ARTIST MONOGRAPHS

James Lee Byars

Museum Exhibition Catalogues, Monographs, Artist's Projects, Curatorial Writings and Essays


     

ACTIVE BACKLIST

James Lee Byars: The Perfect Kiss

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.

Pbk, 8 x 11.5 in. / 144 pgs / 62 color / 118 bw. | 2/19/2019 | In stock
$39.95


James Lee Byars: 1/2 an Autobiography, Sourcebook

WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN/MOMA PS1/MUSEO JUMEX
Edited by Magali Arriola, Peter Eleey. Interview by David Sewell.

Flexi, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 304 pgs / 213 color / 87 bw. | 6/30/2014 | In stock
$45.00


James Lee Byars: I Give You Genius

WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
Edited by Heinrich Heil. Text by Heinrich Heil, Gabriele Uerscheln. Photographs by Claudio Abate.

Hbk, 9 x 13 in. / 112 pgs / 90 color. | 2/29/2012 | Out of stock
$49.95


        

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James Lee Byars: Im Full of Byars

KERBER
Edited by Susanne Friedli, Matthias Frehner. Text by Thomas McEvilley, Viola M. Michely, Peter J. Schneemann, Nicola Müllerschön.

Pbk, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 264 pgs / 100 color / 48 bw. | 3/1/2009 | Not available
$55.00


James Lee Byars: The White Mass

WALTHER KöNIG, KöLN
Essays by Thomas McEvilley, Friedhelm Mennekes and Barbara Catoir. Foreword by Henrich Heil.

Clothbound, 8 x 8 in. / 96 pgs / 24 bw. | 6/15/2005 | Not available
$55.00


James Lee Byars: Life, Love, And Death

HATJE CANTZ
Edited by Klaus Ottman. Essays by Viola Michely and Martina Weinhart.

Hardcover, 10 x 10 in. / 160 pgs / 40 color / 30 bw | 6/2/2004 | Not available
$45.00


James Lee Byars

HATJE CANTZ
Artwork by Joseph Beuys, James Lee Byars.

Hardcover, 6.75 x 9.25 in. / 256 pgs / 150 color / 22 bw | 7/2/2000 | Not available
$35.00


James Lee Byars: The Perfect KissJames Lee Byars: The Perfect Kiss

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.



PUBLISHER
Walther König, Köln

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 8 x 11.5 in. / 144 pgs / 62 color / 118 bw.

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Catalog: SPRING 2019 p. 186   

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ISBN 9783960984238 FLAT40
List Price: $39.95 CDN $55.00

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James Lee Byars: 1/2 an Autobiography, SourcebookJames Lee Byars: 1/2 an Autobiography, Sourcebook

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 CenterThe Holy Ghost and the artist’s time at CERN.

PUBLISHER
Walther König, Köln/MoMA PS1/Museo Jumex

BOOK FORMAT
Flexi, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 304 pgs / 213 color / 87 bw.

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Catalog: FALL 2014 p. 117   

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ISBN 9783863355111 TRADE
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James Lee Byars: I Give You GeniusJames Lee Byars: I Give You Genius

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.

PUBLISHER
Walther König, Köln

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 9 x 13 in. / 112 pgs / 90 color.

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Catalog: SPRING 2012 p. 140   

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ISBN 9783863350161 TRADE
List Price: $49.95 CDN $67.50

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James Lee Byars: Im Full of ByarsJames Lee Byars: Im Full of Byars

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.

PUBLISHER
Kerber

BOOK FORMAT
Paperback, 6.75 x 9.5 in. / 264 pgs / 100 color / 48 bw.

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Out of print

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Catalog: SPRING 2009 p. 97   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783866781559 TRADE
List Price: $55.00 CDN $65.00

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STATUS: Out of print | 00/00/00

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James Lee Byars: The White MassJames Lee Byars: The White Mass

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.

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Out of print

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Catalog: FALL 2005 p. 170   

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783883756189 SDNR30
List Price: $55.00 CDN $65.00

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Not available

STATUS: Out of print | 00/00/00

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James Lee Byars: Life, Love, And DeathJames Lee Byars: Life, Love, And Death

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.

PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 10 x 10 in. / 160 pgs / 40 color / 30 bw

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

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Catalog: SPRING 2004

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783775713689 TRADE
List Price: $45.00 CDN $55.00

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STATUS: Out of print | 5/23/2006

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James Lee ByarsJames Lee Byars

Letters to Joseph Beuys

Published by Hatje Cantz.
Artwork by Joseph Beuys, James Lee Byars.



PUBLISHER
Hatje Cantz

BOOK FORMAT
Hardcover, 6.75 x 9.25 in. / 256 pgs / 150 color / 22 bw

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2000

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783775709392 TRADE
List Price: $35.00 CDN $40.00

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Not available

STATUS: Out of print | 4/23/2003

For assistance locating a copy, please see our list of recommended out of print specialists

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