Byars
James Lee Byars: The Perfect Kiss
James Lee Byars: 1/2 an Autobiography, Sourcebook
James Lee Byars: I Give You Genius
James Lee Byars: Im Full of Byars
James Lee Byars: The White Mass
James Lee Byars: Life, Love, And Death
James Lee Byars