Zizz!

Len Lye was startlingly original and endlessly inventive. Scottish poet Alastair Reid called the New Zealand-born filmmaker, kinetic sculptor, painter, and poet “the least boring person who ever existed.” Today Lye’s work is held in major galleries around the world. In this captivating book Lye’s biographer, Roger Horrocks, weaves the artist’s writings into a memoir of his fascinating life. Lye spent much of his life creating innovative art around the world, including New Zealand, London, New York, and Puerto Rico. Anyone interested in modern art and artists of the 20th century will be fascinated by these insights into Lye’s mind and art, which are enriched throughout the book with visually striking illustrations that capture the essence of Lye’s work.

"Your book has zizz! It’s full of energy, not too long, not too short. It has wonderful moments of his life, and the energy that comes off the page from Len Lye is amazing." —Andrew Dickens, Newstalk ZB

"Zizz! is more than equal to its tasks, and unlikely to be replaced for years to come . . . it is unquestionably irreplaceable and unique . . . Zizz! possesses all the presence and authority of an autobiography, even though strictly speaking, it isn’t one." —Wystan Curnow, New Zealand Books: A Quarterly Review

"[Len Lye's] voice remains so utterly vibrant and rich in perceptivity . . . Zizz! serves as a concise and lively vehicle to access the thoughts and ruminations of this thoroughly memorable New Zealand artist." —Martin Patrick, NZ Listener

"Horrocks is perhaps our greatest authority on Lye’s life and work . . . Len Lye was a singular soul. He was a living, breathing embodiment of the avant-garde; an electric eccentric, a two-legged work of art, a visitor from the kaleidoscope world." —Grant Smithies, Sunday Star Times

Roger Horrocks was Len Lye’s assistant in New York during 1980, the last year of the expatriate New Zealand artist and filmmaker’s life. He is the author of Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye and has also curated exhibitions of Lye’s work, directed an award-winning film about him, and written the libretto for Len Lye: The Opera. Len Lye worked in many areas, including painting, sculpture, film, photography, and poetry. Today his artworks and films are held in major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Paris’s Centre Pompidou, and in film archives around the world.