James Lee Byars
1932-1997
Byars empties his family's house of all furniture, doors, and windows to display large, spherical stones for a one-day thesis exhibition. Lives with a patron in Detroit who commissions a garden for his backyard. Admiring neighbors offer Byars a one year travel stipend. Travels to Japan, where he lives in Kyoto, while frequently visiting other areas. Studies art, philosophy, and language, and supports himself teaching English. Meets Morris Graves and aristocrat Yanagi Soetsu, Director of Tokyo Folk Art Museum, whose letter of introduction permits him to study with ceramics and papermaking masters. Performs a series of events influenced by Zen, inviting students or friends to participate. Byars will remain in Japan for ten years, traveling often to the United States. On his first return trip, sees work of Mark Rothko at Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit and hitchhikes to New York to meet the artist. At the Museum of Modern Art, he requests an introduction to Rothko. Dorothy Miller, meets with Byars, buys two paper works, and allows him an exhibition lasting a few hours in an emergency stairwell at MoMA. The Black Figure, an abstract rendering of the human form (a treatment Bya…
Films