Bringing Back The Big Screen Experience To The Govett-Brewster

From big screen movie favourites to Len Lye’s ground-breaking films, home videos about our lockdown life to Film Society specials, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery has everything for film fans after the move to Level 1 this week.

The films were ready to roll for the 62-seat Len Lye Cinema’s reopening on 6 June, bringing back its unique mix of current art house favourites, cult and classic titles as well as the Goethe-Institut and British Film Council programmes.

Cinema co-ordinator Alastair Ross says: “We love our audience and it has been a genuine thrill to see the cinema reopen and to welcome back movie buffs back into the space. As always we have had wonderful support from our distributors and because of this we can present a really entertaining and diverse programme for June.”

The venue will also welcome back the New Plymouth Film Society to restart its regular midweek screenings and will also look to start up its regular selection of film festivals later in the year with an Italian Film Festival scheduled for November.

During lockdown, the NPDC-run gallery and cinema launched The Bubble Project, a community initiative for budding filmmakers of all abilities, to share their experiences of lockdown life. It received more than 30 submissions and interest from homegrown industry talent to review entries, including The Luminaries actors Erroll Shand and Paolo Rotondo. A red carpet event is planned to submissions as well as New Plymouth entrants of the 48 Hour Film Festival.

The Gallery team also plans to showcase dancing talent locally and beyond on the big screen, thanks to online submissions for its Art of Dance project, which calls for dance videos inspired by chosen artworks from its collection.

That immersive, cinematic experience is also a key theme for the Govett Brewster’s latest exhibition. Since reopening on 25 May, it has welcomed back visitors to never seen before Len Lye artworks. As well as the large-scale kinetic installation Sky Snakes, a brand new exhibition The Absolute Truth of the Happiness Acid celebrates the artist’s experimental filmmaking.

Often dubbed 'the father of the music video', Lye’s filmmaking arrived at the end of the silent film era, with his bold, colourful films seen by millions in British cinemas during the 1930s. He was both hugely influential and innovative; often painting directly onto film with little to no camerawork involved.

Govett-Brewster Fast Facts

• Len Lye Cinema’s full June listings are available to view and book online
• Tickets can also be booked via the Govett-Brewster Shop where copies of the programme are also available to pick up
• All tickets are $10. There are also Wednesday daytime $5 sessions during June.

Sky Snakes:

• Debuting at the Govett-Brewster, Sky Snakes is a new large-scale kinetic sculpture from the Len Lye Foundation and Team Zizz! In installation of seven, ceiling mounted spinning Sky Snakes.

The Absolute Truth of the Happiness Acid

• Produced in collaboration with Berlin-based exhibition designers Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik, the exhibition takes its title from a lecture delivered by Lye in 1968 at the Cambridge Animation Festival where he appeared as the keynote ‘celebrity speaker’. Lye spoke about his theory of the ‘old brain’ – creativity drawn from our ancient DNA rather than our modern intellect.
• It presents the most comprehensive survey of Lye’s films at the Gallery, alongside an extensive survey of studio tools and materials behind the making of the films.

Art of Dance project

• A Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre Online Project
• Free to enter, runs until 11 June 2020, open to all ages and dancing abilities
• An open call for dance videos, inspired by chosen artworks from the Govett-Brewster Collection:
• Digital Marae: Hinepukohurangi, Lisa Reihana, 2001
• Playground 1, Vivian Lynn, 1975
• Trilogy (A Flip and Two Twisters) Len Lye, 1977
• Entrants are invited to submit dance videos online, to be shared on the Govett-Brewster Instagram, website and YouTube
• A teaser launch video featuring locally-based dancers can be viewed here.

About Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery is New Zealand’s contemporary art museum in the coastal city of New Plymouth, Taranaki on the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. Since opening in 1970, the Gallery has dedicated itself to innovative programming, focused collection development and audience engagement. It has earned a strong reputation nationally and internationally for its global vision and special commitment to contemporary art of the Pacific. The Govett-Brewster is also the global home to the collection and archive of the seminal modernist filmmaker and kinetic sculptor Len Lye (1901–1980).

The Govett-Brewster Art Gallery was founded with a gift to the city of New Plymouth, from one of its greatest ‘Friends’ Monica Brewster (née Govett). A globetrotter before the age of air travel, Monica Brewster envisaged an art museum for her hometown that would be an international beacon for the art and ideas of the current day.

The Govett-Brewster continues in the legacy of Monica Brewster by taking on and presenting the most provocative, audacious and confident works of art in the global arts landscape.

The greatly expanded museum re-launched on 25 July 2015 with the addition of the Len Lye Centre wing – New Zealand’s first institution dedicated to a single artist.

In 1964 Len Lye said “Great architecture goes fifty-fifty with great art”.

The Len Lye Centre building, adjoining the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, is an example of innovative thinking in both engineering and architecture. The architects are Patterson Associates, one of New Zealand’s most internationally recognised architectural firms.

Changing exhibitions three times a year, the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre presents Lye’s work in kinetic sculpture, film, painting, drawing, photography, batik and writing, as well as related work by contemporary and historical artists.

It also houses a state-of-the-art 60-seat cinema for visitors to experience Len Lye’s films, local and international cinema, cult, arthouse and experimental films, and regular festival programming.

The New Plymouth District Council (NDPC) owns and manages the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre on behalf of the residents of New Plymouth. NPDC works in partnership with the Govett-Brewster Foundation, and the Len Lye Foundation which owns and governs the Len Lye Collection and Archive housed at the Gallery.

About Len Lye

A visionary New Zealander, an inspirational artist, a pioneer of film; Len Lye is one of the most important and influential artists to emerge from New Zealand.

Len Lye was an experimental filmmaker, poet, painter, kinetic sculptor and creative visionary ahead of his time. Most of his works were so revolutionary that technology literally had to catch up to him – meaning much of Lye’s work was not realised in his own lifetime.

Lye’s iconic 45-metre kinetic sculpture Wind Wand sways gently on New Plymouth's Coastal Walkway. The Wind Wand that glows red at night, is the first large outdoor sculpture to be built posthumously from his plans and drawings.

In 1977 Lye returned to his homeland to oversee the first New Zealand exhibition of his work at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. He called it the “swingiest art gallery of the antipodes”.

Shortly before his death in 1980, Lye and his supporters established the Len Lye Foundation, to which he gifted his entire collection. His collection was gifted on the condition that a suitable and permanent home be created in which his works could be fully realised.

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