Perfect in Louvre, 1991
Objects and photography from the performance made at the National Library in Florence
Untitled (Secret Event), last half of the 80's
Photograph
Relentlessly pursuing perfection, the conceptualist James Lee Byars (1932-1997) was a performer and an object maker in the tradition of Duchamp. In his youth he studied ceramics and papermaking in Japan, coming under the influence of Zen philosophy and Noh drama. His work ran to austere ''perfect'' shapes of gold, marble, glass and paper, and in his legendary performances he did things like enveloping 100 nude volunteers in a single overall garment of red, and arranging 100 white marbles in an exactly symmetrical pattern on the floor of an all-white room. A dramatic presence, he often appeared in his own performances wearing flowing robes or a gold suit and a black top hat with a black mask. James Lee Byars, internationally renowned artist whose work concentrated on minimal hermetic forms, reduction towards essence and absence, and an acute sense of the ephemeral, died on Thursday, May 23, 1997, at the Anglo-American hospital in Cairo, Egypt.